Strategic Management Notes

This topic summary was based off Topic 9 of the textbook – Strategic Management. But before I go on, I would like to define strategic management in my own terms: Strategic management is the continuous planning, monitoring, analysis and assessment of all that is necessary for an organization to meet its goals and objectives and, if possible, gain an advantage over their competitors or to make other changes and strategies. Within this short amount of time, I shall briefly address the important points in this topic:

Why is strategic management important? The strategic management process. Types of strategies – corporate, competitive and functional. As well as current strategic management issues. Further description and analysis can be found in my handouts

So point one why is strategic management important? Strategic management plays a crucial role in businesses for three main reasons:

1. Strategy makes a difference in an organisation’s performance as it leads to higher levels of performance

2. Strategy helps organisations cope with continually changing situations as organisations use the strategic management process to examine relevant factors and decide what actions to take.

and 3. Strategy aids to coordinate diverse organisational unit’s work.

Each of these positive benefits to businesses can only be achieved through effective strategic planning.

Some of you may be asking, “how can one create an effective strategic plan?”. And my answer to you in through the strategic management process. The strategic management process is a six-step process that encompasses strategic planning, implementation and evaluation:

1. Identifying the organisation’s current mission, goals and strategies

2. Doing an external analysis

3. Doing an internal analysis Together doing an eternal analysis and an internal analysis is called a SWOT analysis. At the end of this step, a business should be able to formulate a strategy that (1) exploits an organisation’s strengths and...