Comments on: First steps of strategic analysis http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/ - The Blog on Strategy and Management Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:34:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: makita power tools http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/#comment-6161 Wed, 07 May 2008 22:02:17 +0000 http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/#comment-6161 <strong>makita power tools...</strong> I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.... makita power tools…

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….

]]> by: Oliver http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/#comment-2904 Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:16:09 +0000 http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/#comment-2904 To answer your question we have to look at the term strategic management first. In a historical perspective the term “strategic management” can be described as young term. Strategic management as a concept to overcome the limitations and weak points of traditional strategic planning came into existence, since problems of implementation and execution of strategic plans were observed in practice. Despite its advantages compared to pure long term planning, many organizations experienced problems and implementation barriers in their strategic planning processes. Some scientists summarize the following reasons : • Strategic planning became an over-formalised process, causing to an organizational paralysis by strategic analysis. Results of planning activities were fixed without any possibility to respond to changes and therefore became outdated. • In the case that planning activities were done by a specialised planning department, line managers are not involved enough with the planning process; causing two major problems. Experiences and ideas from line managers are not considered. Furthermore this elimination of line managers is likely to cause acceptance problems. • Other problems occurred if a decentralised strategic planning was established. In this case planning activities were done by different business units. Cultural and political aspects represented barriers for developing new ideas and for repositioning business segments. Due to these experiences the concept of strategic planning was advanced to another more comprehensive concept in the 1980s. The comprehensive concept is called “strategic management”. In comparison to the logic-rational elements of strategic planning the following additional elements are considered within strategic management: • A corporate vision is developed and introduced to the mission statement. • Companywide, external orientated strategic thinking is promoted. • Managers, who are responsible for strategy execution and implementation, participate in strategy formulation. • Organizational skills that are essential for formulation and implementation (e.g. organizational structure, functional skills), will be developed. • Corporate culture will be influenced to ensure its alignment with the corporate strategy. • Organization will establish a scope for development to enable emergent strategies and to support the management team to pick those strategies out as a central theme. • To support the transformation process a systematic change management will be used. • To implement and to monitor strategy systematic tools and instruments (e.g. balanced scorecard) will be employed. Due to its very broad nature mission is the first question that should be answered by an organization: What business are we in? You have to consider that mission describes / expresses ther overall purpose of the organization. Instead vision describes the desired future state (other perspective) and a strategy describes the long term direction. Mission should be in line with the expectations and values of major shareholders. Furthermore it should consider boundaries and scope of an organization. If an organization cannot answer the question mentioned above, is will face difficulties to develop visions and strategies. To answer your question we have to look at the term strategic management first. In a historical perspective the term “strategic management” can be described as young term. Strategic management as a concept to overcome the limitations and weak points of traditional strategic planning came into existence, since problems of implementation and execution of strategic plans were observed in practice. Despite its advantages compared to pure long term planning, many organizations experienced problems and implementation barriers in their strategic planning processes. Some scientists summarize the following reasons :
• Strategic planning became an over-formalised process, causing to an organizational paralysis by strategic analysis. Results of planning activities were fixed without any possibility to respond to changes and therefore became outdated.
• In the case that planning activities were done by a specialised planning department, line managers are not involved enough with the planning process; causing two major problems. Experiences and ideas from line managers are not considered. Furthermore this elimination of line managers is likely to cause acceptance problems.
• Other problems occurred if a decentralised strategic planning was established. In this case planning activities were done by different business units. Cultural and political aspects represented barriers for developing new ideas and for repositioning business segments.

Due to these experiences the concept of strategic planning was advanced to another more comprehensive concept in the 1980s. The comprehensive concept is called “strategic management”. In comparison to the logic-rational elements of strategic planning the following additional elements are considered within strategic management:
• A corporate vision is developed and introduced to the mission statement.
• Companywide, external orientated strategic thinking is promoted.
• Managers, who are responsible for strategy execution and implementation, participate in strategy formulation.
• Organizational skills that are essential for formulation and implementation (e.g. organizational structure, functional skills), will be developed.
• Corporate culture will be influenced to ensure its alignment with the corporate strategy.
• Organization will establish a scope for development to enable emergent strategies and to support the management team to pick those strategies out as a central theme.
• To support the transformation process a systematic change management will be used.
• To implement and to monitor strategy systematic tools and instruments (e.g. balanced scorecard) will be employed.

Due to its very broad nature mission is the first question that should be answered by an organization: What business are we in? You have to consider that mission describes / expresses ther overall purpose of the organization. Instead vision describes the desired future state (other perspective) and a strategy describes the long term direction. Mission should be in line with the expectations and values of major shareholders. Furthermore it should consider boundaries and scope of an organization. If an organization cannot answer the question mentioned above, is will face difficulties to develop visions and strategies.

]]> by: Sarah http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/#comment-2901 Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:24:19 +0000 http://www.eddielogic.com/2008/02/03/first-steps-of-strategic-analysis/#comment-2901 I have a question about the strategic management. I hope that you will give me some suggestions. If the mission is the first step of the strategic management, any reasons? Thanks. I have a question about the strategic management. I hope that you will give me some suggestions.
If the mission is the first step of the strategic management, any reasons?

Thanks.

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