Strategic Management Report: Approaches, Examples, and Limitations

This report provides an in-depth analysis of strategic management, exploring various approaches used to achieve sustainable growth in dynamic business environments. It focuses on three key approaches: stakeholder, dynamic capabilities, and sustainability. The report defines each approach, detailing their principles and implementation strategies. It includes real-world examples, such as Coca-Cola and Adobe, to illustrate how these approaches are applied in practice. The report also examines the limitations of each approach, acknowledging potential negative outcomes that can decrease organizational efficiency. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of implementing these approaches systematically, aligning them with organizational goals and objectives while maintaining efficiency. The report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of strategic management, offering valuable insights for effective organizational management.

Running Head: Strategic Management
Strategic Management

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Executive Summary
Strategic management is the process of managing the functionalities of the organization in a
systematic manner with the aim to attain the sustainable growth in the dynamic business
environment. Under the process of the strategic management, strategies are being developed with
regards to obtain the effective returns. Some of the effective approaches to strategic management
are dynamic capabilities, stakeholder approach, and sustainability approach. Coca-Cola, Adobe
and other big companies are using these approaches in their workplaces in order to manage the
functionalities of the organization and to acquire large customer base. Along with the positive
outcomes of these approaches, certain negative outcomes also exists which decrease the
efficiency of the organization. Thus, it is required for the organization to implement these
approaches in the systematic order with relevance with attainment of the desired goals and the
objectives accordingly without decreasing the efficiency of the organization.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Significance of Strategic management.........................................................................................4
Strategic management approaches...................................................................................................5
Stakeholder Approach..................................................................................................................5
Example of this approach.........................................................................................................8
Dynamic capabilities..................................................................................................................10
Example of this approach.......................................................................................................11
Sustainable approach..................................................................................................................12
Example to this approach.......................................................................................................12
Limitation to these approaches......................................................................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
Strategic management is the process regulated and formatted by the top level management in
accordance with the policies and the rules of the top level management. These are developed in
order to acquire the market share as well as to attain the goals and the objectives in the target
market. The strategies developed and adopted by the management are the tools through which
the efficiency could easily be enhanced in order to attain the desired goals and the objectives for
the organization. Apart from these, there are certain actions which are implemented by the top
level management on behalf of the directors and the organizational owners in order to attain the
better and effective outcomes. For implementation of the tools and the techniques, organization
is required to analyse the internal and external environment. This will help the management to
adopt certain crucial set of strategies through which organization could be able to extract the
effective results from the implementation of the advanced strategies and tools. While
implementing the strategies within the organizational environment, it is required to analyse the
basic principles of strategic management through which the desired goals could be attained
easily. These principles are:
 Development of unique image in the target market;
 Setting the hierarchy of the activities in an appropriate manner with the motive to
enhance the organizational efficiency as well as to attain the growth objective;
 All the activities must be done in relation with the strategies set up by the organization
and along with this, it is necessary for the organization to direct the efforts of the
employees in the strategic mission of the organization (Peppard & Ward, 2016).

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Significance of Strategic management
Strategic management approaches
Various approaches and tools are available in the business environment in order to obtain the
desired outcomes. These approaches assist the management to perform the strategic management
process in an effective manner in the organization. All these approaches have unique capabilities
and efficiencies and in order to obtain the accurate results, it is required to identify the size, type
and nature of the business organization through which the activities could be performed in the
appropriate manner (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Following are certain approaches through
which the organizational workings could easily be managed:
Stakeholder Approach
It is the approach which helps the management to focus over the stakeholders of the organization
to identify their requirement with the motive of accomplishment of the goals in an effective
manner. Stakeholders are the essential element of the organization and these are the people or
group of people interlinked with the organizational activities with certain objectives. Some of the
stakeholders for an organization are customers, directors, employees, suppliers, etc. In this
approach, management evaluates the requirements of the customers and selects the most
appropriate strategies in order to fulfil them. This is the process which identifies the
requirements of the customers and organization produces the same sort of products and services
in relevance with the standards and the policies of the organization (Asif, et. al., 2011). This
approach also helps the organization to develop or adopt certain set of strategies through which

