Attaining Sustainable Organizational Growth and Profitability

Improving Decision-Making and Decisions in Business Organizations
​Decision-making in management is the process of making a choice between two or more options. This involves recognizing the pros and cons of various choices and choosing the best option to achieve the desired outcomes. In management, decision-making is the process of making choices by recognizing the problem, gathering information about feasible solutions, and finalizing the best alternative. It is a deliberative process of making choices by identifying a decision, gathering information, and assessing alternative solutions (courses of action). ​The decision-making process is carried out through an intuitive or logical process, or a combination of both.

A decision is a conclusion/determination arrived at after consideration of relevant factors. A decision is the specific commitment to action to resolve a question. The term decision is used, in a variety of different circumstances, when people have to make up their minds in specific commitment to action to resolve an issue/question. The situations in which people have to make decisions may range over a variety of very different circumstances, each requiring different kind of deliberations; but they have one property in common, that people have to make up their minds. ​

The circumstances in which people have to make a decision may include:

1. when a grocery store customer encounters an entire aisle of breakfast cereals; we say s/he has a decision to make;
2. when a high school senior considers which college to attend; we say s/he is facing a decision;
3. when a poker player weighs whether to raise or fold, that's a decision, too; 
4. when a company faces an opportunity - to enter a new market, acquire another company, or launch a new product - what is required of its management? A decision. 

​The use of the same word "decision" for these different kinds of deliberations, in a variety of very dissimilar situations, can be a source of confusion for decision makers, and make them aware of the importance of the need to apply the appropriate methods and knowledge in the right situation for the decision taken to be successful.

​A Model of Decision-Making and Decision
Decisions vary along two (2) dimensions; control and performance.

• Control considers how much the decision maker can influence the terms of the decision and the outcome. Are we choosing among options presented to us, or can we shape those options? Are we making a one time judgment/decision, unable to change what happens after the fact, or do we have some control on how things play out once we have made the decision? That is, is the level of control , Control/No Control?
• Performance addresses the way we measure success. Its our aim to do well, no matter what anyone else does, or do we need to do better than others? That is is performance absolute or relative?

Decisions can be characterized based on control and performance factors, such as: 

1. For control  - (Control/No Control)
2. For performance - (Absolute or Relative).

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Decisions can be organized into categories based on: the level of control - Control/No Control, and performance - absolute/relative to produce the following categories of decision types:

• Routine Choices and Judgments - In these decisions we have no control over outcomes and our performance is absolute; we are not competing with anyone. Routine decisions do not require a lot of evaluation, analysis, or in-depth study. Examples of these decisions include consumer choices - picking from product selection in a supermarket - and personal investment decisions, or administrative decisions (e.g., where to hold a company's picnic, etc.). Decision-makers can benefit from knowledge of well-known lessons about avoiding common biases that make good sense, and result in good decisions.
• Influencing Outcomes - These are decisions that relate to much of what we do in life - using our energy and talents to make things happen. These involve situations where we can control judgment or outcomes to perform well. Examples include determining how long we will need to complete a project or operational decisions; (e.g., which jobs to schedule into production, etc.). That's a judgment we can control, and performance is absolute.
• Placing Competitive Bets - These are decisions where we have no control - we cannot influence outcomes, and performance is relative - success depends on how well we do relative to others. Decisions are tactical, and the best decisions must anticipate the moves of rivals. This is the essence of strategic thinking.
• Strategic Decisions - Strategic decisions by definition require executives (or decision makers) to possess the ability to control/influence outcomes by the way they lead and communicate, and through their ability to inspire and encourage people to perform better than the competition. For these decisions, decision makers can actively influence/control outcomes, and performance is relative - success means doing better than rivals. And success depends on the ability of managers to influence the desired outcomes through its people, and the need/expectation to outperform rivals. 

