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Strategic Management 2 PDF Free
Strategic Management 2 PDF Free
Chennai - 020
Introduction:
(a) To describe what changes are required of the operating system to enhance
its support of the SBU’s (strategic business unit) business strategy.
For an operating plan to achieve these purposes. It must be closely aligned the
business strategy. This means that the strategic imperatives or demands required
of the operating system by the business strategy need clear articulation. Further,
these strategic imperatives must drive the focus and objectives of the operating
plan. A useful and easy to apply vehicle for achieving a tight linkage and
alignment between business strategy and operating plan can be derived from the
concept of operating system priorities.
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or
direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this
strategy. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the
implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in
corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic
management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve
many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its
relationship to the environment in which it competes.
Strategy has many definitions, but generally involves setting goals, determining
actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A
strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means
(resources). The senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with
determining strategy. Strategy can be planned (intended) or can be observed as a
pattern of activity (emergent) as the organization adapts to its environment or
competes.
• When a single operating plan serves two or more businesses, each with its own
strategy, differentiated priorities must reflect any different strategic imperatives.
Each business strategy must be supported by an appropriate operating plan that
addresses its special requirements.
When operating priorities are implicit rather than explicit, they are seldom
understood uniformly among key executives and the entire management and
supervisory group. Priorities are frequently determined by individual managers,
applying their own best judgment. Disagreement about priorities is natural. Yet
a uniform understanding of operating and improvement priorities by all
executives, managers and supervisors is critical for the successful
implementation of any operating plan.
Second, the planning group reviews the current priorities that are actually
driving current decisions. The planning group reviews the current business
strategy to identify the strategic imperatives for the operating system.
Third, in light of these strategic imperatives and the capabilities of the operating
system to perform against these imperatives, the planning group discusses and
reaches consensus on what the operating system priorities should be, in order to
support the business strategy.
Fourth the planning group compares their consensus with the perceptions of
current actual priorities. The nature and extent of any difference will determine
the actions required to reorient and redirect all managers and supervisors in the
operating system.
A few generic concepts can be useful to test how appropriate the proposed
operating system priorities are to current business strategies. The Sponsor can
use these concepts both to review and validate an operating plan, and to allocate
resources among several operating plans in order to fund those strategies with
the highest potential for leverage in changing the operating system.
There is a widely accepted notion that an entire industry, like the market
offerings within it, progresses through a life cycle . Such cycles can range from
less than a decade to less than a century depending on the industry. One can
divide each lifecycle into four phases: embryonic, growth, mature and aging. In
general most businesses in mature and aging industries pursue strategies
intended to maintain market position and maximize profit and cash generation.
Their operating plans focus internally on improving operations both to lower
total costs, and improve utilization of material, energy, capital and people.
Once the planning group agrees on what the operating system priorities should
be they can apply these to the list of potential high-leverage target opportunities
identified in the process of validating the operating system description. When
first generated, this list is an undifferentiated collection of nominations for
possible targets to be addressed by the operating plan. These nominations must
now be re-examined to identify those with the greatest relevance to achieving
the changes in the operating system most crucial to the success of the business
strategy.
The task for the planning group is now to identify the highest-leverage target
opportunities. They must sort through 20 to 40 possible high-leverage targets of
opportunity to identify the 4 or 5 with the most promise for serving as the basis
for the operating plan’s objectives. The process is essentially one of screening
each nominated target against the priority criteria. The process described
enables a management group to derive operating system priorities from both
business strategy imperatives and operating system performance capabilities.
Virtually every business needs a business plan. Lack of proper planning is one
of the most often cited reasons for business failures. Business plans help
companies identify their goals and objectives and provide them with tactics and
strategies to reach those goals. They are not historical documents rather; they
embody a set of management decisions about necessary steps for the business to
reach its objectives and performance in accordance with its capabilities.
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E-business (electronic business), derived from such terms as “e-mail” and “e-
commerce,” is the conduct of business on the Internet, not only buying and
selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners.
One of the first to use the term was IBM. When, in October, 1997, it launched a
thematic campaign built around the term. Today, major corporations are
rethinking their businesses in terms of the Internet and its new culture and
capabilities. Companies are using the Web to buy parts and supplies from other
companies, to collaborate on sales promotions, and to do joint research.
