STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Strategic Management

Strategic Management

Introduction

Even though everyone's definition of strategy will be different between each author, theorists have considered planning an essential part of organizational strategy. According to Dictionary.com, strategy is "the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations" (Dictionary.com, 2009).

Strategic planning will determine the course of this new business. A strategy provides a framework for managerial decisions, reflecting a company's awareness of how, when and where it should compete; against whom it should compete; and for what purposes it should compete. (Pearce, Robinson 2004) As an owner of an insurance agency (Golden Rock Insurance Services), the first thing that needs to be accomplished is to identify Golden Rock Insurance Services purpose, which is accomplished with a mission statement (Thompson, 2001, 59-748).

Discussion

Concept of Strategic Management

A mission statement will describe the purpose of the company, what services will be provided, the companies philosophy, and goals.(Pearce, Robinson 2004) The mission statement is a living statement and may need to be changed to meet the needs of changing times. Once the mission statement has been formulated, goals to be reached to accomplish the mission must be selected. Specific strategies and approaches must be implemented to reach each goal. Golden Rock Insurance Services internal and external environment need to be assessed and specific action plans to implement each strategy need to be identified. Once the plan is implemented, it will need to be monitored and updated as needed. According to Pearce and Robinson 2004, a company should select long-term objectives and grand strategies that will achieve the most desirable options.

Strategic management involves the planning, directing, organizing and controlling of a company's strategy-related decisions and actions. (Pearce, Robinson 2004)Many tasks exist where management must define and analyze when creating a strategic plan. The strategic plan can be completed in a nine-step process. The first task is defining the company mission statement. The mission statement should identify the company's goals and objectives. Essentially this is the backbone for the strategic plan. The second and third tasks should analyze the company's internal conditions, while analyzing the external environment of the future company. Identifying competitors and general factors of the surrounding environment are important (Thompson, 2001, 59-748).

Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage is the ability to win market share or earn a higher profit than competitors. A successful business model results from business-level strategies that optimize competitive positioning.

Managing Business resources in strategic management

The first way we have to understand what the human resources management is in the modern society. Human resource management (HRM) is a relatively modern label for the range of themes and practices involved in managing people. It is defined and described in a variety of ways. Human resources management includes a variety of activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues and ...