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effective relationship amongst the stakeholders and the organization. With the help of positive
relationship amongst the stakeholders, organization will be able to gain the effective and desired
outcomes along with the attainment of satisfaction level from the employees. Employees should
be given appropriate training and learning sessions in order to describe them the importance of
the stakeholder approach along with the motive behind the adaptation of the approach. This will
help the organization to increase the effectiveness of the organization along with increasing the
efficiency of the organization. Along with the increase in the efficiency of the organization and
the employees, it will also help the organization to generate various ways to increase the income
through which the opportunities of growth and expansion could be increased accordingly
(Peteraf, Gamble & Thompson, 2014). Following are certain ways through which the stakeholder
approach could easily be implemented:
 Identification of stakeholder: Initial step of implementing the stakeholder approach is
the identification of the crucial stakeholders for the organization. This will help the
organization to increase its efficiency through developing the relationship amongst those
stakeholders. Functionalities of the organization will be performed in an effective manner
along with the attainment of the desired outcomes (Beske, Land & Seuring, 2014).
 Accurate description of stakes: This step will help the organization to identify the share
of the stakeholders and with this; importance of the stakeholders will be identified. It will
provide the clear description to the management in relevance with the importance of the
stakeholders through which the allocation of the tasks could be done in an effective
manner (Pisano, 2017).

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 Claim consideration: This step will help the organization to identify some crucial
attributes within the workplace which could affect the performance of the organization in
positive as well as in negative manner. Urgency, power and legitimacy are some of the
attributes which could affect the organizational performance. Legitimacy refers that the
functionalities of the organization should be performed on the basis of the laws,
regulations and the policies because non-fulfilment of these attributes could extract
negative situations for the organization. Power defines the authority of each stakeholder
which should be considered on the priority basis in order to increase the opportunities for
the organization in relevance with the attainment of the desired goals and the objectives.
Further, urgency includes the critical issues faced by the stakeholders due to any reason
should be entertained on above of all functions. This will help the organization to develop
a positive image in the stakeholders’ mind-sets’ which will lead the organization to attain
its goals and the objectives in an appropriate manner (Bettis, et. al., 2016).
 Opportunities estimation: This step will help the organization to recognise the threats
and the risks involved in the procedure of the organization which could affect the
stakeholders.
 Responsibilities towards stakeholders: Organization needs to share the all relevant
information to its stakeholders and taking approval is on crucial decisions are also
necessary. This helps the organization to develop a positive and important position in the
stakeholders (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund & Hansen, 2012).
 Implementation of the strategies: While implementing the strategies, all of the above
aspects should be considered accordingly and this also helps them to increase the
efficiency in relevance with gaining the desired outcomes. Implementation of the

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strategies should also be relevant with the interest of the stakeholders and the corporate
social responsibilities (David & David, 2015).
Along with the fulfilment of all the above objectives, it is required to identify the basic
requirements of the internal stakeholders of the organization. Further, adaptation of the advanced
strategies such as integrated communication plan is necessary in order to communicate with the
stakeholders in an appropriate manner (Slack, 2015).
Example of this approach
Coca-Cola Company uses the stakeholder approach in order to increase their efficiency along
with increasing their revenues and the profitability. This approach has helped the organization to
build its effective image in the competitive business environment along with gaining the
competitive advantage. Along with these benefits, stakeholder approach has also helped the
organization to provide unique benefits to its stakeholders. Further, management of the
organization has also adopted the golden triangle partnership approach in relevance with
increasing the efficiency of the organization through fulfilling the corporate social
responsibilities in order to attain the desired goals and the objectives. This approach includes
covering the elements such as social, public, civil and private along with their needs and
requirements (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018). Apart from this activity, this approach also
includes the practice of partnership in relevance with the improving the conditions of remote and
under developed sectors. Stakeholder approach also helps the Coca-Cola to build an effective
image in the local stakeholders and amongst the community through executing the projects such
as SWPP (Source Water Protection Plans). For building up the interest of the stakeholders
towards the company, management has adopted the customer feedback strategy under which

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customers are asked about the quality of the product, price of the product and regarding the other
attributes. This helps the organization to adopt certain strategies to increase the effectiveness of
their products and services along with gaining the adequate competitive advantage in the target
market (Walker, Damanpour & Devece, 2010).

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Dynamic capabilities
This approach describe that the organization should perform its functions with the available
resources in an effective manner. Along with this, organizational internal capabilities are also
identified in relevance with the dynamic business environment. With the help of available
resources and the capabilities, organization needs to face all types of situations in relevance with
the attainment of the desired objectives. This approach includes mainly three attributes which
could help the organization to become capable enough to deal with challenging working
environmental conditions (Helfat, 2013). First attribute is increasing the employees’ capabilities
through providing them appropriate training sessions. Second attribute is integration of the
advanced assets to the workplace in order to uplift the performance and for facing all types of
situations. The last attribute is re-utilisation of the available resources and the assets which are
already used for accomplishment of tasks. Following are the stages involved in this approach:
 Learning: This is the initial stage of the dynamic capabilities approach and it evaluates
various sources and methods through which employees’ capabilities could be increased
for meeting up with the dynamic business environmental conditions. Advanced measures
may include the training and development sessions, interactive sessions and the
counselling sessions (Wheelen & Hunger, 2017).
 New assets: In order to increase the organizational efficiency, management is required to
execute the market analysis and the competitive analysis regularly in order to identify the
current market trends and requirements. This helps the organization to adopt and
implement certain assets to the organization in relevance with upliftment of the
organizational performance as compared to its competitors (Helfat & Peteraf, 2015).

