Strategic Management: Definition, Benefits, and Implementation

Strategic Management Unit

Strategic management is defined as the process followed to ensure that an organization has an appropriate organizational strategy and benefits from its use. Equally important is implementing this discipline in organizations because, through this process, a sequence is followed, including the definition of a mission, the processing of that mission into clear goals and objectives, and defining and implementing a consistent organizational structure.

The implementation of this discipline brings with it certain benefits, which can occur both financially and otherwise. Among these benefits, it offers more alertness to external threats, a greater understanding of external strategies (i.e., detecting opportunities), ranking them in order of priority, and exploiting them. It also provides an objective view of management problems and represents a framework for better coordination and control of activities.

Key Considerations for Strategic Management

To carry out the strategic management process, it is important to consider certain proposals, such as communication within the company. This is a key element for the company to operate effectively, as it is through this that interaction between individuals within the business occurs. It is equally important to consider the environment in which the company develops, as it is constantly evolving. You have to watch for this due to the strong bond that exists between them, as adaptability to new changes that impact the environment requires adopting appropriate strategic decisions within companies.

Likewise, strategic management has certain elements that suggest that strategic planning should be evolutionary rather than directive and must provide an organizational structure within which a wide variety of individuals can identify and solve their own problems, focusing direction on performance and continuous improvement.

Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation are linked with strategic management, and some concepts are handled in this area, such as investment, innovation, and imitation. There are certain features that an entrepreneur has to possess, such as aggression, pro-activity, and innovation.

The Importance of a Corporate Business Attitude

The corporate business attitude is vital in business and is the set of capabilities that a company has to produce or acquire new products and services and lead the innovation process. Today, this is something very essential in organizations because the role of leaders is to inspire organizational members to work in teams to achieve significant results and thus create a favorable corporate attitude to carry out their activities. Although it is common that there are certain cases in which barriers to integration are presented where each employee has a different orientation of the functions, causing disagreement and poor integration of equipment, this can be resolved through appropriate interventions by the directors or management. The integration of functions facilitates the reduction in the time taken to complete processes or products or to market. In summary, the formation of successful strategic alliances requires a focus on knowledge and identification skills.

Basic Steps in Strategic Management

Strategic management provides five basic steps to carry out:

1. Establish the mission and vision.
2. Set the grand strategy.
3. Formulate strategic plans.
4. Carry out strategic plans.
5. Maintain strategic control.

Each of these steps sets out the process of execution, and these are explained in detail in the procedure and are of vital importance to carry out to the letter in order to expect good results.

The Role of Ethics in Strategic Management

As a final point, it is worth mentioning that in any company and any discipline, ethics is important, and strategic management is no exception. This is why, when implementing strategies within organizations, they should be ethical. They involve actions that otherwise just do not pass the test of morality. This means more than being satisfied with what is legal. The ethical and moral standards go beyond the prohibitions of the law and the language of "no need" to aspects of duty and the language of "what to do and not what you do." Ethics concerns the human duty and the principles on which it is based.