SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Successful Strategic Management

Successful strategic management deals with both planned and unplanned changes within an organization

Introduction

Every single organization is working properly with the basic and necessary departments. There exist many arguments about which functional area would be the most important one for the long-term development for an organization. Normally, there are four main functional areas in an organization, involving marketing, human resource, operations and finance. They are working as a whole, and they are interrelated and interacted during the course of the operation of an organization.

1. The whole organization

1.1 Marketing - the most important part of an organization

There are many arguments with respect to how different functional areas might drive each other. While some people believe human resource management drives the whole organization, others think marketing should be the most essential area of the whole organization. For example, Armstrong, M. (1987) says human resources are the most important assets of an organization and their effective management is the key to the success. In contrast, Claire Capon (2000) says Marketing is the first department of the whole organization to be considered. In fact, it is hard to say which functional area is the most important part of a whole organization. They always work together and interact with each other. Accordingly, the four main functional areas are integrated and interrelated. Marketing, which is an essential department of an organization can affect on the business very deeply. Relatively speaking, marketing which is concerned with identifying customers' needs and wants drives the whole organization. The marketing department is an internal area with regard to research, analysis, supervision and so on. Furthermore, it is related to the external environments as well. Thus, the marketing department plays important roles in both external and internal environments. What the marketing department is supposed to do is to notice every change with regard to the outside world and predict the kinds of products or services the clients may want. Moreover, marketing also has to cope with other departments of the organization with the aim to get them realized the objectives of an entire organization.

What Porter said is a corporate strategy and is also the way to enhance the competitive advantages of an organization. In other words, the organization has to be so specialized in its own products and services that others do not be able to copy or imitate. It can also keep the rivals not be able to enter this particular field. The core idea of Porter's strategic thinking Vol. 4, No. 2 International Journal of Business and Management 154 is to keep the cost of entering this market very high so that competitors won't be able to enter. The organization will develop very quickly as a result of carrying out such marketing strategy. The other aspect why the marketing is important for the development of an organization has something to do with the New Product Development (NPD), namely, the innovation. As the world is ever changing and there are many unexpected factors which will have ...