Strategy and General Management Case Study Solution

Strategic planning should be an ongoing process rather than a one-time meeting, according to Bridges Business Consultancy estimates that 48 percent of managers spend less than one day per month discussing strategy. To maintain focus, hiring a professional facilitator is often useful in keeping everyone on track toward meeting its goals; and ensures everyone’s voices are heard – something which will only become effective with effective implementation of any strategic plan.

Implementation

Strategy Implementation is the final stage in taking your plan and turning it into action, such as running an advertising campaign to drive up sales or installing work management software across your organization.

To ensure the success of your strategy, it is critical to devise an accurate project plan and allocate resources effectively – such as time, money and people. In addition, create a communication plan and identify milestones and deadlines.

While implementing a new strategy, it is also vital to create a solid team. Doing so will facilitate faster implementation while helping avoid common pitfalls; providing regular updates on the progress of projects and encouraging open dialogue can do just that – helping your team members feel supported during implementation process, which in turn leads to improved implementation results and an ultimately more successful strategy implementation outcome.

Evaluation

Evaluation is an integral component of planning that ensures programs are meeting their objectives and producing results, enabling organizations to make more informed decisions regarding future direction and allocate resources efficiently.

Evaluation provides data that can be used to bolster and promote an organization’s mission and activities, which in turn attract new funding and garner support from stakeholders. Evaluation also gives those served by an organization a voice by showing how their lives have changed because of programs or services provided, providing evidence of any positive effects of those services on them personally.

Few respondents who noted differences in methodology between evaluation and research typically focused on differences in terms of degree of rigor applied during an evaluation, or weight given to stakeholder needs versus producing findings with high scientific quality. Participants stressed the value of timely insights which were directly tied to producing relevant and useful findings from an evaluation for stakeholders.

Monitoring

Monitoring can include determining whether an organisation is on track with its strategic plans and objectives, detecting unanticipated events or new information that requires strategic reassessments and changes to ensure success.

Monitoring methods will depend on an organisation’s size, complexity and industry. Many small business owners rely on dashboards or other quantitative data to track revenue and sales trends; monitoring can become more meaningful by adding context to numbers by telling a performance story that explains why these numbers matter and what their significance is; this approach is known as complexity-aware monitoring; for an example of such monitoring see this USAID discussion note by Heather Britt and Richard Hummelbrunner entitled ‘Synchronizing Monitoring with Change Pace in Complex Systems’ for further reference.

Strategy and General Management Case Solution

Strategies a company pursues can have a dramatic effect on its performance relative to peers. Senior managers bear responsibility for selecting strategies which will allow their firm to gain competitive edge.

Mintzberg emphasizes the fact that successful strategies often arise more spontaneously and without intent; in response to unanticipated events. Furthermore, autonomous action by lower-level managers can often play an essential role. He asserts this as evidenced by formal planning processes being ineffective or even unnecessary in many situations.

Definition of Strategy

Strategy refers to the practice of setting long, medium and short term desired goals under uncertain conditions. It represents an attempt at controlling the future by developing superior understanding of it – or for businesses, its performance compared to competitors.

Strategy, which stems from Greek for plan, encompasses many theories and models to explain its key elements. Notable models include Henry Mintzberg’s five Ps of Strategy; Kenichi Ohmae’s Three Cs; and Michael Porter’s Frameworks for Competitive Advantage.

Strategic planning encompasses three hierarchical levels, which are known as corporate, business and functional levels. At each of these tiers, there must be interaction among them so as to keep a business functioning effectively while competing successfully – this makes strategic planning both an art and science; it must remain adaptable enough to adapt with emerging trends or issues as necessary.