BUS 523 Week 1 Assignment 2

Read Ch1 and 2 Create a blog and list 3-5 ideas you've learned that you feel are most important to you and your career.

·         What is Strategic management?

Strategic management is the process through which organization analyze and learn from their internal and external environments, establish strategic direction, create strategies that are intended to help achieve established goals, and execute those strategies, all in an effort to satisfy key organizational stakeholders.

(1)    Internal  (Strengths, Weaknesses) and external (Opportunities, Threats) environments

-          the results from external and internal analysis are combined into a SWOT analysis

(2)    Strategic direction pertains to the longer-term goals and objectives of the organization. For example, “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

(3)    Strategy formulation is often divided into three levels – corporate, business, and functions.

(4)    Strategy implementation involves creating the functional strategies, systems, structures, and processes needed by the organization in achieving strategic ends. Good control also is critical to organizational success.

(5)    Strategic restructuring typically involves a renewed emphasis on the things an organization does well, combined with a variety of tactics to revitalize the organization and strengthen its competitive position.

·         Strategic Thinking is the term to describe the creative aspect of the strategic management process. It involves a focus on strategic intent, a long-term perspective, consideration of the past and the present, a total systems orientation, the ability to seize unanticipated opportunities, and a scientific approach. Organizations have to encourage strategic thinking and take advantage of it when it occurs.

·         Five Forces

Four out of Five forces are in the broad environment which is external to the company – Sociocultural forces, economic forces, technological forces and political/legal forces.

The ‘Competitive forces’ is in the task environment.

One important distinction between the task and the broad environments is that the task environment is subject to a high level of organizational influence, whereas the broad environment is not.

·         Global Business Environment

Significant changes in the global environment have created great opportunities for organizations willing to take a risk and wait patiently for returns. Currently, great opportunities for growth exist in many countries such as China and India.