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Strategic choices

Strategic Choices

Introduction

Strategic choices concern the “decisions about an organization's future and the way in which it needs to respond to pressures and influences” (Farid, and Flynn, 2000). Strategic choice is a part of the strategic planning process that involves identifying and evaluating alternatives that leads to future opportunities. A good strategic choice has to be challenging enough to keep ahead of competitors but also achievable for the company (Farid, and Flynn, 2000). The analysis and the choice of strategies involve largely subjective decisions based on factual information.   This chapter presents some important concepts that can serve strategists to generate feasible alternatives, evaluate these alternatives and choose a particular course of action.

This paper aims to discuss strategic choice. Strategy formulation takes place at three levels, Corporate Level, Business level and Functional Level. This paper will focus on business level of strategy and will discuss Porter's Generic Strategies.

Discussion

A company is continuously faced with decisions to select among the factors that would make the business more attractive and focus on the ones that defines and aligns with its visions of “what it would like to be”. A company can overextend itself by attempting to have the best service or delivery time, the highest quality product, and the lowest cost; and could possibly result in failure. Therefore, it is inherent that a company use strategic planning to focus on primary objectives for long-term preparation and success. Hamilton Sundstrand and its sister companies are already market leaders in many established and mature markets; however, in order to continue its growth in the near future an examination of its long-term objectives is necessary.

According to Pearce and Robinson, Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation, and Control, there are seven common categories of long term objectives: profitability, productivity, competitive position, employee development, employee relations, technological leadership, and public responsibility (2007, pg. 180). Establishing long term objectives in these areas could potentially assist in achieving long term prosperity for Hamilton Sundstrand. This paper will evaluate and identify the best strategic alternatives in relation to the seven common categories that Hamilton Sundstrand must consider to realize growth. The best considerable strategic alternative among the value disciplines, generic strategies, and grand strategies will be depicted. As a final point, a recommendation strategy for Hamilton Sundstrand will be suggested based on the best approach identified.

Formulation of a Strategy

Strategists never consider all feasible alternatives that could benefit the company because there is an infinite number of possible actions and an infinite number of ways to implement them. Therefore, you must develop a manageable with most attractive alternative strategies. It must determine the advantages, disadvantages, exchanges, costs and benefits of these strategies. This section describes the process used by many companies to determine an appropriate set of alternative strategies.

Identify and evaluate alternative strategies should involve many of the managers and employees who previously put together the mission statement of the organization, conducted the external audit and internal audit executed. The process should include representatives from each of the departments and divisions of the company, as well as other ...