The structure/model useful in categorizing decisions into a decision type system that can lead to finding useful approaches to improve decision-making. This type system helps decision makers distinguish between the different types of decisions - routine as well as complex deliberations, to both small-stakes bets and high-stakes commitments, and to exploratory steps as well as irreversible moves. Decision-makers can improve the quality of their decisions substantially, if before making any decisions they make an assessment of the type of decision(s) required for the situation at hand. 

Decision-Making In Business Organizations
​In any business enterprise decisions can be made at varying levels in the organization. Managers at all levels in the organization must make decisions on behalf of a company. Managers face in the course of their daily responsibilities, a range of decisions that are consistent with their positions and roles in the organization. ​For example, the management decisions based on positions, roles and responsibilities may be defined as follows:

• Board or Owners - A company's board or owners create the mission and write the mission statement for the internal and external audiences. All business and management activity follows from the company's mission. Success in accomplishing the mission could take many forms. The form chosen gives a company its vision, an ideal the business seeks to actualize. A caterer, for instance, might envision becoming the first choice for jet-set soirees. Besides defining a lofty ambition and the existential question of mission, a company's board or owners also articulate the company's core values, those standards the business will never compromise.
• Upper Management - Upper management translates the vast scope of mission and vision into concrete achievements over time. In order words, upper management needs a strategic plan to help it decide the overall direction of the company. Decisions related to strategy involve company-wide matters enacted over the long term. The goals are what the company hopes to accomplish at least a year - - more often five years - into the future. Management then choses a grand strategy such as growth, diversification, etc., to reach the strategic goals. 
• Middle Management - Middle management choses smaller tactical objectives that put together, accomplish strategic goals. Middle management create tactical plans, which have more detail than the strategic plans. The tactics are geared towards some function or department such as production, marketing, etc., where a possible objective could involve some measurable efficiency or quality improvement.
• Operational or Line Management - Operational management is the level; directly responsible for employees. By choosing their own goals on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, operational managers accomplish the objectives of middle management. The scope of operational management covers departments, sections or teams. Inventory, scheduling, and budgeting are examples of plans and decisions that operational managers adopt. Goals might include a certain number of sales for the day. 

​In a business context, decision-making is a set of steps taken by managers in an organization to determine the planned path for business initiatives and to set specific actions in motion. The difference between decisions at the various levels, typically, lies in the type and scope of the decision or choices made. 

Decision Rights & Authority
The management decision levels and associated positions, roles and responsibilities may have designated decision rights and decision authority associated to each position. Decision rights are a component of organization design, that help identify and establish "what" business decisions need to be made, both to drive the business and to drive alignment to strategy. And "who" is involved in making them and "how" the decisions will be made through operating processes. Identifying and defining decision rights helps companies to organize their decision making and execution processes by setting clear roles and accountability, and by giving those involved a sense of ownership of decisions.

Decision authority is the, power or obligation to make a decision and accountability - the duty to answer for the success or failure of a decision. There are six (6) common types of Decision Authority, including:
 

1. Accountability -Accountability is the duty to answer for the success or failure of a decision. 
2. Responsibility - Responsibility is the duty to make a decision or take action as a result of a decision.
3. Delegation - Delegation is the process of granting your decision making authority to another person. You can delegate responsibility, but accountability can't be delegated.
4. Approval - Approval is the process by which decisions that require validation from multiple individuals and/or groups according to a predefined approval list may be done to validate the decision from multiple points of view or to gain broad support for a decision.
5. Consensus - Decisions that require the consensus of a group.
6. Automated Decisions - Decision authority always lies with a person and can't be delegated to a machine. Decisions made by a machine on the authority of the managers who operate the systems making the decision. As such, managers remain accountable and responsible for the decisions made by systems under their control.

An organization’s ability to execute well rests on its ability to make and implement the decisions that matter most.

