Strategic Management

Strategic Management is the art and science of planning the business of a company at the highest level. It is the foremost responsibility and duty of the leaders of the company.

Strategic Management is building a solid foundation of the business and then to achieve the purpose of the company through each and every individual employed in it.  The strategic management team has the onus of answering itself the following three questions:-

• What are the company objectives?
•  How best to achieve those objectives?
• What resources are required to make it happen?

Mission Statement:

Answering the first question leads to arrive at the Mission Statement - the ultimate objectives/goals of the company.  What is the best possible outcome the company can aspire to?   Reaching the “core objectives” can lead to assessing the environment within which the company has to operate, formulating plans as to how the company sees its role within that environment.

Vision Statement: 

  Establishing objectives to answer some of the unmet needs taking both long and short term view of what the company can offer.  This leads to the Vision Statement - stipulating the goals the company has for itself both in terms of financial and strategic objectives.

Once the Mission Statement and Vision Statement are set in view, a strategic plan should emerge for the second question how best to reach the goals.  Here comes the Strategic Management in `formulating a plan` by which the company can accomplish what it sets out to do.

Now the chain of command should be in place, people with the right skills, knowledge and experience with business needs and objectives.  From here the responsibility for processes and tasks should be spread across the full chain of command, delegating work to teams, and individuals, so that the company’s goals and objectives can be attained through the combined efforts of all employees.  It includes communication and responsibility, and deliverables what needs to be done and how the results can be measured.

Finally, strategic management entails allocation of resources to the various areas of business, so that no unit or team suffers for lack of funds in the search for achieving the goals.

Strategy Management is not static but a dynamic process.  Strategic Management should respond to both positive and negative factors pro-actively to handle challenges.It should replace old and outmoded ideas and practices with processes that will help meet new needs as they arise in the business environment.

Questions:

• What do you understand by `Strategic Management`?
• Explain both the Mission Statement and the Vision Statement of a company.