Essay Strategising and Organising

There are a gazillion companies out there, but some stand out. Whether it is because of their popularity, affiliations, history, profile or service, one factor simply makes or breaks a company; it’s strategy management process.

‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through it’

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).

Top-level managers are responsible for controlling and evaluating the entire organization. Middle-level managers are responsible for implementing the organizational plans which set by the top management officals. The middle managers act as a link between top-level management and low-level management. Low-level managers focus on controlling and directing. They supervise the employees on their work. Top-level managers include the board of directors, president, vice-president, and CEO. They are responsible for setting goals, strategic plans, company policies, and make decisions for the entire organisation. In addition, top-level managers play an important role in utilizing the outside resources. Top-level managers are accountable to the shareholders and general public. Middle level management includes General managers, branch managers, and department managers. They are accountable to the top management for the effective function of each

A method by which the strategy development can be explained is the “strategic lenses”. This method views strategy development as design, experience, ideas and discourse. Strategy as design means that it emerged through rational processes, whereas the experience lens sees the strategy as the outcome of individual and collective experiences. The lens “discourse” sees strategy as the result of communication and concepts. The last lens, which is the idea lens, is about the development of strategy as a result of innovation (Johnson et al, 2008).

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).

According to Meyer, (2010), strategy is the action that company can take to achieve its desired goals. When it comes to a company, thinking can be said to be either long-term or short-term. When translated into action, it is what is called operations or projects. However there are differences between operations and

Executive Management – This group generally reflects the highest level of education and experience, and are predominantly English speakers. They tend to be older in age and have a good understanding of technology, but not at the level of an engineer. Members of executive management must fully understand and

An organisation’s strategy plays an important role of providing direction of where company wants to be and how best to allocate the company’s resources to meet its objectives. The formulation of business strategies has evolved over the years and has been made more difficult in recent by the uncertain operating environments and global financial crises.

Organisations’ strategic issues are commonly analysed from different strategy lenses. Strategic lenses are a concept of strategic management. The lenses are different ways of viewing strategy development. It examines the flow of tasks and information, or how you get things done. Each lens reveals many different traits and qualities. Using the lens, one looks to optimize workflow to meet the goals and objectives of the company. This paper will cover four angles from which strategy can be viewed and implemented on a corporate level; they are strategy as design, strategy as experience, strategy as ideas and strategy as discourse.

Alfred Chandler(1963) defines strategy as ‘ the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals’. And Michael porter(1996) sees it as ‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’.

Mintzberg (1980,pp.331-332) suggested this comparatively flat and informal architecture has minimal hierarchy, which only consists of top managers and operation, coordinating through direct command. Task allocation, work instructions and training are unnecessary due to the simple mechanism. The importance of this structure is organism, because of little hierarchy and decision centralization on chief executives that provides flexibility and adaptability, enable quick reaction and response to emergent environment as an advantage. Success heavily depends on executives’ capacity to operate. However, Dewar

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.

Johnson, Wittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér (2014, p. 3) defines strategy as ‘the long-term direction of an organisation’.

A strategy, according to Robbins and Barnwell (2002, p. 139) is “the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary to achieve the organisation’s goals”.