Manage for Strategic Success to Survive, Grow and Thrive.
Most organizations are in business to be successful, i.e., survive, grow and thrive. Organizations, typically, operate in multiple environments and are organized and structured internally to meet both external and internal demands and opportunities. The concept of business environment is an all inclusive concept that includes any and all factors and forces, both external and internal, that influence, affect, or shape in any way the policies, decisions, strategies, and operations of a business organization. Some examples of the external environment factors include; social, economic, political, technology, environment and legal factors. An organization must still meet the requirements and contingencies of its environment to succeed. A business organization must respond - adapt or react - to its environments in order to successfully maintain its flow of operations to create and deliver value to customers.
Business leaders must spend time to analyze the environments, in which they operate to identify the right issues and challenges their strategies must address. Successful issues diagnosis must take into consideration all of the organization's reality. From the organization's resources, capabilities, structure, and internal culture to market forces and the moves of competitors. A valid/good strategy must address the right strategic issues/challenges, and be executable to be of any value to the organization. A valid strategy determines how an organization interacts with its environment while leveraging its strengths to capitalize on opportunities and mitigating risks. In order to devise, implement and successfully execute strategies valid for an organization, an effective and appropriate management systems must be in place to support management's strategic decision-making. Leaders and managers use these systems to drive the formulation, implementation, and execution of business organization's strategies. Such a system should provide support for a strategic control system, and operations control system. Even with the best diagnosis, any competitive advantage to be gained from a strategy will elude the business organization, if that strategy is not successfully implemented and executed.
Managing for strategic success requires an organization to possess the organizational capabilities to build (development) capacity to timely and effectively implement the strategy, successfully. The organization needs the right culture for the necessary changes involved in strategy implementation to take traction. It also needs resource allocation and strategic management capabilities to ensure speed and effective implementation. The success of most business organizations is not a random occurrence, but rather a series of right strategic decisions taken at the right moment in time. All this starts with defining a valid/good strategy. A good strategy can have decisive influence to improve strategic decision making, in better responding or adapting to environmental factors. Organizations fail, not, necessarily, because of the conditions set by environment factors, since other business organizations faced with the same conditions are able to survive, grow and thrive. The real reason organizations fail, is their inability to manage for strategic success to survive, grow, and thrive.
[TBD]
Most managers in organizations have difficulty developing good strategies, that can be a fundamental contribution to the organization's future.
This is because strategy is an intangible concept, and it is not visible to the organization or those who would intervene to make it work as intended. In order to develop such strategy statements (the make the strategy explicit), managers must be able to identify precisely the right controls and control systems; otherwise, the process of strategy determination may degenerate into what it often becomes - the solemn recording of platitudes, useless for either the clarification of direction or the achievement of consensus.
The notion of strategy is easy to grasp, but working out an agreed-upon strategy statement that documents a company's strategy is difficult. In order to develop such a statement, managers must be able to identify, precisely, the corporate goals - these are an indication of what the company, as a whole, is trying to achieve and to become. In order to state what the company expects to achieve, management must state what it hopes to do with respect to the environments in which it operates, including; market, industry, the community, the economy, etc. In addition, the management must define what the organization wants to become in terms of the satisfaction of significant groups including customers, managers, employees, stockholders, etc. Effectively implementing and successfully executing a well formulated and valid strategy requires the organization possess the appropriate strategic control systems to be able to track the strategy as it is being implemented, detecting problems or changes in the assumptions the strategy is founded on, and make necessary adjustments.
[TBD]
The strategic control system provides support for management's decision making in driving successful formulation, implementation and execution of organization's strategies. Operational control is concerned with monitoring and evaluating day-to-day functions to correct any problems as quickly as possible. Where operational controls are imposed, they function within the framework established by the strategy. Managers can use management control systems as tools to efficiently and effectively drive their organizations to navigate the challenges and obstacles they face from the influences of the external/internal environments. A valid strategy, successfully implemented and executed, provides the means to move an organization from its current position to a future position to secure a sustainable competitive advantage and superior value relative to the competition. A valid strategy is a vital ingredient in determining the organization's future. A valid strategy can gain extraordinary results for the company whose general level of competence is only average. And, conversely, the most inspiring leaders who are locked into an inappropriate strategy will have to exert their full competence and energy merely to keep from losing ground. A valid strategy will yield sustainable organizational growth and profitability, or whatever other objectives the organization has established.
