Strategic Management

The scope of Corporate Management and Strategic Planning is concerned with the complexity arising out of ambiguous and non-routine situations within organizations rather than operation-specific implications. This is a major challenge for managers, consultants, corporate executives and professional security personnel who are used to managing on a day-to-day basis the resources they control.

It can be a particular problem because of the background of managers who may typically have been trained, perhaps over many years, to undertake operational tasks and responsibilities. For example, Accountants tend to see problems in financial terms, while corporate marketing managers in marketing terms, and so on.

Each aspect in itself is important, but none is adequate alone. The manager or management consultant who aspires to manage, or influence strategy, needs to develop a capacity to take an overview, to conceive the whole rather than just part of the situation facing an organization. Because strategic management is characterized by its complexity, it is also necessary to make decisions and judgments based on the conceptualization of difficult issues.

• Strategy can be seen as the matching of the activities of an organization to the environment in which it operates.
• Strategic decisions are therefore likely to affect operational decisions.
• Strategic decisions are likely to be concerned with or affect the long term direction of an organization.
• Strategic decisions are normally about trying to achieve some advantages for the organization.
• Strategic decisions are likely to be concerned with the scope of an organization’s activities