Management Decisions
All management decisions can be related directly or indirectly to broader management functions: planning, organizing and staffing, leading, and controlling; with different management levels spending more time on certain functions than on others. From the point of view of management, managerial decisions can be broadly classified into these categories, namely, strategic, tactical, operational and administrative decisions.
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1. Strategic Decisions - Strategic decisions are major choices of actions that affect and influence the business organization as a whole. In general, they are complex, unstructured and novel. A manager/decision maker has to apply his/her business judgment, evaluation and intuition into the definition of the problem statement and decision choices. Strategic decisions are influenced by the decision makers knowledge, available information, and mind-set - values and beliefs. They are long-term in scope and affect the competitiveness of the company as a whole. Managers can apply strategic thinking against decisions to determine the viability of the strategic and action plans, and assess alignment with organizational and strategic goals. Strategic decisions are important decisions usually taken by upper/middle management, and they usually relate to the policies of the firm or strategies. These decisions require a lot of analysis and careful study.
2. Tactical Decisions - Tactical decisions relate to developing functional/divisional plans, structuring workflows, establishing distribution channels, acquisition of resources such as human resources, materials, and money needed for implementing strategic decisions. These decisions affect development of resources and capabilities in functional areas to support implementation of strategic decisions. Tactical decisions pertaining to the policy and plans of the firm are known as policy decisions. These decisions have long-term impact, and are usually reserved for the firm's top management. 
3. Operational Decisions - Operational decisions affect specific day-to-day activities of the enterprise. They are taken repetitively and have a short-term horizon. These decisions are based on facts/data regarding business events and d not require much of business judgment. Operational decisions are taken at the lower levels of management and rely on operations information systems to make rational and informed decisions. Operational decisions are the decisions necessary to put the policy decisions into action. These decisions help implement the plans and policies taken by upper and middle management.
4. Administrative Decisions - Administration s simply an activity that concerns itself with day-to-day enforcement of policies, rules, and conduct of affairs in the organization. These are routine decisions that help or facilitate strategic decisions or operations decisions. 

Decision making is the means by which management's intentions are reaized.

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Strategic Management and Strategic Decision-Making
Strategic management is an ongoing strategic decision-making process and actions through which management intentions and ideas (i.e., strategies) are formulated, implemented and executed. Strategic management decisions link rhetoric (what people say), choices (what people decide and are willing to pay for), and actions (what people do) in shaping the nature and direction of an organization. Strategic management decisions are strategic decisions; they are based on a company's mission, vision or its objectives. Strategic management decisions involve strategic thinking - the ability of the organization to plan - and strategic decision-making. ​

Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking is essentially the process of determining the direction an entity (business, team, or individual) will take to achieve its long-term goals and vision. Strategic thinking involves the intentional and rational thought process that focuses on the analysis of critical factors and variables that will influence the long-term success of a business, team, or individual plan to achieve some specified objectives and goals. 

Strategic thinking represents the "why" and the "what" of the work you want to accomplish in a particular context and the whole configuration of interconnected and continuous interacting components and systems. Strategic thinking connects the organization's current state and the "to be" future state in order to bridge the differences and close the gap to gain/maintain competitive advantage. 

Strategic thinking is more about making decisions directed towards achieving defined outcomes. Strategic thinking is the ability of the organization to plan, leadership - the ability to influence the desired outcomes through its people, and the ability to motive the people in the organization to outperform rivals. Strategic thinking is active and ongoing, and is a way of understanding the fundamental drivers of a business organization. Strategic thinking requires envisioning what you want to accomplish and formulating solutions to problems.  

Strategic Decisions
A strategic decision is a specific commitment to action (usually, a commitment of resources). Strategic decisions are long-term decisions; they are taken in accordance with the organization's mission, vision, and values. Strategic decisions are characterized by a number of features including:

• Strategic decisions are concerned with possessing new resources, organizing others, or reallocating others, or enhancing existing resources.
• Strategic decisions deal with harmonizing organization's resource capabilities with the threats and opportunities.
• Strategic decisions affect and change the direction of the whole organization, and are long-term in their impact. 
•  Strategic decisions involve change in behavior of people, organizations and institutions. It is all about what management wants the organization to be like and to be about. 
• Substantially and irrevocably altering, in the short run, the relationships between the decision-makers' organization and its environment - customers, competitors, suppliers, etc., thus making it difficult or expensive to reverse the effects of the decisions. 
• ​Strategic decisions are surrounded by uncertainty; they always represent risk because they deal with the future and changes in behavior of organizations and institutions, the outcomes of which cannot be predicted with any degree of certainty. 

