Strategic Management - Plan, Ploy, Position, Pattern, and Perspective - Essay Example

Running Head: Strategic Management Strategic Management There is no ambiguity in saying that strategic management is a plan, ploy, position, pattern and perspective as it balances internal progressions of organizations with external factors. The overall strategic management of organizations is indivisible from strategic management of relationships, usually the accountability of the public relations or communication department. Strategic management rivets taking decisions and actions that resolve long-term organizational performance. The process comprises strategy formulation, completion, appraisal, and control. It underlines monitoring and assessing environmentally generated opportunities and restraints in light of organizational strengths and weaknesses. Essentially, strategic management is a vehicle for giving forward-looking leadership concerning the most essential issues of concern to an organization and its surroundings in a very determined, efficient, and valuable manner. At the heart of the progression is "the communal management of a strategic agenda that transforms as an organization's problems and opportunities transform. Effective strategic management needs intensive, continuous, and collective concern of senior management" (Eadie and Stein bacher , 1985, p. 425 ). The purpose of strategic management is to help formulate, implement, and evaluate cross-functional decisions in such a way as to assist the organization in achieving its long-term objectives. The strategic management process is seen as "an objective, logical and systematic approach for making major decisions in an organization" (David, 1997: 6) in which both analysis and intuition have a role to play. Another accepted perspective (Pearce and Robinson, 1997) emphasizes information flows through interrelated stages of analysis. It implies: The interconnectedness of all process components; The sequential character of strategy formulation and implementation; The necessity of ongoing feedback to assess the success of strategies as they are implemented; The need to regard strategic management as a dynamic system (components of the process are constantly evolving; formal planning must "freeze" them to achieve its aims). http://www.ic.polyu.edu.hk/esh/KB/management_strategic/Koch(1999).pdf. Effective strategic management entails the configuration of a strategic management group to give leadership for the process. Characteristically, the framework of this group will comprise the C.E.O., top-line managers, and key executive staff members. In a small organization, for example, the strategic management group might comprise the mayor or the city manager and the heads of numerous operating departments. It is the responsibility of the strategic management team to give the configuration for developing and modernizing strategic plans and for guiding their realization in all areas. As strategic management is a continuous process, the strategic management group must meet on a usual basis to confer strategies, monitor development, evaluate efficiency, and generally sustain a shared focus on the strategic agenda. This comprises identifying newly promising strategic issues, estimate problems and opportunities as they develop, adapting strategies, and giving direction and control over completion plans to preceding the strategic agenda efficiently. Sporadically, it may consequence in the development of new strategic initiatives. The strategic management process also may rivet a strategic planning systems approach in which planning efforts at different levels are centrally coordinated within the frame of an organization wide strategic planning process. With the acceptance of this overall plan, the strategic management group might well direct the operating departments to originate their own strategic plans, which counter to mandates established in the overall plan and also address strategic concerns at their own level. The strategic management convenes cross-departmental task forces or action teams to plan more explicit strategies for attaining these goals and to extend plans for their completion. Additionally, the strategic management group may be needing, evaluating, and approving action plans for affecting initiatives forward. Eventually, the strategic management group also would be observing the results of all this activity, appraising new issues, and structuring plan modernize efforts as might be needed. The strategic management process obviously needs an obligation to using the organization's decision processes to center attention and endeavor on the strategic agenda to attain strategic goals eventually. Thus, the strategic management process, places heavy prominence on implementation as well as on planning. To make certain that strategic plans will certainly become the motivating force behind operating-level decisions and actions in an organization, the strategic management team should develop processes for allocating resources, managing people, and determining performance that are geared to moving the strategic agenda ahead. Strategic management has also pattern and perspective side to it. Pattern is about the issues that are dealt with