Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Senior Lecturer
Dania University College
Within the general framework created by the business's generic and grand
strategies, each business function need to identify and undertake activities
unique to the function that help build a sustainable competitive advantage.
Managers in each business function develop tactics which delineate the
functional activities undertaken in their part of the business and usually
include them as a core part of their action plan.
Policies that Empower Action
Speed is a critical necessity for success in today's competitive, global
marketplace.
One way to enhance speed and responsiveness is to force/allow decisions to
be made whenever possible at the lowest level in organizations.
Creating policies that guide and "preauthorize" the thinking, decisions, and
actions of operating managers and their subordinates in implementing the
business's strategy is essential.
Restructuring, Reengineering, and Refocusing the Organization
Downsizing, restructuring, reengineering, outsourcing, and empowerment
are all terms that reflect the critical stage in strategy implementation
wherein managers attempt to rationalize and recast their organizational
structure, leadership, culture, and reward systems to ensure a basic level of
cost competitiveness, capacity for responsive quality, and the need to shape
each one to accommodate unique requirements of their strategies.
Strategic Control and Continuous Improvement
Strategic control is concerned with tracking a strategy as it is being
implemented, detecting problems or changes in its underlying premises, and
making necessary adjustments.
In contrast to post action control, strategic control seeks to guide action on
behalf of the generic and grand strategies as they are taking place and when
the end results are still several years away.
The rapid, accelerating change of the global marketplace of the last 10 years
has made continuous improvement another aspect of strategic control in
many organizations.
DIMENSIONS OF STRATEGIC DECISIONS
Strategic Issues Require Top-Management Decisions
Strategic Issues Require Large Amounts of The Firms Resources
Strategic Issues Often Affect the Firms long-term Prosperity
Strategic Issues are future Oriented
Strategic Issues Usually Have multifunctional or Multi-business consequences
Strategic Issues Require Considering the Firms External environment
Strategic Issues Require Top-Management Decisions: Since strategic
decisions overarch several areas of a firms operations, they require topmanagement involvement.
Usually only top management has the perspective needed to understand the
broad implications of such decisions and the power to authorize the
necessary resource allocations.
Strategic Issues Require Large Amounts of The Firms Resources: Strategic
decisions involve substantial allocations of people, physical assets, or
moneys that either must be redirected from internal resources or secured
from outside the firm. They also commit the firm to actions over an extended
period. For these reasons, they require substantial resources.
Strategic Issues Often Affect the Firms long-term Prosperity: Strategic
decisions ostensibly commit the firm for a long time, typically five years;
however, the impact of such decisions often lasts much longer.
Strategic Issues are future Oriented: Strategic decisions are based on what
managers forecast, rather than on what they know. In such decisions,
emphasis is placed on the development of projections that will enable the
firm to select the most promising strategic options. In the turbulent and
competitive free enterprise environment, a firm will succeed only if it takes a
proactive (anticipatory) stance toward change.
Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage is the special edge that allows an organization to
deal with market and environmental forces better than its competitors.
It comes from strategies that lead to some uniqueness in the market place.
It indicates a companys competitive position that allows it to achieve higher
profitability than the industrys average.
To develop competitive advantage, a company should develop distinctive
competences and then use them to creatively compete in its markets.