Strategic decisions concern the organization's external environment(s), the organization's resources, the people who form the organization, and the interface between the organization and its environment. Some examples of strategic decisions include:

• In business, managers made decisions to

1. Enter a new market;
2. Release a new product - new product introduction.
3. Acquire another company;
4. Create new strategic asset or enhance an existing asset - e.g., design of supply chain network, selection of location of production facility, technology.

• In sports, a coach shapes the performance of athletes, melding them into effective team that can outperform the opponent.
• In politics, a candidate inspires donors, builds an organization, attracts and motivates campaign workers, and ultimately persuades voters (shape outcomes).  A winning political campaign depends on smart assessment of rivals, as well as the ability to mobilize supporters, often in the face of long odds. 

The success of strategic decisions depends on the ability of decision makers to influence the desired outcomes through the people that are members of the organization, and the expectation to outperform the competition/rivals.

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Strategic decisions are those decisions, taken by top management, that have influence over years or decades, and even beyond the lifetime of the projects that implemented/realized those decisions. 

Strategic decisions are novel (new) - there are no well understood or agreed upon procedures for making them, important (i.e., consequential) and non-routine. Success depends on the ability of managers to influence the desired outcomes through its people, and the need/expectation to outperform rivals. ​Strategic decisions are different from administrative, tactical and operational decisions.

For these decisions, decision makers can actively influence outcomes of strategic choices, using their abilities to make things happen, and success means doing better than rivals. 

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Strategic decision makers such as business executives, coaches in sports, or political candidates are not like shoppers or administrators making routine choices that lead to one outcome, or another. They can influence the outcomes by the way they lead and communicate, and through their ability to inspire and encourage others. Moreover, executives are in charge of organizations that compete vigorously with others; success means doing better than rivals. 



Strategic decisions-making requires decision makers possess the ability to influence outcomes by the way they lead and communicate, and through their ability to inspire and encourage people to perform better than the competition.

Characteristics of Strategic Decisions

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Strategic decisions require the decision maker to provide judgment based on insights into the problem situation and choices from alternatives.

​Strategic Decision-Making
​​Strategic decision-making in concerned with how strategic decisions are made - formulated and implemented (Elbanna 2006). Strategic decision-making is the means by which management intentions are realized (formulated and implemented).​ Strategic decision-making is inextricably linked to strategic planning because it concerns the distribution of resources and the company's long-term direction. Strategic decision-making is typically more complex, novel (new) and open-ended (Mintzberg, Raisinghani and Theoret, 1976), and is characterized by independent elements that by definition cannot be formulated, let alone solved independently of one another.' (Mitroff and Emshoff, 1979:1). 

Strategic decision-making is a critical skill for effective leadership in business and other organizations. The outcomes of a leader's choices significantly impacts employees, customers, the market and success of the organization. The strategic decision-making involves the following:
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1. Define the problem - It is crucially important to determine whether this is the real root of the problem, or simply a symptom of another issue. Assess the urgency of the concern and determine your end goal. What do you want to achieve through the decision you eventually make?
2. Gather information, look for data that explains the origin of the problem - This phase encompasses gathering relevant information to inform identifying the problems occurring in the organization. The information indicates why, where, and with what effects a situation occurs.
3. Develop and evaluate options - Generate a wide range of options. This phase deals with developing appropriate and possible solution alternatives to the problems identified in the problem definition phase.
4. Choose the best option and take action - Select the option that best meets the decision objective. Strategic choice is the mental process of selecting the "best" or optimal - most appropriate solution (i.e., strategy) from the stock of alternatives that serves the enterprise's objectives. This choice takes place in the organizational context and influenced by the decision makers beliefs, assumptions and judgments. The nature of strategic decisions make it possible for decision makers e.g., managers within an organization, to have widely varying and incorrect beliefs about environmental factors which can influence decision quality. Changing beliefs is a marketing effort, and requires time, and coordinated process of communication, conversation, education, and presentation of new evidence. ​The viability of strategic choice depends in large part on managers' knowledge about the current situation, and probable reactions of their company, competitors, customers, and broader public.  
5. Implement and monitor decision - Develop a plan to implement and monitor progress on the decision. This phase involves actions needed to make changes in the organizational capacity to enable it to resolve the problem.