by those who are accountable for strategy, whereas perspective is about how decisions are arrived at. Role of strategic management is to confirm that the organization at all times is in line with the demands of its environment. We could say that strategic management is about balancing the customer and the competencies of the organization, and there is, certainly, some truth in that. The customers make up one of the major stakeholders in any organization and giving value to the customers positively must be a guiding principle in any organization's work with its competencies. However, strategic management is distant from that simple. Strategic management decisions have multifunctional and multibusiness consequences, require broad consideration of the firm's external and internal environments, and affect the firm's long-term prosperity (David, 1997; Miller and Dess, 1996; Pearce and Robinson, 1997). Three paramount responsibilities of strategic management appear to be: - sustaining/increasing the organization's capacity to respond to substantial environment change through its early anticipation, corresponding modifications of the organization's stock of own and accessible resources, and their apt coordination; - ensuring a good dynamic match between its own and accessible, current and future resources and market opportunities; - bringing about a sufficiently efficient use by the organization of its own, as well as accessible, resources over a long period. http://www.ic.polyu.edu.hk/esh/KB/management_strategic/Koch(1999).pdf. To become actually strategy-focused, however, necessitates more than processes and tools. Ownership and active association of the executive team is the particular most significant condition for success. Strategy needs change from practically every part of the organization. Strategy needs teamwork to manage these changes. Strategy execution also requires constant focus on the change initiatives and on the performance against targeted upshots. If those at the top are not vigorous leaders of the process, change does not take place, strategy is not executes, and the prospect for breakthrough performance is lost. (Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton; 2001) On the other hand when we talk of strategic management in managing diversity the framework of the workplace, we often think of concepts such as equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action. Though diversity has developed from these concepts, it is considerably different. The easiest way to recognize the differences in these concepts is to contrast and compare them. EEO is mainly viewed as a means to put off discrimination in the workplace on the basis of such issues or uniqueness as race, color, religion, gender, national source, capability, and age. Affirmative action, on the other hand, which appeared in response to persistent employment discrimination, exemplifies proactive efforts to level out past discriminations as well as to expand the workplace in terms of race, society, gender, physical capabilities, and so forth (Barney, Jay B. 1997). Affirmative action has been viewed as a permissible tool to make certain equal employment opportunity or diversity. Its emphasis on pro-action has been the reason of eternal controversy and public debate over its use as an employment tool or social policy. Certainly, opponents to affirmative action very early on were fast to label it "reverse discrimination." Managing diversity is the next iteration on the range. It refers to the capability of strategic management to widen strategies as well as programs and policies to manage and put up diversity in their workplaces. It comprises the ability of organizations to harness the diverse human resources accessible in order to form a productive and aggravated workforce. Key here is management's capability to develop ways to address such faces as communication breakdowns, misinterpretations, and even hostilities that consistently result from working in an environment with persons from highly varied backgrounds, age cohorts, and lifestyles. Also key is that diversity becomes a goal of the organization and is included into the overall strategic goals of the organization (Williamson, Oliver., 1995). Besides that, strategic management plays immense role in organizational ploy that is procedure of performance, subdivided into accountable and sustainable ratification of strategies. Organizations that employ in communally accountable conduct consider the interests of all key stakeholders to protract their personal and organizational standings as solid community citizens. Additionally, organizational moral conduct is demonstrated by sustainable improvement processes and practices that address the environmental collision of moral decisions. In a similar manner, the organizational quality process is definite performance, subdivided into accountable and sustainable enactment of quality. Accountable enactment of quality necessitates considering the feedback of upstream suppliers, downstream distributors, and community stakeholders in the completion of quality programs. Also, ensuring responsible management is part of quality performance in varied environments (Ashforth, Blake E., and Fred Mael. 