Strategic Management

1
Strategic Management

• Macmillan and Tampoe
• Oxford University Press 2000

2
Introduction to Strategy and Strategic Management
Chapter 2 What is Strategy?
3
Strategy a managers point of view

• Strategic Management
• relates to the future of the enterprise
• Is about taking action now to secure the future
• The future is uncertain
• Decision about the future are made on incomplete
  and wrong information
• Prepares an organisation for future success

4
Definitions of Strategy

• Strategy
• is knowing the business you propose to carry out
  (Xenophon)
• defines what a business is in or is to be and the
  kind of company it is or is to be (Andrews)
• is a rule for making decisions (Ansoff)
• The way in which a corporation endeavours to
  differentiate itself positively from its
  competition (Ohmae)
• Ideas and actions to conceive and secure the
  future (Macmillan Tampoe)

5
Military Strategy some lessons

• Originated to help armies win battles
• Emphasises winning
• Zero-sum game
• Emphasises leadership
• Focus on taking action to achieve desired aims
• Where the analogy breaks down
• No customer to satisfy in business sense
• Assumes simple hierarchical structure
• Assumes obedience to orders

6
Other strategic themes

• Strategy has political overtones and benefits
• Academic contribution to strategy offering
  multiple ways if thinking about strategy
• Practitioners contribution is of practical ways
  of evolving and implementing strategy

7
There is no one size fits all strategy

• Strategy making is more an art than a science
• Our understanding of strategy making is imperfect
  but growing
• New strategic approaches are often created by
  entrepreneurs in the heat of battle (e.g., Sloan,
  Grove, Welch)