STRATEGIC AND LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT

Strategic and Leadership Management



Strategic and Leadership Management

Introduction

Strategic management is the process of decision making which have high medium term to long term impact on activities of the organization including the implementation of those decisions to create value for customers and key stakeholders and to outperform the competitors (Hubbard, 2000, pp 11-2). Strategic management has three elements such as strategic analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation. Strategic analysis gives the idea to understand the strategic position of the organization. It is an ongoing activity of organization. Strategic analysis gives the clear picture of the changes in the environment and how these changes affecting the organization and its activities. It gives idea about the resources and competencies present and their contribution to competitive advantage and development of new opportunities. Also it produces the idea about the people and groups such as manager, shareholders, union, stakeholder etc. associated with organization and their contribution for the development of organization. Basically strategic analysis develops the relationship between different forces influencing the organization and its choice of strategies. These forces are environment, resource and competences etc.

Strategic Plan Implementation

Strategic plans are generally made up of one or more interconnected elements; Vision, mission, Values, assessment, goals/objectives, strategy and outcomes. They also incorporate strategic management principles and models. A possible example of a strategic plan follows:

The Vision shows the dreams of the organisation and broadly capture future services, markets and structures but do not go in to great detail. The Mission outlines customers, competitors and markets. It shows "a desired position in a predicted future world" and a "bulls eye or target of the strategy"(Yavitz & Newman, 1982, pp 11-190). "A mission should not commit a firm to what it must do in order to survive but what it chooses to do in order to thrive" (Ackoff, 1986, pp 23-189). Values are what the company believes to be true; values offer guides for staff on how to act within the company and ethical standards for all the stakeholders. Values set the company apart from its competitors and show the integrity of the organisation. Assessments of the organisation are the outside and inside forces, which will affect the company in making its mission and vision successful. These can be carried out in an environmental scan, which includes the following components:

Internal analysis of the firm

Analysis of the firm's industry (task environment)

External macro environment (PEST analysis)

General Motors Strategic Management and Leadership

General Motors, the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, designs, builds and markets cars and trucks worldwide, and has been the global automotive sales leader since 1931. General Motors Corporations is founded in 1908 and has its vehicles sold in more then 190 countries. GM has plans to launch into the China's sedan market with its new Daewoo's sedan 'Kalos' in March 2004. China is a giant market that is full of potential gauging from our Shanghai GM financial results. The increasing disposable incomes and China people thirst for luxury goods would push up the demand for the ...