1989). Basically, process veracity requires usual managerial and organizational concerning of ethics and quality wakefulness, judgment, inspiration, and performance. Managers must walk the talk and organizations should exhibit organizational configuration between moral oratory and daily work realism or endanger their process veracity by developing duplicitous reputations that strain cynicism and resistance (Davidow, W.H., and Uttal, B., 1990). Moreover, Growing international competition previously occurred in the 1970s and has kept on rising ever since. This can be portrayed in the stages of export, international, and international offering of products. As export and international offering are not new, multinational companies appeared in the 1980s. (Wiener, Yoash 1998). The number and strength of international competitors have grown to such a level that every company now should include them in their strategic considerations, which is imitated by, for instance, the work on lean production. This trend was started by the Japanese in the 1970s and has sustained since. Now the Japanese are being replaced in "low-wage" areas such as shipbuilding and steel making by, for instance Koreans, while the Japanese themselves budge into other areas such as electronics and biotechnology (Jain, Subhash C. 1990). Japanese companies use internationalization as a means to become stronger than their competitors, a strategy that Western corporations started to approve in the 1980s (Barney, J.B, 1986, 1991). This drift is also linked with the technology trend, since the Japanese have sustained competitive advantage by the use of technology as the early 1970s. Then they relied on manufacturing technology, such as Just in Time, robotics, etc., to turn out products at lower costs and in higher quality than those of their Western counterparts. In the 1980s and early 1990s the Japanese acquiesced competitive advantage through an increased R&D effort to offer broader and more modified product lines (Collins, Thomas. 1990). What we can say, then, is that the role of strategic management is to link the organization to its setting and make the proper amendments to the organization. This is, in fact, even more multifaceted than "just" dealing with the numerous different external stakeholders of the organization. There are other significant forces at play in the environment of an organization (Coyne, K. 1985). Demographics, legislation, financial climate, and technological changes are main forces for any organization and too frequently forces that the organization can do little more concerning than adapt to them. These forces are to designate that they push the strategic management of a firm, while customers and other stakeholders pull the strategic management of the firm (Bagdikian, Benjamin, 1990). In summary, the role of strategic management is to provide a link between the forces of the organization's environment and its internal system of competencies and to attain a balance between the two. Strategic management, as a result, takes care of technical competence as well as manages the institutional character within the organization. In addition, strategy is devised and implemented within the macro-institutional areas of politics and law, macroeconomics, social values, technological infrastructure, and demography. References: Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton; Transforming the Balanced Scorecard from Performance Measurement to Strategic Management: Part II, Vol. 15, 2001 http://www.ic.polyu.edu.hk/esh/KB/management_strategic/Koch(1999).pdf. Wiener, Yoash. "Forms of Value Systems: A Focus on Organizational Effectiveness and Cultural Change and Maintenance." Academy of Management Review 13, no. 4 (October 1998): 534-545. Williamson, Oliver. The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: Free Press, 1995. Ashforth, Blake E., and Fred Mael. "Social Identity Theory and the Organization." The Academy of Management Review 14, no. 1 (January 1989): 20-39. Collins, Thomas. "Guess Who's Hogging the Media" Press and Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, N.Y.) (January 28, 1990): 4G Bagdikian, Benjamin. The Media Monopoly. 3d ed. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1990. Barney, Jay B. (1997) Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Reading, MA: Addison Wesley. David, Fred R. (1997) Strategic Management (6th edn), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Barney, J.B. "Strategic Factor Markets: Expectations, Luck and Business Strategy." Management Science, 32, 10 (1986), 1231-1241. Jain, Subhash C. (1990) Marketing Planning and Strategy, Cincinnati: South-Western. Miller, Alex and Dess, Gregory G. (1996) Strategic Management (2nd edn), New York: McGraw Hill. Pearce, John A. II and Robinson, Richard B. Jr (1997) Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation, and Control (6th edn), Chicago: Irwin. Barney, J.B. "Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage." Journal of Management, 17, 1 (1991), 99-120 Coyne, K. "Sustainable Competitive Advantage: What It Is, What It Isn't." Business Horizons, 29, 1 (1985), 54-61. Davidow, W.H., and Uttal, B. "Why You Need a Service Strategy." Planning Review, 18, 1 (1990), 10-14. Read More