Exploiting the convenience, availability, and world-wide reach of the Internet.
Many companies, such as Amazon.com, the book sellers, has already discovered
how to use the Internet successfully
E-Business in India
India has an internet user base of about 140.1 million as of Jan 2015..Lh1121
The penetration of e-commerce is low compared to markets like the United
States and the United Kingdom but is growing at a much faster rate with a large
number of new entrants. The industry consensus is that growth is at an
inflection point.
India’s e-commerce market was worth about $3.8 billion in 2009. It went up to
$12.6 billion in 2013. In 2013, the e-retail market was worth USS 2.3 billion.
About 70% of India’s e-commerce market is travel related.51 India has close to
10 million online shoppers and is growing at an estimated 30% [61 CAGR vis-
à-vis a global growth rate of 8—10%. Electronics and Apparel are the biggest
categories in terms of sales.
• Availability of much wider product range (including long tail and Direct
Imports) compared to what is available at brick and mortar retailers
• Busy lifestyles, urban traffic congestion and lack of time for offline shopping
• Increased usage of online classified sites, with more consumer buying and
selling second-hand goods
• Evolution of the online marketplace model with sites like Jabong.com. Flip
kart.
In the last few years of the 20th century all kinds of companies began to think
about doing business through the Internet. This is astonishing given that,
according to one view, e-commerce was ‘virtually non-existent’ in 1995. By
1998 the electronic economy (e-economy) represented 6.5 percent of US GDP
and 1 percent of Japan’s GDP. This may not sound very much but the US e-
economy was expanding fast- by 65 percent in 1998. The rate of growth to
access the Internet grew dramatically. Already by 1996 tens of millions of
people had access to the Web, but the numbers were doubling each year at the
time. At the start of the 2 1 century some half a dozen countries, including the
United States and Germany, had one in five of their population with online
access to the Web via their own PCs. Internet service providers proliferated. The
United States had over 4,000 of them in 1996. Some, such as America Online
(AOL), quickly emerged as strong contenders for leadership of this segment of
the e-economy. Then banks, insurance firms, book retailers, travel companies
and various other kinds of business moved quickly to establish a presence on
the Net. Many companies may have done so because they saw opportunities.
Many may have joined the Internet band wagon simply in order to keep up with
what their rivals are doing, or might soon do.
Some Internet companies enjoyed a growth of turnover that was hard to believe.
In the UK the winner of the 1999 Deloitte and Touche National Technology Fast
50 was Data Discovery, a Scottish firm that grew by over 9,000 percent in one
year.
If established firms decide that a response is needed they have at least two
options. As shown by the case of the European insurance industry, they can
respond by maintaining their existing business designs but adding a Web site, or
by launching a properly designed c-business of their own.
Those firms adopting the first option face problems. Some are relatively minor,
such as that of seeking to register the firm’s name on the World Wide Web only
to find, as Rolex Watches did, that their name had already been registered by
someone else. This was an early lesson for established firms. The Internet is a
channel to business activity with its own peculiar rules- such as registering
names on a first come first served basis. This must add to the sense of
uncertainty about the risks.
Evolution to e-business:
In the first stage firms use a Web site for buying and selling processes. In the
second stage the emphasis is on the closer integration of suppliers. In the third
stage alliances develop entailing important shifts in how industry operates. In
the fourth stage innovative products result from the convergence of sectors.
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Q5. Does strategic management work? Examine
It is a way in which strategists set the objectives and proceed about attaining
them. It deals with making and implementing decisions about future direction of
an organization. It helps us to identify the direction in which an organization is
moving.
