Nowadays, strategy is the focal point of all business ventures. It is essential to any successful business. In a nutshell, a strategy means the actions that manager's take to attain the goals of the firm (Mintzberg, Quinn and Voyer, 1995). In addition, strategic is a term that virtually every businessperson believes they know and understand. Strategy planning is the process of developing and implementing plans to reach goals and objectives. Strategic planning, more than anything else, is what gives direction to an organization and actions necessary to improve its performance (O'Regan, N & Ghobadian, A, 2002).
This paper sets out to determine the importance of strategy, fundamentally the differences between 3 forms of strategy, namely the
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As with all strategic level decision making there are pros and cons (advantages and disadvantages) to every decision, so is the case with planned strategy, which are outlined below:A major advantage is that a good strategic planning process involves the establishment of a clear goal and the necessary processes to achieve it (Armstrong, 1982). The main advantages to use formalized strategic planning in that it facilitates the inclusion of strategy in the corporate agenda and a direct result of the strategic planning process increases staff awareness and enhanced participation in the strategic plan. In addition, (Mang, 2000) argued that those strategic ideas might emerge from everybody, anywhere, anytime, through trial and error or through planning in that it allows the strategic planner to address and incorporate suggestions on strategy that might not have occurred to him/her.
Planned strategy is controllable for future occurrence and it makes current planners involved. It makes decision making rational. It pushes for coordination and every person involved such as suppliers and customers are represented and taken care of resulting in a more effective supply chain and customer relations.
It also reduces company's risk when entering a new strategy (Shiner.D, 1998).
Strategy is a set of complicated tactics formulated by the executives of a company directed towards the achievement of company’s goal (Salmela, 2002). It is about all the path ways that a company would follow to reach its ultimate goal. It is a company’s strategy which helps to identify what it does better than the other companies in the industries, which may be different from what it does best. For successful strategy formulation and implementation, a company should know the needs of customers and should have knowledge of its competitors. Through a good strategy a company would identify that opportunity which makes it different from the others (Thompson, 2005).
Strategic planning within a company is a tool used in companies that help mature areas in total quality management. This type of planning creates a cohesive management system for lower level employees to better adapt in. “Strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or more and how it 's going to get there. Typically, the process is organization-wide, or focused on a major function such as a division, department or other major function”(McNamara, 2008). In order to plan effectively one must first make a clear assessment of the plan and have an analysis on the corporations mission statement and objective.
Strategic planning is designed to leverage the strengths of a firm while minimizing the effects of its weaknesses. It is difficult to know the potential advantage a firm may have unless external analysis is done well. For example, a company may have a talented marketing department or an efficient production system. However, the organization cannot determine whether these internal characteristics are sources of competitive advantage until it knows something about how well the competitors stack up in these areas.
Chapter 6 – Strategy Formulation: Situation Analysis and Business StrategyChapter 7 – Strategy Formulation: Corporate StrategyChapter 8 – Strategy Formulation: Functional strategy and Strategic Choice
Planned Strategy: The main feature of this strategy is that formal plans and precise and very
Strategic planning is the management activity of an organization to achieve the organization’s goals through setting priorities, focusing activities and resources, working of employees and stakeholders, agreement establishment, and evaluation of the organization’s direction (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2015).
Strategic planning can dictate the success of any organization if properly planned as well as the failure of an organization if not implemented as planned. Strategic planning is all about making choices. It is a process designed to support leaders in being intentional about their goals and methods. Simply stated, strategic planning is a management tool, and like any management tool, it is used for one purpose only—to help an organization do a better job. This portion of the strategic plan will explain why an
Strategic Planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organizations goals and capabilities as well as emerging market conditions and opportunities. This process begins with a clear company mission statement. However, this is only a small piece of a dynamic and perpetual process. Other activities involved with strategic planning also include setting supporting organizational objectives, designing a sound product mix as well as coordinating functional strategies. Strategic planning works to set the groundwork for the rest of the subsidiary planning functions in the company.
In his article, “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning,” Henry Mintzberg (1994) provides his views on the process of strategic planning. He offers that most companies and organizations start a strategic planning process with little understanding of the definition or actual purpose of planning. He tends to admonish much of the conventional understanding concerning strategic planning and proposes his interpretations. He states that “the most successful strategies are visions, not plans” (Mintzberg, 1994, p. 107).
Strategy formulation has been acknowledged as one of the most crucial factors of ensuring the long-term growth of the business. However, the manner in which strategy is formulated, and most importantly, the nature of the strategy chosen for the company determines its future position in the marketplace (Grant, 2005).
Strategic Planning is one of the most fundamental factors in the success of an organization. This research project will discuss the importance of strategic planning as well as the different components of strategic planning. Many organizations fail to accomplish their goals and tasks due to the lacking of strategic planning. In order for their businesses to be successful, organizations need to be well informed about how the strategic planning process works.
- Because many qualitative aspects are used, the planning can be used as direction instrument. The qualitative aspects indicate into which direction de company wants to develop. By not linking this directly to quantative goals, the company avoids that the planning causes to much inflexibility. This might cause a lack of time and space to make the necessary scientific discoveries. And of course discoveries cannot be planned!
In this study, the fields of emergency management, business continuity, strategic planning and scenario futuring were critically analyzed with a goal of developing an integrated strategic contingency planning model. This model will assist organizations in bringing their contingency planning program to a strategic level. Contingency planning can be fully integrated with day-to-day business processes if a new mindset is promulgated in the organization. Contingency planning no longer needs to be an isolated, specialized
Strategic planning is the process of gathering information from stakeholders, market players, professional entity, and government agency. The purpose of gathering information is formulating a realistic and a workable framework that any organization can implement and work with. Evaluation of information is a key aspect in determine the kind of plans that the organization wish to a chive over certain a period. Strategic planning ensures the implementation is, crafted well, and parties involved be acquitted with it. Developing a good Strategic plan helps a company to implement its missions and visions effectively, and helps the company to evaluate
A strategy is said to be a plan that is made for the long term success of a product or brand. It is extremely important to have a strategy in order to figure out a direction towards which any company is able to focus all its resources efficiently and achieve desired outcomes. Formulating effective strategies is a considerably long process in itself that combines analysing several factors, situations and issues that are already present in a company and looking to improve on them alongside trying to implement various innovations and ideas to collectively create a direction towards which they can move and direct the resources available to them.