ASSIGNMENT OF WEEK 2

1.      In your own words and using referenced quotes describe what “Strategic Management” is.

According to Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) a Japanese Samurai and Strategist, “In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close thing”

Strategic management is all about identification of strategies that managers should follow to achieve a goal. Strategic management is used in different context such as in small business, Multinational Corporation, manufacturing or service organizations, public sector and other sectors. As the main objective of each business firm is to maximize their profit, there needs to be a strong strategy.

It is a package which a manager undertakes and which decides the outcomes of the organization. For some, it might be a way to survive in the market, for others it might be the way to become number one brand and for some generating excessive profit might be the strategy. So, strategy is very complex subject. But for everyone it is a long term plan or direction through which they have to move on. It also focuses on how to deal with different situation. It is a mission through which a company can survive and stand as a number one brand.

Strategic Management is also considered as vision like it will have certain desired future state. Strategic Management is a continuing process that judge and takes necessary steps to control the business in which a firm is involved. For example it evaluates its competitors and sets goals to meet all existing and possible competitors.

2.      How is business strategy similar to military strategy? How is it different?

Business strategy and military strategy are very much similar with each other but in many cases they differ too.

·         The ideas developed by military in their strategy are being used in business strategy.

·     The word “Strategy” is developed from the word “Stratos” which means army and “Agein” which means to lead. It shows that there are many similarities in between them.

·         They both face competition by the competitors.

·         Both follow the same practice of using its own force in attacking opponent’s weakness.

·         They use similar terminologies like goals, missions, strength and weakness.

·         The major goal of both strategies is to get competitive advantage.

·   They both adopt change because of change in technologies, change of time and increase in the competitors.

·         They both need to improve the quality to order to be competitive.

·         Gathering and analyzing information about competitors is important to them.

Despite of such similarities business strategy and military strategy differs in the following way:

·    Both the business and military strategy are made for different purpose. For example, the purpose of business strategy might be to provide higher return to the stakeholders whereas the purpose of military strategy is to provide security and defense the country.

·        Business planners can get valuable experience and insights that have been developed by the military from time to time, but the military planner cannot get idea or experience from business strategy.

·     Formulation, implementation and evaluation strategy is done in competitive circumstances while the military strategy is based on conflict situations and conditions.

3.      What do you understand by the term “Strategic Analysis”, “Strategic Development”, and “Strategic Implementation”?

Strategic Analysis:

Strategic analysis is about observing what is happening outside the organization now and in coming days. It will raise mainly two questions:

·         How might what’s happening will affect you?

·         What would you do in response to likely changes?

It is called strategic because it’s about your whole organization about long term. And it is called analysis because it’s about breaking something that is big and complex into a manageable portion. The main focus of strategic analysis is observing the external factors as they have a powerful influence on your business.

It involves mainly analyzing environment inside and outside.  It also focuses how to maximize the allocation of resources.

Strategic Development:

The term “Strategic Development” means growing your organization rather than letting it off on. It is a process of selecting better option for developing your business.  It is a stage where you will have a lot of alternatives and you have to choose the one that is more profitable than other alternative. You have to have a reason why you select the option and why you refused other option. And again after choosing the best alternative you have to find the strategic route to implement it.

Strategic Implementation:

Sources:  http://www.google.com.np/imgres?imgurl=http://eriskay-associates.co.uk/images/products2.jpg&imgrefurl

Any activity which is performed according to certain plan in order to get a certain goal is strategic implementation. It involved activities such as resource allocation, managing people’s issues and many more. For example, Strategy within a business context might be developing an innovative marketing plan and executing it later in order to increase sales of the company’s products to customers.

4.      Write your experience with today’s case study. What answers did you give? Was it easy to answer the questions? Did your group agree with each other?

It was very participative during group discussion. We were three members in our group and discussed about the case study.

Followings were the questions and answer in our case study:

a)      Why are Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Swindon growing rapidly? (List as many as you can)

Following are the reasons that are responsible for rapid growth of Milton Keynes, Peterborough and Swindon:

Increase in the population

Developments are taking place everywhere

Motorways are connected to London

Business centers like Amazon are moving to these cities.

b)     Why might their growth strategy be “mad‟?

Most of the growth in these three cities has been made by immigrants. Also due to the massive construction of houses, pollution is also increasing day by day. So their strategy may be mad.

c)      What do you think –is it a good strategy to continue with? (be ready to state your reasons)

I think this is a good strategy because it will help these cities to continually develop. They want to establish a university which shows a good sign.

d)     Would you live in any of these three towns? (list the reasons why or why not)

Yes, of course I would love to live in these cities because there are so many opportunities available there. You will have to spend a little amount of money in compared to other cities. A home cost less than a third of the price of a similar sized home in London.  They are located on the motorways which are connected to London.



References:

• Collis, D. J. & Montgomery, C. A. 1998. Creating corporate advantage, Harvard Business Review, 76(3):71–83; Saatchi & Saatchi. 2001.

• Campbell, A., Goold, M. & Alexander, M. 1995. Corporate strategy: The quest for parenting advantage. Harvard Business Review, 73 (2):120–32; and Picken & Dess, op. cit.

• Kohli A K, Jaworski B J (1990)  'Market Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications’ Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54, No. 2, pp. 1-18

• www.militarytobusinessmentor.com

          [Military to Business Mentor.com, accessed on 20th November, 2012]

• www.strategyanalysis.com

         [Strategic Analysis International, accessed on 2nd November, 2012]

•  http://www.mystrategicplan.com/resources/strategic-implementation/

            [my strategic plan, accessed on 20th November,2012]