Strategic decision-making involves issue comprehension, concepts structuring, and concepts formulation into cause-effect relations model. While the cause-effect relations are based on logical and deductive reasoning, the issues comprehension that triggers it, involves choice of assumptions which is to some extent arbitrary and inductive in nature. It is important that managers understand that their choice of assumptions is arbitrary and influenced by their beliefs and mind-set (mental model), and might not accord with reality. So strategic decisions logically flowing from these assumptions, if they turn out to be bad/erroneous assumptions, can lead to failure. 


Factors Influencing Strategic Decision-Making and Decisions
A number of factors can exert decisive influence on the success of strategic decisions-making and strategic choices. These may include the following:

1. Decision-Making Complexity -This derives from the recursive logic of thought and actions embedded in the strategic decision-making process, and is common at the different management levels in the organization. Each of which deals with different problems and relies on different sources of knowledge. Decision makers need to engage in a cognitive process, in the form of heuristics - rules of thumb, common sense, intuition or educated guesses - to create new solutions based on old experiences. To choose a good option, past data, current data, forecast data and various other factors must be examined carefully. make a good selection  
2. Uncertainty - Uncertainty is the state of having limited availability to critical information. Managers choose a strategic option on the basis of relevant data and information such as current conditions or future outcomes - possible outcomes that are unknown. The effects of uncertainty create obstacles and challenges to strategic decision-making due to limited knowledge of current conditions and gaps in knowledge of future outcomes. In these situations, managers face the extremely difficult problem in making decisions that demand a long-term perspective, committing the firm in the long run within a competitive landscape that is unlikely to stand still.
3. Decision Complexity - Decision complexity derives from: the inter-relationship among choices. For example, the strategic decision to enter a new market will require a major allocation of resources across different parts of the organization such as marketing, finance, operations, etc. This in turn will lead to the consideration of other strategic choices associated with the primary strategic decision, resulting in cascading decisions which is a source of complexity. 
4. Social Complexity - Social complexity derives from Managers and decision makers having differing individual mental models (or mindsets) of the world which then influences how people approach resolving the issues and problem; how these issues relate and impact perceived implications in relation to the strategic choices open to them. Differences in mind-sets (mental models) may also lead to cognitive conflict among decision makers due to possible differences in the individual manager's comprehension and interpretation of issues can lead to disagreements among decision makers and/or individual managers about the strategic choices to pursue. This manifests itself in managers doubts about how organizational values should guide the decision or choice of action.
5. Beliefs, Assumptions and Judgments - Strategic choice takes place in the organizational context and influenced by the decision makers beliefs, assumptions and judgments. The nature of strategic decisions make it possible for decision makers e.g., managers within an organization, to have widely varying and incorrect beliefs about environmental factors which can influence decision quality. A belief is a conclusion about how the world works, held by an individual. Once formed, our beliefs drive our actions. While beliefs are applied by individuals, they are also formed and applied by groups. And it is in this regard that beliefs play an important role in organizational life and shaping culture. Shared organizational beliefs can impact performance in a number of ways. Most managers don’t understand that their choice of assumptions is arbitrary influenced by their beliefs and that those assumptions might not accord with reality so strategic decisions logically flowing from bad/erroneous assumptions can lead to bad/poor decisions which can, in turn, ultimately to strategy failing at implementation and execution.