Strategy Formulation
Strategy Implementation
Strategy Evaluation
Strategic Decisions
Business Policy
BCG Matrix
SWOT Analysis
Competitor Analysis
Strategic Leadership
Corporate Governance
Business Ethics
Core Competencies
Strategy formulation
Strategy implementation
Strategy evaluation
General approaches
In general terms, there are two main approaches, which are opposite but
complement each other in some ways, to strategic management:
Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a tendency in some firms to
revert to a simpler strategic structure. This is being driven by information
technology. It is felt that knowledge management systems should be used to
share information and create common goals. Strategic divisions are thought to
hamper this process. Most recently, this notion of strategy has been captured
under the rubric of dynamic strategy, popularized by the strategic management
textbook authored by Carpenter and Sanders [1]. This work builds on that of
Brown and Eisenhart as well as Christensen and portrays firm strategy, both
business and corporate, as necessarily embracing ongoing strategic change, and
the seamless integration of strategy formulation and implementation. Such
change and implementation are usually built into the strategy through the
staging and pacing facets.One of the difficulties faced by managers trying to
decide whether it is worth studying strategy is that there is a wide spread belief
that it just does not work. This is especially true when people start to discuss
entrepreneurial and innovative behavior. Here the common sense perception is
that for entrepreneurs to be successful strategy and plans are the last thing they
need. These are seen as hemming them in and constricting them. Improvisation
or ‘off the cuff’ action is what is needed. Very few of us though can be quick
wined enough to manage spontaneous and clever action. It often comes as a
shock to people when they learn that many television shows are not the
spontaneous events they are made out to be.
Here we need to stress yet again the importance of your own assessment of what
is worthwhile in terms of the outcomes achieved. We do not believe it is
possible to say categorically: do this as opposed to that in these circumstances;
but we do believe that you have to judge the value of what you have done by its
effects.
Over the years there have been numerous studies of strategic planning and
performance. Early studies measured the existence or nature of planning and
looked at organizational aspects of strategic planning. One study indicated that
organizations that planned performed better than organizations that did not plan.
Some studies showed that organizations doing formal planning performed better
than other organizations. A study by Ansoff and colleagues (1970) found that
deliberate and systematic preplanning of acquisition strategies was correlated
with better financial performance. Overviews of such empirical studies usually
conclude that there is a preponderance of evidence in favor of a link between
company performance and planning.
Practitioners
While there is not total unanimity among researchers about the link between
formal strategic planning and better performance, most practitioners would no
doubt think even a modest level of support for the link would make it
worthwhile to invest their time and effort in developing strategic plans. In fact,
the evidence is better than modest. And surveys of practitioners suggest that
their experience has confirmed that investing in strategic planning is a good
idea.
A functional view
Innovation has come to be seen as key driver of growth and profitability. In the
last couple of year the United States generated more than a half of its economic
growth from new industries born in the last decade. However, this is not really
new. Innovation is part and parcel of the history of business cycles. Each major
business cycle is characterized by the rise of new industries. In the late 1 8th
and early 19th century textiles and iron were the new industries. In the second
half of the 19th century rail and steel industries became important. In the last
century the new industries included electricity and chemicals, then
petrochemicals, electronics and aviation came to the force. The latest wave of
innovation covering the present period is summed up by describing the period
as the Information Age, meaning that there are new products and services
clustering around digital technology, software and new media.
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Implementation can be blamed on the poor work of those lower down in the
organization responsible for executing the strategy. However, when one
examines in depth the relationship between strategy formulation and strategy
execution, this tendency to view the two aspects of strategy as distinctly
separate issues can be seen to be wrongheaded.
While the data on strategic plan failure rates is all over the map, suffice it to say
it’s HIGH! Below you’ll find ten common reasons strategic plans fail. It’s
likely that the last strategic initiative to fall short in your organization could be
attributed to one (or some combination) of these ten causes.
9. Bad Planning - Make a list of the people in your organization who were
involved in developing your last strategic plan. Who were they? How deep did
you go in the organization? How wide? What was the extent of their
involvement? OR, did the senior leadership team develop the plan on its own
and then announce it to the organization? How did that work for you? Off-site
huddles by the senior management team to develop a strategic plan often result
in developing a plan that has no chance of success.
10. Bad Plan - Sometimes plans fail because they are simply bad plans, and I
would argue that they are often bad plans because we don’t tend to get everyone
involved that we should. We either fail to tap into the collective talents and
dedication of our people or we misjudge the external environment and the
response of our stakeholders. It can make employees feel isolated and the
leadership look out of touch.
Line managers need to understand the key concepts and language of strategic
planning. It is unlikely that without some help, they will uniformly understand
the operational meaning of such notions as ‘bases of competition’, ‘strategic
issues’, ‘key success factors’, ‘portfolio role’, and ‘strategic management’.
Typically, line managers view strategic planning as an additional burden
imposed from above, diverting them from ‘running the business’. All too often,
many line managers adopt a grudging, mechanistic approach to their planning
duties. Small wonder that staff planners creep back in to lend a hand and help
fill the void.
