Assignment Of Strategic Management Submitted To, Prof. D.S.

Grewal Date Of Submittion : 25-01-2012 Submitted By, Mandeep Kaur Rollno. 100142243363 MBA 4 Sem.s
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Strategy:Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs ofmarkets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations" In other words, strategy is about: * Where is the business trying to get to in the long-term (direction) * Which markets should a business compete in and what kind of activities are involved in such markets? (markets; scope) * How can the business perform better than the competition in those markets? (advantage)? * What resources (skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence, facilities) are required in order to be able to compete? (resources)? * What external, environmental factors affect the businesses' ability to compete? (environment)? * What are the values and expectations of those who have power in and around the business? (stakeholders)

Scope of Strategy Management:Strategies exist at several levels in any organisation - ranging from the overall business (or group of businesses) through to individuals working in it. Corporate Strategy - is concerned with the overall purpose and scope of the business to meet stakeholder expectations. This is a crucial level since it is heavily influenced by investors in the business and acts to guide strategic decision-making throughout the business. Corporate strategy is often stated explicitly in a "mission statement". Corporate strategy is formulated by top management to oversee the interest and operations of organisations made up of more than one line of business. The major questions at this level are; what kind of business should the company be engaged in? What are the goals and expectations for each business? How should resources be allocated to reach these goals? In developing corporate goals, * Peter Drucker suggested, corporations need to decide where they want to be in eight areas: market standing, innovation; productivity; physical and financial resources; profitability; managerial performance and development; worker performance and attitudes; and public responsibility.

Business Unit Strategy- Business strategy is concerned with managing the interests and operations of a particular business. It deals with such questions as: How will the business compete within its market? What products/services should it offer? Which customer does it seek to serve? How will resources be distributed within the business? Business strategy attempts to determine what approach the business should take to its market and how it should conduct itself, given its resources and conditions of the market. Many corporations have extensive interests in different businesses, and top managers have difficulty organising their corporations' complex and varied activities. One approach to dealing with this problem is to create strategic business units, (SBU) each of which groups all business activities that produce a particular type of product or service and treat them as a single business unit. The corporate level provides a set of guidelines for the SBUs, which develop their own strategies on the business-unit level. The corporate level then reviews the SBU plans and negotiates changes if necessary. In single business corporations, corporate and business strategy will be the same.

Operational Strategy - is concerned with how each part of the business is organised to deliver the corporate and business-unit level strategic direction. Operational strategy therefore focuses on issues of resources, processes, people etc.

Strategic Decision Making:In general strategy is defined as "the long term direction of an organisation". However to be more specific and based on characteristic , it involves , strategy may be defined as the long term direction and scope of an organisation to achieve competitive advantage through the configuration of resources within a changing environment for the fulfillment of stakeholders aspirations and expectations.

Vision:An aspirational description of what an organization would like to achieve or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term future. It is intended to serves as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action.

Mission:A mission statement is a statement of the purpose of a company or organization. The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. It provides "the framework or context within which the company's strategies are formulated.

Objective:Objective is Intent or implication attributed to an ambiguous statement by a neutral, reasonable person familiar with the context and/or the associated circumstances.

Goal:An observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed timeframe.

SWOT Analysis:-

The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business and organizations. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Information about the origins and inventors of SWOT

analysis is below. The SWOT analysis headings provide a good framework for reviewing strategy, position and direction of a company or business proposition, or any other idea. Setting the objective should be done after the SWOT analysis has been performed. This would allow achievable goals or objectives to be set for the organization.

Strengths: characteristics of the business, or project team that give it an advantage over others Weaknesses (or Limitations): are characteristics that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others Opportunities: external chances to improve performance (e.g. make greater profits) in the environment Threats: external elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project

ETOP:Environment Threat and Opportunity Profile can be defined as the process by which organizations monitor their relevant environment to identify opportunities and threats affecting their business for the purpose of taking strategic decisions.Appraising the Environment:

In order to draw a clear picture of what opportunities and threats are faced by the organization at a given time. It is necessary to appraise the environment. This is done by being aware of the factors that affect environmental appraisal identifying the environmental factors and structuring the results of this environmental appraisal.structuring

PESTEL Analysis:

Political factors. These refer to government policy such as the degree of intervention in the economy. What goods and services does a government want to provide? To what extent does it believe in subsidising firms? What are its priorities in terms of business support? Political decisions can impact on many vital areas for business such as the education of the workforce, the health of the nation and the quality of the infrastructure of the economy such as the road and rail system. Economic factors. These include interest rates, taxation changes, economic growth, inflation and exchange rates. As you will see throughout the "Foundations of Economics" book economic change can have a major impact on a firm's behaviour. For example: - higher interest rates may deter investment because it costs more to borrow - a strong currency may make exporting more difficult because it may raise the price in - inflation may provoke higher wage demands from employees and raise costs - higher national income growth may boost demand for a firm's products

Social factors. Changes in social trends can impact on the demand for a firm's products and the availability and willingness of individuals to work. In the UK, for example, the population has been ageing. This has increased the costs for firms who are committed to pension payments for their employees because their staff are living longer. It also means some firms such as Asda have started to recruit older employees to tap into this growing labour pool. The ageing population also has impact on demand: for example, demand for sheltered accommodation and medicines has increased whereas demand for toys is falling. Technological factors: new technologies create new products and new processes. MP3 players, computer games, online gambling and high definition TVs are all new markets created by technological advances. Online shopping, bar coding and computer aided design are all improvements to the way we do business as a result of better technology. Technology can reduce costs, improve quality and lead to innovation. These developments can benefit consumers as well as the organisations providing the products.

Environmental factors: environmental factors include the weather and climate change. Changes in temperature can impact on many industries including farming, tourism and insurance. With major climate changes occurring due to global warming and with greater environmental awareness this external factor is becoming a significant issue for firms to consider. The growing desire to protect the environment is having an impact on many industries such as the travel and transportation industries (for example, more taxes being placed on air travel and the success of hybrid cars) and the general move towards more environmentally friendly products and processes is affecting demand patterns and creating business opportunities. Legal factors: these are related to the legal environment in which firms operate. In recent years in the UK there have been many significant legal changes that have affected firms' behaviour. The introduction of age discrimination and disability discrimination legislation, an increase in the minimum wage and greater requirements for firms to recycle are examples of relatively recent laws that affect an organisation's actions. Legal changes can affect a firm's costs (e.g. if new systems and procedures have to be developed) and demand (e.g. if the law affects the likelihood of customers buying the good or using the service).

Bibliography

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http://www.businessballs.com/swotanalysisfreetemplate.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/what_is_strategy.htm http://www.oldham.gov.uk/community_engagement_strategy.pdf http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/vision-statement.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_statement http://www.einsteincollege.ac.in/Assets/Department/Lecturer%20notes/MBA/STRATEGIC%20MANAGE MENT.pdf http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199296378/01student/additional/page_12.htm