A major problem in strategic decision making is predicting the future of the organization in achieving its mission and its environment, and matching the characteristics of the organization to the environment. The decision-maker has to perceive and understand problems underlying identified issues; once perceived, solution ideas must be formulated then choices have to be made about a particular solution which is then implemented.  

For example, customers’ utility for a product (goods or service), and managers’ opinions of the customers’ perceptions of quality for that product (goods or service), can be inversely related. These beliefs influence the choice of assumptions underlying the manager’s strategic decisions and determine how good/bad the decision is. Erroneous assumptions can lead to bad/poor strategic choice which in turn, can lead ultimately to strategic decision failing at implementation.

Strategy Implementation
​Strategy implementation is the responsibility of top, middle and lower/line managers focused on building capacity through projects and programs to strengthen the organization, and enable it to better deliver value to customers while meeting stakeholders expectations. Strategy implementation is an action-oriented process for building a capable organization  that can make the selected planned/formulated strategy work as intended. 

A strategy is implemented if the corporation has the capabilities, enterprise advantage, and business portfolio it wants, its corporate strategy is implemented. If the business unit has the customers, value proposition, and skills it has chosen to have, its business strategy is also fully implemented. Technically, a strategy can never actually be fully implemented because everything that was necessarily assumed when formulating the strategy - about customers, technology, regulation, labor market, competitors, and so on - is in a constant state of flux. There will always be a gap between where the company is and what its (corporate and business) strategy calls for. Closing this gap is implementation. 

Why Strategy Implementation Fails
Strategy implementation can fail - not accomplishing the desired outcomes - for myriad reasons including the inability of the organization to manage its strategy very well when faced with challenging situations such as:

• Economy - Economic upheavals that simply do not provide any room for new businesses to survive, grow and thrive.
• Competitors - Actions of competitors.
• Market - Business challenges inherent in the market.
• Resource Availability - Lack of availability of adequate resources.

These challenges are not the reasons at fault, since other businesses are able to survive, grow and thrive. The real (causal) reason can be attributed to mismanagement - inability of the business organization to manage its strategy very well.


Effective Strategy Management
Effective strategy implementation management involves closing the "execution" gap - the gap between actual/current strategy performance and intended desired performance.



Strategy implementation involves change in people that typically takes over a long period of time, this makes it more likely that the conditions under which the strategy formulation took place will change and unforeseen circumstances may arise to derail the execution. 

​​Management needs to also understand the interactions among key execution decisions and actions, and contextual forces that create significant and persistent execution gap as measured by the Operating Model. An important task of managers is to design strategic control systems for successfully implementing and executing a strategy.

Managing organizational change requires a system of controls - a tool designed by managers to help them monitor and evaluate the progress of activities directed towards executing the organization's implemented strategy. Some of the factors that influence execution success/failure include: 

