WA5

What is strategic management?

the firm’s actions to achieve its mission and vision as seen by its achievement of specific goals and
objectives

Why should management be strategic?

Management should be strategic in order to align with the goals of the company and also to cater to its
needs. For ex a company who engages with clients in person and through the cloud would need a
different approach than a manufacturing company. Just like how different managers have different roles
within a company so are their variances to their management and strategy.

Strategy Formulation- processes involved in creating or determining the strategies of the organization.

Strategy Implementation-The methods by which strategies are operationalized or executed within the
organization.

Corporate Strategy-set of strategic alternatives that an organization chooses from as it manages its
operations.

Synergy- when the interaction of two or more activities, such as those in a business, create a combined
effect greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Related/Unrelated Diversification-occurs when a firm operates multiple businesses within the same
industry or different industries.

Business Strategy- The set of strategic alternatives that an organization chooses from as it conducts
business

What is the difference between Corporate and Business strategy?

Corporate strategy looks at the business at a whole and figures out the best branding. This means that
they look at how the business stands alone even among other similar businesses and how to maximize
creating a name and solidifying customer operations and branding based on that. Compared to this
business strategy is more homed in on the company and what strategy the company can use to cater to
its clients and remain competitive with other businesses.

SWOT- Analyzes businesses’ components in order to get a read on their strengths and understand the
market as well as opponents’ strengths and weaknesses. SWOT Covers a company’s Strengths or what
they do well Weaknesses or what they could improve on Opportunities or what chances for growth or
expansion are there and Threats or the threats that they face to that growth or expansion such as
competition dissatisfaction etc.

What are you analyzing when you use SWOT analysis?

You are analyzing the company and its surrounding environment including rival companies customer
shareholders clients etc..

When is it a good idea to use SWOT?

When you need a clear idea of what the company does well and not so well in order to develop a
defining strategy that draws in customers.

UHCL:

S- UHCL offers a diverse enriching attempt a education that is centralized and focused on maximizing
student experience through not just school but clubs, volunteering, internship , leadership engagement
and outreach, career fairs and many more.

W- Many community colleges offer a similar scenario and may be cheaper or more conveniently
located. Small college campus may not cater to students with a need to be independent or go to a big
college.

O- Opportunities to gain interest from international students to come her and to further diversify the
college considering it is not as financially expensive as other colleges.

T- Community colleges may offer similar threats specifically considering the smaller colleges such as
clear lake university. The other aspect of this is that UHCL is a smaller branch of UH and that being so
students may prefer to go directly to university of Houston rather than UHCL.

UHCL:

V- UHCL is not very valuable because there are around 70 other community collages that resemble uhcl
and are tailored specifically to different things ( such as technical college or county college)

R- What is rare about UHCL (in my opinion) is that it has a great community which seeks to enrich the
lives of students (S) and propel them to a better future a rarity in community colleges.

I- I don’t believe UHCL unique quality can be easily imitated as a. UHCL has a special sense of
community that no one can truly imitate even if they have some aspect of it b. Unique things such as
the HLI (Hawk Leadership Institute) program and others are unique and specialized around UHCL and the
community of Clear-Lake as a whole.

O- This is absolutely supported by the organization. UHCL’s Department of Student Involvement and
Leadership caters towards engaging student leadership and pioneering community imitative and
connection between each other.

What is UHCL Competitive Advantage?

As I previously mentioned UHCL Competitive advantage is their inclusive community culture that allows
the entire clear lake community to be unified and that teaches students to be not only hard workers but
to engage and support one another.

Porters 5 Forces

Substitutes- High education doesn’t have many substitutes however there are some such as
homeschooling, online degree and trade school for those who wish to become a carpenter and
cosmetics school for aspiring MUA’s. Low

Suppliers- There are no suppliers on high education itself especially scince most schools get some
funding from the government but there are many things that a school need such as , textbooks furniture
common area office tools etc.. For these there are many suppliers except for textbooks so it may be
possible that textbook publishers raise the price but most of the burden of supply is put on students to
get their books do the hw themselves etc.. Low

Buyers- There are many prospective students or buyers to feed into the industry and even in 100,200
years it wont change the fact that people need to be educated. Low

New Entrants- There may be new colleges popping up left and right through the years but none of them
can really create a big disruption in the industry because school is a broad topic and there are many
nuances to it. Undergraduate or Graduate. Art school or medical school etc.. Low

Rivalry- There is no real industry that can rival the higher education industry because education is
necessary to understand the concepts and ideas used to enrich students’ future. In addition, education
is something that can always be used as they say you never stop learning. So, in this case I believe that
the Higher Education industry is safe from competition. Low

Intended Strategy- strategy as conceived by the top management tea for initial strategy implementation.

Realized Strategy-The actual strategy that is implemented.

Emergent Strategy- The decisions that emerge from the complex processes in which individual managers
interpret the intended strategy and adapt to changing external circumstances

Deliberate Strategy- A plan of action flowing from the intended strategy, that an organization chooses
and implements.

Strategic Focus-hen an organization is very clear about its mission and vision and has a coherent, well-
articulated strategy

OLC/Cost Leadership- Where companies lower the price below competitions to gain an advantage.

Differentiation Strategy- where competitive advantage is based on superior products or service.

Focus Strategy- concentrates on meeting the specialized needs of its customers

Can a firm be successful with a mixed low-cost differentiation strategy?

Yes and No. Let me explain As a student studying economics this semester the minimum The minimum
needed to make a product is Materials ( separated into direct and indirect materials) and labor (same
thing) Now the material is the main issue. Let’s say we make purses. As a purse company not only do we
have serious competition from other brand names, but we also have a struggle of making our product
unique. Let’s say we go with bedazzled purses. As in purses with high quality materials. So, let’s say to
upgrade our purses we decide to us Swarovski crystals. Well in order to differentiate our product with
good material not only are we going to be spending more but more labor is involved as well ( putting the
stones on the bag) Therefore this will naturally drive a higher price ( why stuff was so expensive with
inflation). I’m not saying it is impossible but to lessen the price below other companies will. A make
people think that this is a cheap product b drive us in to a loss. The most that any company can hope for
is to put some items on sale or reduce the price slightly.

Strategy Diamond- a framework for checking and communicating a strategy.

Arenas- Where will we be active

Vehicles- How will we get there?

Differentiators: how will we win?

Economic Logic: How will returns be obtained?

Tangible/Intangible asset- Tangible assets are real and physically exist (they depreciate) intangible assets
are not (aka brands)

Economic Logic- In terms of financing personal growth and strategy that will work in the long run

Staging and Pacing- How events effect personal growth and management

Before this chapter I didn’t consider the different facets of strategy that a company can have now I do