Strategic Management

1. Strategic Management Macmillan and Tampoe Oxford University Press 2000 (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001

2. Introduction to Strategy and Strategic Management Chapter 2 What is Strategy? (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001

3. Strategy – a manager’s point of view • Strategic Management: • relates to the future of the enterprise • Is about taking action now to secure the future • The future is uncertain • Decision about the future are made on incomplete and wrong information • Prepares an organisation for future success (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001

4. Definitions of Strategy • Strategy: • is knowing the business you propose to carry out (Xenophon) • defines what a business is in or is to be and the kind of company it is or is to be (Andrews) • is a rule for making decisions (Ansoff) • The way in which a corporation endeavours to differentiate itself positively from its competition (Ohmae) • Ideas and actions to conceive and secure the future (Macmillan & Tampoe) (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001

5. Military Strategy – some lessons • Originated to help armies win battles • Emphasises winning • Zero-sum game • Emphasises leadership • Focus on taking action to achieve desired aims • Where the analogy breaks down • No customer to satisfy in business sense • Assumes simple hierarchical structure • Assumes obedience to orders (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001

6. Other strategic themes • Strategy has political overtones and benefits • Academic contribution to strategy offering multiple ways if thinking about strategy • Practitioners contribution is of practical ways of evolving and implementing strategy (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001

7. There is no one size fits all strategy • Strategy making is more an art than a science • Our understanding of strategy making is imperfect but growing • New strategic approaches are often created by entrepreneurs in the heat of battle (e.g., Sloan, Grove, Welch) (c) Macmillan & Tampoe 2001