1. Bad Strategy - A bad strategy is a strategy that does not define an approach/means to respond to a challenge (opportunity/threat), or solve a known problem. Bad strategy is reflected in an organization's failure to face the problems that pose threat to its survival and profitable growth. A good strategy, for example, aligns with well diagnosed strategic issue and basic problem; and is an approach to overcoming an obstacle; or a response to a challenge.  A good strategy is a mixture of policy and action designed to surmount a challenge/problem. 
2. Bad Strategic Decisions - Strategic decisions are among the main means through which management choices are actually realized. Bad strategic decisions are strategic decisions whose outcomes are the wrong expected outcomes, and result in business failure/decline. 
3. Poor Implementation - This is failure of strategic initiatives that define major efforts/actions required to close identified strategic gaps to achieve intended objectives, so the organization can make progress towards its strategic goals. The gaps may be (1) between strategy and organization capabilities, (2) between strategy and the reward structure, (3) between strategy and internal support systems, and (4) between strategy and the organization's culture. Poor implementation may result in weak strategic assets that do not close the strategic gap, and make successful execution is unlikely. 
4. Inadequate Structure - The organization structure defines appropriate boundaries for lines of business, shared services and functions, centers of expertise and other integrative and coordinating methods and mechanisms that allow the company to leverage scale and expertise. The structure in addition specifies the size and shape of the organization with indicative resource levels and locations. Inadequate structure is a structure that is not aligned with the strategy and supportive of it. 
5. Culture - Organizational culture is the overall atmosphere within the company, particularly with respect to its members and their involvement in how work gets done.  The company should foster a culture of being responsible and accountable for one's actions with corresponding incentives and sanctions for good and bad behavior.
6. ​Accountability - This specifies and clarifies the Roles, Responsibilities of the main organizational entities, including ownership of P&Ls and a clear value-adding role for the corporate center. There should be clear guidelines for the roles each organizational unit will play in critical decisions. A rewards system linked to these accountability reinforces strong execution.  
7. Poor Coordination - Implementation and Execution Takes time, Execution Involves Many People, Execution involves managers across all levels in the organization this requires leadership in coordinating management and staff in properly performing their tasks to accomplish work.
8. Not Managing Change - This relates to the difficulty of managing employee resistance to change. People become comfortable with the way the business is run; they know the expectations and their role within the company. When a major change disrupts their familiarity, some employees become upset; they don't want to relearn their jobs or change the way they have done things. The leadership in the organization need to support the employees and provide training for any new responsibilities to ease the transition.
9. Poor Leadership - Effective strategy execution requires leadership and management effectively communicate the vision and mission of the organization to employees and ensure they are aligned with the vision and mission goals and objectives.  Leadership must also understand the the current climate (influenced by culture) and ensure the organization climate is appropriate to support successful strategy execution or make the appropriate and necessary changes to culture.  Clarifying Decision Rights and Norms.
10. Poor Communication - Failing to communicate effectively creates uncertainty and makes employees feel as if they are not part of the team and decisions. This invites fear and rumors into the work environment, disrupting work and progress towards change implementation. Keeping employees updated regularly about the progress of strategy performance improves employee involvement.
11. Poor Planning - This results in inefficient utilization of resources such as time and labor as well as lack of capacity to managing change. Without adequate planning, change in the organization is likely to fall apart or cause more problems than benefits Poor planning may lead to strategy execution failure resulting from: bad or unrealistic schedules for project team members resulting in waste of time and poor time management; lack of clear definition of strategy and project objectives; lack of budgetary controls leading to misuse of funds, etc. 

All these factors are interdependent and their influences are non-deterministic; this typically, makes it very difficult for managers to comprehend the contribution of each of the factors to successful outcomes of strategy execution. Each of the factors influences execution success/failure in a different way; if an organization fails to pay proper attention to one of these factors, it can result in execution failure, therefore an organization needs a system and approach to support management of these factors and their influence on successful execution. ​

Strategy Implementation Management
​Strategy execution management is a process of managing people, strategy and operations. Strategy execution management is a disciplined and systematic approach to managing - directing, controlling and facilitating - the day-to-day decisions and activities undertaken at all levels in the organization involving top management through middle management, and front-line managers and workers that carryout the ongoing pursuit of a strategy and complete it. 

​Strategic managers create control systems to monitor the quality of products. Strategic control systems provide managers with the tools to regulate and govern their activities. In strategic control, managers first select strategy and organization structure, and then create control systems to evaluate and monitor the progress of activities directed towards implementing and executing strategies. Finally, they adopt corrective actions through adjustments in the strategy if variations are detected.

Strategic control systems provide managers the tools to regulate and govern their activities through both proactive (feed forward) and reactive (feedback) mechanisms. Proactive control systems help in keeping an organization on track, anticipating future events and responding to opportunities and threats. Reactive control systems help detect deviations after events have occurred and then take corrective actions. Strategic control systems further help managers achieve superior efficiency, quality, innovation and responsiveness to customers. Strategic control systems can also help in encouraging employees to think about innovation. Strategic control systems make employees more responsive to customers through monitoring and evaluating employees' behavior and contact with customers.