[TBD]
A model-based approach to developing strategy statement that can be made “visible” to the organization through visualization would allow managers to determine if a strategy is right for the organization. Visualization can communicate to managers critical aspects of a strategy, such as: the strategy's internal consistency, consistency with the environment, appropriateness in light of available resources, acceptable/satisfactory degree of risk, appropriate time horizon, and work-ability. Strategy visualization can foster better shared understanding of the organization's strategy. Strategy visualization enables better coordination in enacting policies that drive the right organizational behavior; and pushing down decisions to ensure timely and successful execution. Strategy visualization enables people (managers and workers) in an organization to better conceptualized the organization's strategy.
Business leaders must spend time to analyze the environments, in which they operate to identify the right issues and challenges their strategies must address. Successful issues diagnosis must take into consideration all of the organization's reality. From the organization's resources, capabilities, structure, and internal culture to market forces and the moves of competitors. A valid/good strategy must address the right strategic issues/challenges, and be executable to be of any value to the organization. A valid strategy determines how an organization interacts with its environment while leveraging its strengths to capitalize on opportunities and mitigating risks. In order to devise, implement and successfully execute strategies valid for an organization, an effective and appropriate management systems must be in place to support management's strategic decision-making. Leaders and managers use these systems to drive the formulation, implementation, and execution of business organization's strategies. Such a system should provide support for a strategic control system, and operations control system. Even with the best diagnosis, any competitive advantage to be gained from a strategy will elude the business organization, if that strategy is not successfully implemented and executed.
Managing for strategic success requires an organization to possess the organizational capabilities to build (development) capacity to timely and effectively implement the strategy, successfully. The organization needs the right culture for the necessary changes involved in strategy implementation to take traction. It also needs resource allocation and strategic management capabilities to ensure speed and effective implementation. The success of most business organizations is not a random occurrence, but rather a series of right strategic decisions taken at the right moment in time. All this starts with defining a valid/good strategy. A good strategy can have decisive influence to improve strategic decision making, in better responding or adapting to environmental factors. Organizations fail, not, necessarily, because of the conditions set by environment factors, since other business organizations faced with the same conditions are able to survive, grow and thrive. The real reason organizations fail, is their inability to manage for strategic success to survive, grow, and thrive.
[TBD]
Most managers in organizations have difficulty developing good strategies, that can be a fundamental contribution to the organization's future.
This is because strategy is an intangible concept, and it is not visible to the organization or those who would intervene to make it work as intended. In order to develop such strategy statements (the make the strategy explicit), managers must be able to identify precisely the right controls and control systems; otherwise, the process of strategy determination may degenerate into what it often becomes - the solemn recording of platitudes, useless for either the clarification of direction or the achievement of consensus.
The notion of strategy is easy to grasp, but working out an agreed-upon strategy statement that documents a company's strategy is difficult. In order to develop such a statement, managers must be able to identify, precisely, the corporate goals - these are an indication of what the company, as a whole, is trying to achieve and to become. In order to state what the company expects to achieve, management must state what it hopes to do with respect to the environments in which it operates, including; market, industry, the community, the economy, etc. In addition, the management must define what the organization wants to become in terms of the satisfaction of significant groups including customers, managers, employees, stockholders, etc. Effectively implementing and successfully executing a well formulated and valid strategy requires the organization possess the appropriate strategic control systems to be able to track the strategy as it is being implemented, detecting problems or changes in the assumptions the strategy is founded on, and make necessary adjustments.
[TBD]
The strategic control system provides support for management's decision making in driving successful formulation, implementation and execution of organization's strategies. Operational control is concerned with monitoring and evaluating day-to-day functions to correct any problems as quickly as possible. Where operational controls are imposed, they function within the framework established by the strategy. Managers can use management control systems as tools to efficiently and effectively drive their organizations to navigate the challenges and obstacles they face from the influences of the external/internal environments. A valid strategy, successfully implemented and executed, provides the means to move an organization from its current position to a future position to secure a sustainable competitive advantage and superior value relative to the competition. A valid strategy is a vital ingredient in determining the organization's future. A valid strategy can gain extraordinary results for the company whose general level of competence is only average. And, conversely, the most inspiring leaders who are locked into an inappropriate strategy will have to exert their full competence and energy merely to keep from losing ground. A valid strategy will yield sustainable organizational growth and profitability, or whatever other objectives the organization has established.
[TBD]
A model-based approach to developing strategy statement that can be made “visible” to the organization through visualization would allow managers to determine if a strategy is right for the organization. Visualization can communicate to managers critical aspects of a strategy, such as: the strategy's internal consistency, consistency with the environment, appropriateness in light of available resources, acceptable/satisfactory degree of risk, appropriate time horizon, and work-ability. Strategy visualization can foster better shared understanding of the organization's strategy. Strategy visualization enables better coordination in enacting policies that drive the right organizational behavior; and pushing down decisions to ensure timely and successful execution. Strategy visualization enables people (managers and workers) in an organization to better conceptualized the organization's strategy.
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