Strategic Management



Strategic Management

Introduction

There are so many researches already done that address the importance of strategic management in an organization. Strategic management is considered as a primary function of an organization as it results into improved performance, profits and sales. It allows an organization to forecast futuristic problems to organization. It clarifies the goals of organization on broad level and of employees on individual level. It helps in identification and exploration of potential beneficial opportunities and improvises the internal coordination and allocation of resources. Some of the basic functionality and aspects of strategic management are discussed in this essay in the latter sections.

Discussion

Difference between Strategic Management Strategic planning

Strategic management is the responsible for driving the company to a desired future, which implies that it must directly affect the fulfillment of the objectives set, and strategic management should have all the necessary information so that relevant decisions can be taken precisely. We should note that the term management involves continuous induction of the results, which are based on the dependent relationships that often exist between the various factors of organization. When a company or organization travels blindly into the future, it must always have a plan that is very well designed.

Strategic planning is a process, which involves development of strategy, decision making process regarding allocation of available resources in order to undertake the designed strategy. However, it is essential to comprehend the current status of organization, availability of possible alternatives in order to determine the specific actions to attain organizational objectives. Strategic planning addresses the requirement of what we are doing, for whom and how can we outclass it? (Steiner. G. A., 1997).

Planning and strategic management are different in terms of goals and methods of implementation. Planning - is an integral part of strategic management, which includes only the initial stages, such as the definition of the mission, vision, reasoning problems that may face the company in the coming period, to develop a strategy. But planning does not incorporate an implementation strategy and evaluation of the results of this implementation.

Separation in terms of strategic management and planning has occurred in the late 60's of the last century. It marked the difference between the current level of production management and control exercised at the highest level (Steiner. G. A., 1997).

Controlling function of Management

Strategic control involves overseeing the implemented strategy, finding errors and alterations in the strategy and adjusting accordingly. The manager is responsible to foresee and evaluate if company is following the right path, and examining the justifications of assumptions and changes (Adams. D., n.d.). The four functions of strategic control are as follow:

Premise Control requires investigating the validity of basic grounds of premises on which strategy is implemented. Any change in the premise may lead to change in strategy. It is preferable that such changes that reflect the invalidity should be reported and adjusted immediately.

Special Alert Control is referred to stringent and fast reappraisal of strategy due to immediate and unpredicted event such as, acquisition of ...