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 Available resources: Business environment is known for its fluctuations, dynamic
environment and for unique types of challenges. In order to compete with all these
factors, management of the organization requires updating its resources along with
identifying the appropriate utilisation of the available resources.
 Co-specialisation: This is the step under which organization performs its functionalities
within a given period of time along with optimum utilisation of the available resources
with the organization (Helfat & Winter, 2011).
Example of this approach
IBM, Apple INC. and various other software developing companies use this approach in order to
attain its goals and the objectives. With the help of this approach, these companies have
developed its adequate image in the target market along with gaining adequate level of
competitive advantage. Apple INC. is known as the leader in the mobile phone manufacturing
company across the globe and the major reason behind the success of the organization is
optimum utilisation of the available resources along with the adaptation of unique and advanced
strategies for increasing its employees’ performance (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014).

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Sustainable approach
Sustainable development refers to the attainment of the goals and the objectives along with
fulfilment of economic conditions, social responsibilities and environmental conditions. This
procedure of attainment of the desired goals describes the utilisation of available resources
within the specified period of time along with fulfilling the requirement of all relevant factors.
Gaining the sustainable development is an indicator for the long run survival in the competitive
business environment without affecting the natural and other resources in negative manner. The
basic elements of the sustainable approach are economy, environment and the social
responsibility. All three factors plays crucial role in order to increase the performance of the
organization along with the development of an effective image in the dynamic business
environment. Over-utilisation of the available resources will provide short term benefits to the
business organization while optimum utilisation will help them to attain the long run objectives
(Li & Liu, 2014).
Governments of various countries has taken the initiative for preventing the natural resources
and for the same, they had built certain policies and the laws. These needs to follow by the
organizations and all the requirement of these policies should be considered appropriately in
order to avoid the chances of glitches in the performance of the organization (Noland & Phillips,
2010).
Example to this approach
Adobe Systems is a multinational software developing company and it uses this approach in
order to attain its desired goals. They had identified and invested certain unique ways to lower
down the emission of the carbon from the organizational functionalities. Along with this, it has

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also helped the organization to re-utilise the available resources within the certain period of time
for attaining the goals and the objectives.

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Limitation to these approaches
Above mentioned approaches determines the stakeholders’ interests in both monetary as well as
in kind forms. But the dispute arises when the demands of the stakeholders does not meets. The
major concern is the meeting the stakeholders’ needs in the monetary terms along with the
distribution of profits amongst them. While taking the crucial decision for the organization, it is
required to share the information to the stakeholders in order to obtain the positive results.
Sustainable approach is the best and most effective approach for the organization to attain the
goals but sometimes it also difficult when organization does not able to match up with the
environmental and other relevant factors’ conditions (O’Riordan & Fairbrass, 2014).

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Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that strategic management techniques are
effective and efficient for the organizations to attain the organizational goals and the objectives.
In this report, strategic management approaches are discussed along with the examples of
companies which utilises those approaches to set up their position in the target market. Strategies
adopted for improving the performance of the organization must be implemented in order to
attain the goals and the objectives of the organization. Along with this, primary focus of this
report is over the linear model of the approach in relation to obtain the positive outcomes as per
the expectations of the management.
Apart from this, strategic management process also contains limitations through which gap could
be developed between the expected and actually obtained outcomes. Management is required to
analyse these limitation in relevance with the functionalities of the organization. The last part of
the report includes the limitation of certain approaches. Apart from this, limitations of these
approaches are also discussed in this report. This will help them to ascertain the gap amongst the
functionalities as well as amongst the strategies adopted and the environmental conditions of the
organization. With the help of evaluation, it will be quite easy for the management to implement
the strategies in relevance with the organizational expectations as well as with the motive to
attain the goals and the objectives will be fulfilled.

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Bettis, R.A., Ethiraj, S., Gambardella, A., Helfat, C. and Mitchell, W., 2016. Creating repeatable
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