Strategic Management: Strategy Formulation, Implementation, Control

This essay delves into the core principles of strategic management, emphasizing its role in ensuring sustained business performance through meticulous planning, execution, and control. It highlights the importance of aligning strategic content with a company's mission and vision, adapting to external environmental changes, and fostering a dynamic strategy development process. The essay further explores various strategy types, including corporate, commercial, and practical strategies, underscoring the significance of company policies in guiding strategic actions. It also addresses the crucial aspects of strategy implementation through agendas, financial plans, and procedures, as well as the continuous assessment and control mechanisms necessary for performance evaluation and corrective actions. The essay concludes by stressing the influence of organizational culture and effective communication in successful strategy execution, ultimately contributing to a company's sustainable competitive advantage. Desklib provides a platform to explore similar documents and enhance your understanding.

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Strategic management
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Introduction
Strategic management can be defined as managerial activities and
decisions which govern the persistent performance of any business. It
encompasses environmental analysis (internal and external), strategic
planning formulation, strategy enactment, assessment, and control.
Strategic management underscores the evaluation of external prospects and
risks by a company’s strengths and flaws. This emphasizes on crafting fresh initiatives
and the necessity for strategic content which accepts environmental facts to inform plans
gradually. This is achieved by expounding on the current missions and objectives, targeting
expenditure, redesigning a company’s plans, besides fundraising together with other operational
phases. Furthermore, strategic content is an assortment to help acquire experiences from other
individuals – inclusive of workforces and frontrunners – into a collective vision. Strategic
management allows corporations to craft value for their clients (Elshamly, 2013). It also enables
the company to adjust to variations in its outside atmosphere, for instance, competition.
Therefore, it is vital that the strategy content, such as goals, management priorities, and
initiatives remain consistent with the company’s general mission and vision. Thus, strategy
expansion is a dynamic variable within the company design plan since it illustrates a company’s
selected path to competitive achievement (Obaga, 2016).
Strategy development process
An eminent and clear strategy designing process is crucial in supporting actual strategy
execution. In various companies, this happens in the form of a yearly strategic scheduling
practice. This procedure ought to be systematically articulated, with a particular commencement

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and conclusion and unmistakably outlined sectors. The duties and roles of the members in the
method should be elucidated, and the outcome of the procedure (the planned strategies, goals and
initiatives) ought to be unambiguously detailed (Boulton, 2010, p. 31). Moreover, many authors
advocate that strategic management should be connected to the objective setting practices of the
corporations to facilitate personal goals to be connected to the planned goals of the corporation
in objective-setting deliberations among leaders and the workforces. Realizing this objective at
the inception is influential in stimulating the desired social change and incentive in workforces,
which sets the execution procedure in a favorable position (TOMA, 2016, p.184).
Procedural justice in the process of strategy formulation is an essential factor since it
impacts on the commitment, trust and structural coordination of leaders in subordinate
corporations. It is debated that in case a subsidiary’s administration views the process of strategy
formulation as being unbiased, open, reliable, and embracing their contribution, this generates
higher levels of commitment to the structural good, confidence in management, and communal
congruence with their management coworkers, and consequently they are motivated to execute
the plan (Hammer, 2012, p. 915). Different supportive outlooks centered on revelatory social
interaction reveal that corporations are communally constructed schemes of collective
importance. Whenever this fair procedure is lacking, the adverse effect will be evident in the
organization. This also applies in the local corporations. Various studies have revealed that
organizations can secure employee investments by allowing them to participate in the process of
strategy formulation (TOMA, 2016, 184).
The strategy content

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Proper implementation starts with appropriate strategic plans. Studies for identifying
hindrances to the implementation of strategies have been conducted widely alongside the
dynamics necessary to promote effective enactment. For instance, by use of survey data sampled
from 110 directors working in various corporations, some study that was conducted showed that
a remarkable number of the participants ranked the choice of a comprehensive strategy to be the
leading aspect for effective implementation of the strategy. Thus, a strategy which is not
profoundly comprehensive will one way, or another fail, in spite of applying the best efforts in
the implementation. Majority of company managers often mention the necessity of starting with
an explicitly outlined strategy which contains good ideas and concepts as vital in supporting
effective implementation. Other studies have introduced the idea of achieved vs. projected
strategy; perceiving that despite how well a corporation strategizes its plan; a unique strategy
may arise (Jagoda, 2016, 746). From time to time companies achieve strategies which were not
projected per se and this is termed as the emergent strategy.
The different strategies in organizations
a). Corporate strategy
This strategy describes a corporate’s general direction regarding its overall outlook on
expansion and the running of its various branches and merchandise. Three main classes are
applied in corporate strategy, and these include stability, growth and retrenchment strategies
(Buckley, 2008, p.86).
b). Commercial strategy
This strategy commonly occurs at the corporate unit or merchandise level. It underscores
on the competitiveness improvement, upgrading the services and good offered by the

