STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic Management

Strategic Management

l. Demonstrate an understanding of the nature of corporate strategy and how it relates to the long term planning process.

Achieving high performance is the goal of companies everywhere. But today, myriad challenges resulting from the rise of the multi-polar world pose serious obstacles to high performance. In particular, increasing operational complexity, market and political uncertainty, rapid change and intensifying competition make it difficult for companies to set a consistent course that will generate strong growth and return to shareholders.

Enterprises are finding that their traditional approach to strategy—a formal, involved process that focuses on planning for three- or five-year horizons—is increasingly less relevant in a world that rewards quick, decisive action that leads to higher returns in the short term. In other words, today's market leaders recognize that the path to high performance involves less long-term planning and more short-term doing. In this new world, companies need a partner they can work with to create corporate strategies that are more appropriate for and relevant to today's global economy. Accenture is uniquely qualified to be that partner. We understand the critical importance of a strong, effective strategy.

In fact, our ongoing research into the drivers of high performance has found that high-performance businesses have remarkable clarity when it comes to setting strategic direction. They are always found where the market action is, and when one market matures, they're ready with the next big thing. Corporate Strategy will ask you to answer fundamental questions such as "Why are you in business?" and "Why are you in this particular business?". This may appear to be a strange starting point but unless you can answer these type of questions you cannot produce vision statements and mission statements that have any real meaning. Corporate coaching may produce a business plan as a summary document but that is almost incidental.

You have made a variety of choices during your life and have arrived at where you are now.

Are you content with where you are?

Do you know where you are?

Do you know where to go next?

Do you know why you want to go there?

Do you know how to get there?

Strategic thinking is not easy with most people reverting to tactical thinking instead. Adopting a micro-management approach will not answer the challenges you face. You will need to take a step back and look at the big picture, notice where you are performing well, notice what your competitors are doing.

Most attempts at strategic planning fail because the strategic planning models used have been developed by academics and are based on what other businesses have done in the past. The strategies adopted by a manufacturing company twenty years previously are of marginal use to a service provider operating in an era of improved technology and communications.

Unfortunately most corporate executives look on corporate strategy as just another task that must be repeated periodically. The result is either an unprofessional strategy or a strategy that is bound to fail because it does not take account of reality. In the end a lot of strategic planning ...