Management: Strategic Planning and Competitive Advantage

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Description of the scenario.........................................................................................................2
Strategic environment................................................................................................................2
Classifying information for management purposes...................................................................4
Strategic planning.......................................................................................................................6
Competitive advantage...............................................................................................................8
Managing for competitive advantage.......................................................................................10
Understanding and causing consensus.....................................................................................12
An analysis and constant view of change................................................................................14
Outsourcing and privacy..........................................................................................................15
Information as an asset in itself................................................................................................16
Reference..................................................................................................................................18

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Description of the scenario
ABC Company is a London based company that is known for selling electronic goods
online. The mission of the company is to expand its distribution centre in Manchester as well
as Edinburgh. The aim of the company for the current year is to make the availability of
online sales possible for all the countries involved in the European Union. The strategic use
of the information system as well as the information available is taken into account so that it
can strive for competitive advantage in the market. The scenario is to demonstrate the
importance of strategic priorities of the business organisation so that positive contribution can
be made to the performance of the organisation. The possibility and effectiveness of change
as a constant feature for the development of a proper organisational environment can be taken
into account so that association with undertaking risk mitigation initiatives can be taken into
account. The strategic management of change in an organisation can be associated with
achieving the performance objectives and competitive advantage of the business.
Strategic environment
The assessment of the strategic environment can be considered as a systematic
decision process, which aims to ensure environmental sustainability as well as aspects, which
are considered effective for the formulation of strategic policy. As stated by Kaplan and
Atkinson (2015) it helps in making plans and programs keeping in mind a structured and
rigorous approach towards a participative as well as open and transparent environmental
impact. Ansoff et al. (2018) is of the opinion that the application of the strategic environment
can be made can be used by public planning authorities so that a participative and an able-
bodied EIA based process can be taken into account. In this regard, from the words of
Laudon and Laudon (2016) it can be said that the application of the strategic environment

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analysis can be made towards policies that consists of flexibility as well as legitimate
legislative proposals for planning.
Therefore, from the evidence provided by Noe et al. (2017) it can be said that the
application of the strategic environment can be used to understand the factors involved in
trying to gain evidence for proper sustainable development and an improved governance for
providing substantive focus with respect to questioning and issues regarding policy making
policies. Thus, as stated by Holling (2017) for a strategic environment to work in an effective
manner, it is necessary that it take place in a structured and tiered organisational setting so
that decision-making assessment can be made properly.
In the case of ABC Company, it is necessary that the strategic environment be taken
into consideration based on the competitive advantage that may be derived. As pointed out by
Fayol (2016) the strategic environment is considered as one of the most important aspects,
which can help in the expansion of a company. It has already been seen that the company
aims to expand its online sales corporation towards the European Union. Therefore, the
application of the strategic environment can help ABC Company gain an assessment of the
European Union and its progress towards the expansion of the sales. As observed by
Christopher (2016) with most of the members of the European Union countries implementing
a directive approach towards the strategic environment factors, it is necessary to consider the
implementation of the directive principals as stated by the European Union.
In this regard, it can be said that for ABC Company to compete in a competitive
environment, the necessity can be to develop an environmental impact that can help in
cascading down the decision making impact in the business. At the same time, as observed by
Meredith, Mantel Jr, and Shafer (2017) the changes implemented can help in reducing the
amount of work required so that a handover procedure of the business can be overseen. Thus

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for ABC Company, the application of the strategic environment assessment can be based on
identifying every factor which can be involved in the decision making of the business.
In this regard, from the evidence gathered by Kerzner (2017) it can be said that
assessment of the environment need to be done so that the aim and structure of the
organisation can be taken into account. For ABC Company, the strategic environment
directive can be applied for planning and formulating policies directed at expansion. As
stated by Fleisher and Bensoussan (2015) for instance, the analysis of the political assessment
of each of the European Union countries needs to be taken into consideration so that impact
of the environment along with the economic and social factors are made available in the
market. Thus, for becoming a successful organisation, it is necessary that ABC Company
include the sustainability programmes on its electronic products before gaining an expansion
into the market.
Classifying information for management purposes
Information gathering, sharing as well as communicating with colleagues and
managers need to be considered as important for the success of an organisation. Therefore,
from the words of Laseter et al. (2017) it can be said that classification of information need to
be done so that proper managerial consideration can be taken and thus, it can lead to the
development of a proper standard or process for success in an organisation. Chen et al.
(2017) stated that some of the information that is required to be maintained by an
organisation includes the time standards, design standards, nature and utilisation of important
processes as well as the competitive advantage that can be gained. Thus, Jia et al. (2017) is of
the opinion that it can be said that classified information are usually the top-secret
information that is required to be kept confidential on most occasions.

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Information
Characteristics Management hierarchy Application
Action vs non-action
Recurring vs non
recurring
Internal vs External
Superior level
Middle level
Top-level
Planning
Control
Knowledge
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As stated by Liu and Tyagi (2017) the classification is made so that interest of the
managers can be maintained and employees do not get to be involved in undertaking any
decisions regarding the classification of the information. Therefore, from the evidence
collected by Grant (2016) an analysis can be made about the manner in which information
classification can take place so that categorisation of the important and non-important
information can be undertaken. Xu et al. (2017) is of the opinion that this can provide a
business with facilitation that can aid in the sharing of information for purposes required for
an organisation. The various categories by which classification of information is made are
provided in the figure.
Figure 1: Classification of information
(Source: Oshri, Kotlarsky and Willcocks 2015)
From the above figure, it can be seen that information classification can be done on
three levels. As stated by Globerman and Vining (2017) these levels have extensive
importance in an organisation and thus need to be taken into consideration on a serious
manner. In the case of ABC Company, it can be said that such classification can be useful for