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organizational unit in a particular market segment or the broader field. In the commercial
strategy, there’re two key classes which influence its success, and these are co-operative and
competitive strategies.
c). Practical strategy
This strategy gives line taken by a corporate unit to achieve company along with the
business unit strategies and goals through boosting resource efficiency. The business unit is
under the umbrella of the company, and thus their strategies are almost similar.
Company policy
The company policies are very critical factors in the formulation of its strategies. They
are guidelines and rules which articulate the confines in which action ought to happen. Policies
provide broad guidelines for managers to make choices which pool the strategy formulation
along with its application. The company policies can ensure that the personnel within the
company take the perfect decisions and engage in actions which uphold the corporate’s mission,
strategies, and goals.
Implementation of the strategies
The company policies and strategies should be put into action using the development
agendas, financial plans, and procedures which translates into strategy implementation. During
implementation, some changes may be encountered in the general organization, management
system and culture in the entire corporation. The agendas, financial plans and procedures are
three methods for implementation of the strategy. An agenda is an account of the events or
phases required to realize a particular program, and this gives the orientation to the strategy.

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Similarly, a financial plan is a report of a company’s agendas concerning money. It is
imperative during organization and control; it gives the in-depth costs of the agendas. Lastly,
procedures are a scheme of successive techniques or phases which describe comprehensively
how a specific job or task can be accomplished (Bryson, 2010, p.512).
Assessment and control
Assessment and control phases cannot be skipped since they allow the company owners
to tell if they are improving or not. In this process, the actions and performance outcomes of the
company are checked to compare the real performance of the company with the anticipated
performance. Performance comprises of the tangible results of the process of strategic
management. Assessment requires feedback too. To develop a company, the managers should
correct or revise the inappropriate choices which could have been made earlier during the
strategy implementation (Boyne, 2010, p. 188).
The organizational culture
Strategies are frequently formulated and executed within the framework of a
corporation’s culture. Therefore, it is essential to align the cultural standards and demeanor of the
corporation along with the activities needed to implement strategy so that it is executed expertly.
Strategic enterprises which are comparable to the competencies and culture of a corporation may
guarantee prompt and effective implementation. For instance, a company which desires to
implement a cost-management strategy should uphold a culture of economy and prudence, while
a firm in pursuit of a diversity strategy hinged on technology leadership and innovation may
involve a culture which sustains innovation and creativity, partnership and the readiness to
accept modifications (Bryson, 2009, p. 178).

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Organization culture epitomizes a vital aspect of a company’s existing state of affairs.
Resisting the activities and conduct ensuing from the organizational culture pose an intimidating
trial in any success of the process execution. This, together with the ubiquity of a company’s
culture, necessitates that administration recognize fundamental scopes of their company culture
in addition to its influence on worker-related variables for instance fulfillment, commitment,
interrelation, performance, etcetera, as a crucial aspect before executing strategy. A central part
of the strategy execution process must take into consideration structural culture. The influence of
primary culture on cooperation, coordination, and communication amongst different functions,
sections plus levels of administration should be taken into account before implementing the
strategic plans. Execution efforts which uphold collective values and improve the workstation
support initiatives will be highly successful (Walker, 2013, p. 110).
Communication
Communication when implementing the strategy primarily denotes the ways by which
the plan is amended throughout the company. Communicating a new strategy effectively and
efficient underlying its rationale is crucial in implementing the strategy successfully. Therefore,
communication must be conveyed to the entire personnel. Efficient communication is crucial
mainly when the management intends to reach out to the staff who did not participate in the
formulation of the strategy. Communication is also vital during the making and conveying of
collective insights, beliefs and values amongst various levels of the personnel where everyone in
the company needs to know the course the company will go once the strategy has been
implemented (Andrews, 2012, p.80.
Conclusion

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The significance of strategic managing in administrating corporates cannot be
exaggerated. Formulating strategic objectives that can set basic course and that can guide
allocation of resources in the company is vital. Creating strategy, efficient execution, monitoring,
assessing performance and developing counteractive interventions whenever deem essential, are
among the critical dynamics which can help companies to establish and maintain competitive
advantage which is sustainable.

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