A term coined by Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel to describe a dramatic change in competitive forces. At that time, the leaders must give up the past, see closely how the industry is evolving and find new ways of competing. This point of dramatic change in the industry is known as Strategic Inflection Point. “a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end” Andrew S. Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive. For example, the arrival of containers marked a strategic inflection point in the shipping industry. The introduction of the IBM PC was a strategic inflection point in the computer industry. The emergence of large discount store chains like Walmart and Tesco may well turn out to Continue reading
Strategic Management Concepts
Relationship of Organizational Structure with Strategy and Culture
Relationship between Business Strategy and Structure Business Strategy primarily refers to the road-map laid out by an organization. The principal objective of strategy is to ensure that an organization achieves the set targets in order to sustain and grow in an increasingly competitive world. On the other hand, a structure is the manner in which the internal resources of a company get connected with each other. More specifically, structure is concerned with different groups that can be formed within an organization. For example, an organization having a functional structure will operate through the different functions such as Marketing, Finance, and Manufacturing. Business Strategy is the main driver that decides the structure an organization. Also, in case the structure of a company is not synchronized with its strategy, then the company may not be able to achieve the set targets. For example, a company with a diversified product portfolio and has Continue reading
Strategic Leadership – What Does Strategic Leaders Do?
Concept of Strategic Leadership Strategic Leadership provides the vision and direction for the growth and success of an organization. To successfully deal with change, all executives need the skills and tools for both strategy formulation and implementation. Managing change and ambiguity requires strategic leaders who not only provide a sense of direction, but who can also build ownership and alignment within their workgroups to implement change. Leaders face the continuing challenge of how they can meet the expectations of those who placed them there. Addressing these expectations usually takes the form of strategic decisions and actions. For a strategy to succeed, the leader must be able to adjust it, as conditions require. But leaders cannot learn enough, fast enough, and do enough on their own to effectively adapt the strategy and then define, shape and executive the organizational response. If leaders are to win they must reply on the prepared Continue reading
Seven Strategy Questions
“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of the wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.” – Peter Drucker Executing a successful business strategy often requires making tough, sometimes uncomfortable choices. But we frequently avoid making choices in the mistaken belief that we can have it all. Robert Simons, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, addresses this issue in his latest book, Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution. He identifies what he calls the questions that will “stress test your strategy”. The goal of this seven strategy questions is to help marketers identify the weakest parts of their business strategy in order to understand where confusion and inefficiency lie. Simons presents the seven strategy questions you and your team must regularly explore together: Who is your primary customer? Have you organized your company to deliver maximum value Continue reading
Key Elements of Strategic Management
Strategic management is defined as a process of specifying the objectives of the organization, developing policies and planning to achieve the objectives, and then allocating resources so that plans can be implemented. Strategic management is considered to be the highest level of managerial activity that the top management of the organization performs and also the executive team. Strategic management normally provides the overall direction of the entire organization. Strategic management is a set of actions and decisions that result to the formulation and implementation of approaches designed to achieve the objectives of the organization. This is a continuous process that is normally involved with the attempt of matching the organization with the changing environment in a manner that is advantageous. Strategic management is extremely critical in the survival of the organization. Elements of Strategic Management Organizations are supposed to select the directions in which it will move towards. Strategic management Continue reading
Organization Structure to Control Systems Design
A major factor differentiates the automatic control system from the management control system, is the exercise of control by human beings in the latter case. In automatic control systems, the human element is missing. It is for this reason that an understanding of organization behavior is important for the proper perception of management control systems and processes. Further, as the major focus of the control system is on the performance evaluation of the organizational sub-units, the control system designer should also have an undemanding of the organization structure. Structure refers to the way the enterprise’s organized so as to enable the total task of the organization to be performed in an efficient and effective way. The organizational structure is essentially the arrangement of its sub-systems with authority and responsibility relations. Thus, it refers to whether the organization is centralized or decentralized or whether it emphasizes line or staff or how Continue reading