Strategic Management Simplified: What Every Manager Needs to Know About Strategy and How to Manage it - Softcover

Barton, Ph.D Sidney L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 144019419X ISBN 13: 9781440194191

Verlag: iUniverse, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

"I have "gone to school" on his research and have found his model to be a malleable process that is readily shaped to incorporate new concepts and ideas. This durability is testament to the value of Sid's work."

-Don Bowers, Former CEO, Makino, Inc.

Strategic Management Simplified is a handbook that is designed to help the reader achieve a critical balance so rare in business - keeping your actions tied to your strategy, making decisions with a reasonable amount of assessment, and doing both in a real time way which allows you to adjust to changing business conditions.

The author uses the term strategic management versus strategic planning because the term "plan" implies a static (or point in time) exercise, while the term "management" suggests interaction and responsiveness to dynamic context. All kinds of plans can be developed to lead action, but they should be based on a strategy for the organization. The challenge is to actually manage the organization's strategy over time and to think strategically as you are doing it.

This book provides an overview of the management policies and culture necessary for sound strategic planning to flourish in any organization and goes on to offer practical steps on how to create and implement:

• A strategic statement which can guide your organization's resource allocation decisions.
• A strategic management system which allows you and your staff to change your strategic statement over time as you challenge the assumptions upon which it is based.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

After completing his doctorate at the University of Indiana, Sidney L. Barton, PhD took a tenure track position at the University of Cincinnati. He continues to teach strategy at the undergraduate, MBA and doctoral levels at the University of Cincinnati. Sid lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his lovely wife, Judith.

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Strategic Management Simplified

What Every Manager Needs to Know About Strategy and How to Manage itBy Sidney L. Barton

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Dr. Sidney L. Barton
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9419-1

Contents

Introduction................................................................................................ixChapter 1: Strategy Basics..................................................................................1Chapter 2: Supportive Policies and Managerial Environment...................................................11Chapter 3: Important Outcomes...............................................................................31Chapter 4: Specific Elements of a Strategic Statement (A Framework for Decision Making).....................53Chapter 5: A Simplified Strategic Management System.........................................................73Chapter 6: Real Examples....................................................................................78Epilogue....................................................................................................165Bibliography................................................................................................167About the Author............................................................................................171

Chapter One

Strategy Basics

The purpose of this chapter is to establish for the reader just how I view the concept of strategy. It will become apparent as you read through the manuscript that these basic elements provide a system of beliefs that are the foundation of the proposed approach to strategy found in the remainder of the book.

Definition

What exactly is "strategy"? There are lots of definitions, but my favorite was penned by Kenneth Andrews in 1980. He declared that "corporate strategy is the pattern of decisions in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals (and) produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals ..."

The reason I like this definition so much is that it best represents what really happens as opposed to what theoretically should happen in organizations. In effect, it states that what are most important are one's actions (decisions) and not what one says their goals and strategy are. While strategy is normally thought of as being developed prospectively, the reality is that as our situation changes and moves, we intuitively react to attempt to best achieve our desires. Often (almost always) these reactions are not necessarily consistent with our initial point of departure. The result is that when articulating strategy, we retrospectively assess what we did in order to adequately and rationally explain it. In essence this definition recognizes the dynamic, ever-changing nature of strategy. In a parallel way, a person's career is very similar. Often we end up at the end of our working lives having experienced a very different career than we might have envisioned when starting. This is caused by the fact that individuals change, as does the environment they find themselves in. But in any event, at the end of our working lives, everyone has had a "career," whether planned or not. (This reality is often cited by skeptics of formal strategic planning as a good reason not to do it at all. The argument is that if a plan is going to change soon after it is developed, then why bother doing it in the first place. Chapter 2 addresses the reasons and value of such planning.)

As an example of this, the engineering company where I started my career began simply as a structural testing firm. The initial "strategy" was to utilize sophisticated testing equipment to identify complex mechanical problems and suggest solutions. Over time, computer capabilities allowed us to model mechanical structures and predict performance before prototypes were built to avoid field problems. Initially, the software we developed was primarily used to evaluate the structural modifications suggested by our testing. Instinctively, resources were committed to take advantage of these new capabilities and address an even bigger client need, design analysis. We then began offering these software capabilities to our clients for their own use. Very quickly, we became a computer software firm as well as a troubleshooting testing firm.

Further improvements in computer power and software capabilities eventually allowed the firm to commit resources to allow more efficient modeling of structures and more efficient analysis by ourselves and our clients. Eventually, the firm also developed project management software that allowed clients to collaborate on mechanical system design among multiple locations. None of these steps was envisioned a priori by management, but the current firm is a multi-billion- dollar enterprise that looks nothing like what was initially envisioned.

In retrospect, the "strategy" can easily be described. We started by understanding mechanical system behavior via testing. Through this testing capability we were able to develop and verify computer simulation software that allowed us to more efficiently develop fixes for the problems we identified. Once software was effective at simulating existing systems, the next logical step was to use it to evaluate designs of systems before they were built. To make the analysis software easier to use and faster, modeling software was developed. Finally, with the capability to simulate system performance at the drawing- board stage, software to allow multiple designers to collaborate in product development provided even more convenience and usability.

The point of this example is that our technology and client needs changed significantly through time. Decisions were made along the way that took advantage of these changes, and thus the "strategy" changed. This example will be referred to often in the rest of the book, as it will allow me to make important points along the way.

Utilizing this definition and its implications, coupled with my own experiences in developing strategy over the years, the remainder of this chapter lists what I call "words of wisdom" related to strategic management. These are a few things about strategic management that need to be understood to provide a solid foundation for the process later developed. They represent a set of beliefs and a philosophy that permeate the remainder of the book.

Actions Equal Strategy

I recall a meeting many years ago where I was instructing a large group of managers on strategy concepts. After discussing the above definition of strategy, I asked the managers to state the single most important goal of the firm. Without hesitation, the assembled group shouted out "quality," as if orchestrated by some unseen conductor. The unanimity of the response was impressive (as I will discuss later); however, I followed up the question with a scenario designed to validate the group's initial response.

The company in this example manufactured very large mechanical systems that individually were worth millions of dollars. The scenario posited was as follows. It is near midnight on December 31 of a particular year. The firm's fiscal year is the calendar year, so this is the last day of the year. On the plant floor sits a huge system ready to ship to a valued client. If the system can be shipped out before midnight, the firm will make their yearly sales and profit goals. If it cannot be shipped and invoiced, the firm will fall short of these goals. Unfortunately, a significant problem...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: iUniverse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 144019419X
• ISBN 13: 9781440194191
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 188
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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