STRATEGIC

MANAGEMENT
Iram Mushtaq
What is Strategic Planning?
■ Strategic planning is an organizational management activity
that is used to
o set priorities,
o focus energy and resources,
o strengthen operations,
o ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working
toward common goals,
o establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and
o assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a
changing environment
Strategic Planning
■ It is a disciplined effort that produces fundamental
decisions and actions that shape and guide what an
organization is, who it serves, what it does, and
why it does it, with a focus on the future
■ Effective strategic planning articulates not only
where an organization is going and the actions
needed to make progress, but also how it will know
if it is successful
What is a Strategic Plan?

■ A strategic plan is a document used

o to communicate with the organization the
organizations goals,
o the actions needed to achieve those goals and
o all of the other critical elements developed
during the planning exercise
What is Strategic Management? 
■ Strategic management is the comprehensive collection
of ongoing activities and processes that organizations use
to systematically coordinate and align resources
and actions with mission, vision and strategy throughout
an organization. 
■ Strategic management activities transform the static plan
into a system that provides strategic performance feedback
to decision making and enables the plan to evolve and
grow as requirements and other circumstances change. 
What is Strategy Execution?

■ Strategy Execution is basically synonymous with

Strategy Management and amounts to the systematic
implementation of a strategy.
What Are the Steps in Strategic
Planning & Management?
■ There are many different frameworks and
methodologies for strategic planning and
management. While there are no absolute rules
regarding the right framework, most follow a
similar pattern and have common attributes. 
Phases of Strategic Planning
1) analysis or assessment--- where an understanding of the
current internal and external environments is developed,
2) strategy formulation--- where high level strategy is developed
and a basic organization level strategic plan is documented 
3) strategy execution--- where the high level plan is translated
into more operational planning and action items, and
4) evaluation or sustainment / management phase--- where
ongoing refinement and evaluation of performance, culture,
communications, data reporting, and other strategic management
issues occurs
SWOT Analysis
■ A SWOT analysis is a strategic evaluation framework used to
look at a company.
■ SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats.
■ The first step of a SWOT analysis is to evaluate the positive
and negative aspects of the company.
■ Once the strengths and weaknesses have been determined, the
company can look beyond its own organization to evaluate
opportunities and threats from the market or competitors.
Application of SWOT Analysis
■ SWOT analyses can be applied to an entire company or
organization, or individual projects within a single department
■ Most commonly, SWOT analysis are used at the organizational
level to determine how closely a business is aligned with its
growth trajectories and success benchmarks
■ but they can also be used to ascertain how well a particular
project is performing according to initial projections.
Strengths

■ The first element of a SWOT analysis is Strengths

■ This element addresses things that your company or project
does especially well
■ This could be something intangible, such as your company’s
brand attributes, or something more easily defined such as
the unique selling proposition of a particular product line.
■ It could also be your people, your literal human resources:
strong leadership, or a great engineering team
Weaknesses

■ Once you’ve figured out your strengths, it’s time to turn that critical self-
awareness on your weaknesses.
■ What’s holding your business or project back?
■ This element can include organizational challenges like a shortage of
skilled people and financial or budgetary limitations
■ It may also include weaknesses in relation to other companies in your
industry, such as the lack of a clearly defined unique selling proposition
(USP) in a crowded market.
■ A unique selling proposition (USP) is a factor that differentiates a
product from its competitors, such as the lowest cost, the highest quality
or the first-ever product of its kind. A USP could be thought of as “what
you have that competitors don't.”
Opportunities

■ Next up is Opportunities.
■ Can’t keep up with the volume of leads being generated by
your marketing team? That’s an opportunity.
■ Is your company developing an innovative new idea that will
open up new markets or demographics? That’s another
opportunity.
■ In short, this element covers everything you could do
to improve sales, grow as a company, or advance your
organization’s mission.
Threats

■ The final element of a SWOT analysis is Threats.

■ Everything that poses a risk to either your company itself or its
likelihood of success or growth
■ This could include things like emerging competitors, changes
in regulatory law, financial risks, and virtually everything else
that could potentially jeopardize the future of your company or
project.
Internal and External Factors
Internal and External Factors
■ Many companies further compartmentalize the SWOT elements into two
distinct subgroups: Internal and External.
■ Typically, Strengths and Weaknesses are considered internal factors, in
that they are the result of organizational decisions under the control of
your company or team. A high churn rate, for example, would be
categorized as a weakness, but improving a high churn rate is still within
your control, making it an internal factor.
■ Similarly, emerging competitors would be categorized as a threat in a
SWOT analysis, but since there’s very little you can do about this, this
makes it an external factor. This is why you may have seen SWOT
analyses referred to as Internal-External Analyses or IE matrices.
Internal and External Factors

■ Similarly, emerging competitors would be categorized as a

threat in a SWOT analysis, but since there’s very little you can
do about this, this makes it an external factor.
■ Subcategorizing your four primary elements into Internal and
External factors isn’t necessarily critical to the success of your
SWOT analysis, but it can be helpful in determining your next
move or evaluating the degree of control you have over a given
problem or opportunity.