How the management of a firm conceives of and defines each of the businesses
they are conducting can have a profound hearing on the business’s strategic
behavior, its competitive clout and on the strategic options management may
choose to implement.
These examples are meant to illustrate two issues relevant to the connection
between business definition and successful strategy implementation. The first
issue has to do with ‘getting the definition right’. In this context, ‘right’ means
in tune with the marketplace requirements and competitive dynamics. It means
the definition which best positions the firm to compete successfully.
The other issue has to do with how similarly each manager and executive
perceives and understands the business definition. Successful strategy
implementation depends heavily on an agreed business definition among the
entire management group. Differences in perception will undermine the
effectiveness of strategy implementation.
Such rationales for unit boundaries often lead to faultily defined SBUs.
Executives who take organizational structure as a given before planning begins
seldom realize that their SBU definitions are defective. Organization theory and
strategic management hold that the main purpose of organization.
The faultiness of the reorganization logic and its consequences for strategic
planning can be attributed to ignorance or discounting of customer and
competitor behavior in the major borne appliance market specifically, the
product line organization with its associated localized strategic perspective
impeded consideration of several important factors that characterize this market.
These includes
Quality and style: customers expect that the refrigerator, dishwasher, cooking
range, etc. Which they purchase be coordinated in terms of quality (materials
used, performance warranties& etc.) arid appearance (color, tones, physical
design, features. etc.).
Price: customers expect a pricing policy that unifies the major kitchen
appliances within the context of the manufacturer’s ‘quality and style’
philosophy.
Earlier we have noted that strategic planning differs from earlier efforts to plan
for the long term by its primary emphasis on the firm’s external environment In
practice, this means developing an understanding of the firm’s industry,
markets, customers and competition, and using this knowledge to determine
what is strategically relevant when assessing the firm’s capabilities, and
competitive strengths and weaknesses. Understanding and focusing on externals
is crucial in making the strategic choices that will lead to the desired long-term
outcomes.
6. Unrealistic Self-assessment
About seven out of ten companies do not carry the formulation of strategy much
beyond some general statement of thrust such as market penetration or internal
efficiency and some generalized goal such as excellence. Having only
generalizations to work which makes implementation very difficult. Targets
don’t mean much if no one maps out the pathways leading to them. After this
kind of half- baked strategy is handed over for execution, subordinates who
have not been in on the formulation of the strategy are left to deal with its cross-
impacts and trade-offs when they bump into them.
The cure for half-baked strategy is action detailing, but this task often baffles
and irritates many executives. Only one in three of the companies have a
process or a forum for the inter functional debate and testing of unit strategies.
Their procedures for action detailing and other kinds of reality testing are often
nonexistent or merely rudimentary. Action detailing of a sort is carried on in
some places as a part of operational planning, but it usually follows strategic
planning and takes the strategy as given. Planning in detail should be used as a
further test of a strategy’s feasibility.
Strategic plans are of better quality and are more likely to be implemented
successfully when the plan is formulated by a team of executives and managers
working together in ‘real time’. This team should include the SBU general
manager, the functional heads who report to this executive and middle-level
managers Elected for their ability to contribute usefully to the debate. In
addition, the planning team should include other functional executives and
managers outside the SBU who are responsible in providing strategically
significant resources and supporting services to the SBU.
The face-off is a moment of inevitable, healthy conflict Not only do all the
units’ resource requests often exceed what Corporate is prepared to provide, but
also their aggregate performance promises are often less than the Corporate
requires. Performance requirements typically come from an analysis of Capital
Market.
The foregoing nine factors describe flaws in the ‘upstream strategic planning
process that can undermine ‘downstream’ strategy implementation.
This tenth factor is the only one directly applicable to the implementation
process. Astrategic planning system can’t achieve its full potential until it is
integrated with other control systems such as budgets, information, and rewards.
The badly designed, poorly managed face-off is a manifestation of a deeper
problem - compartmentalized thinking which treats various existing control
systems as freestanding and strategically neutral. When this is the case, there is
a high probability that conflicts will arise between the requirements and
organizational impact of each SBU’s intended strategies, and the requirements
of institutionalized control systems. These are usually far more deeply rooted in
the organization’s culture than strategic thinking and planning. When conflicts
occur, the existing control systems prevail and strategy implementation suffers.
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