Strategy Implementation / Execution
A strategy has to be successfully implemented and executed to be effective and of any use to an organization. Strategy implementation is a function of strategic management It is the process of making the selected strategy (strategic choice) operational by translating it into action plans which can executed successfully. Implementation provides the connecting loop between strategy formulation and the actual strategy realized.

​The actual strategy of an organization is the strategy realized from execution; it is the combination of the executed part of the intended (deliberate) strategy - what managers have set out in advance and intend to do - as part of some important strategic plan, and emergent strategy - the executed as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh competitive pressures.

Strategy is implemented through the use of projects, programs and portfolios. 

• Portfolios structure investments in line with strategic initiatives and objectives, whilst balancing, aligning and scrutinizing capacity and resources. 
• Strategic initiatives are the means through which a company translates its goals and vision into practice. They are the specific actions or goals an organization adopts to bring its vision to life.  They are the first tangible objectives of your strategy, and are crucial to the execution of the strategy and the organizations development. 
• Programs combine business,­ as­ usual, with projects and steady state activity dictated by strategic priorities. 
• Projects are transient endeavors that bring about change and achieve planned objectives.

Together, they combine to deliver the beneficial change required to implement, enable and satisfy the strategic intent of the organization. 

Some examples of strategy implementation include: developing and executing a new marketing plan to help increase sales of the company's products to consumers.  

Strategy implementation is a function of strategic management, and it encompasses strategy implementation planning and execution. 

​Strategy Implementation Planning
The planning aspects of strategy implementation is an action-oriented plan of activities that revolve around management of people, resources, and business processes. Strategy implementation planning is one way by which an organization's objectives, strategies, and policies are put into action through development of initiatives (programs and projects), budgets and procedures. 

Strategy Execution
Strategy execution is the implementation of a strategic plan in an effort to reach organizational goals. It comprises the daily structures, systems, and operational goals that set your team up for success. Strategy execution makes the strategy implementation plan work as intended, and turn strategy implementation plan into organizational success. Execution involves doing things to create "fits" between the way things are done and what it takes to make the strategy work as intended. (how things should be done) within the context of the strategy implementation.

Successful strategy execution involves decisions about managing changes to appropriate elements of the organization's Operating Model. The operating model is concerned with how resources are organized and operated to get critical work done. Changes to elements of the organization's Operating Model may include: governance, accountability, or culture, and in some cases overhauling the whole structure, when a company's strategy changes. These decisions about change take place within an organizational context of power, culture, leadership, and ability to manage change. This makes it more difficult for managers to control execution. 


Components of Strategy Implementation
Strategy implementation require a number of key components to be in place to be successful. These components include:
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1. Resolving several strategic issues,
2. Creating sound organization structure,
3. Managing organizational change,
4. Developing core competencies,
5. Creating valuable capabilities,
6. Leading people effectively,
7. Building people-management skills,
8. Integrating the work efforts of many teams of employees,
9. Working out measures to overcome ingrained inertia and thee traditional attitude toward staying with the present practices,
10. Overcoming pockets of disagreement,
11. Securing cooperation of all those who matter in the strategy implementation,
12. Motivating people,
13. Achieving continuous improvement in business processes,
14. Allocating adequate resources to various work teams,
15. Establishing strategy-supportive policies and corporate culture,
16. Installing support systems.

Effective strategy implementation provides the context for successful execution, and involves managing change in the organization's internal environment which then allows the organization to successfully adapt to the changing external environment in which it operates but cannot control. 


[TBD]




Factors Influencing Successful Strategy Implementation  
Strategy Implementation is fraught with challenges as evidenced by the low percentage of strategies that are effectively implemented. Implementation failure is influenced by myriad of factors including: including: 

1. Poor Leadership - This is the capability the organization must possess at decent levels to enable the organization's leaders and managers to effectively organize, coordinate and communicate the organization's direction and vision to the workforce and keep them motivated and committed to achieve the mission and strategic objectives and goals. Poor leadership is manifested as follows: (1) Lack of emphasis on the interfaces within the organization,  (2) Failing to get employees buy-in in the new strategy, (3) Failing to direct employee capabilities toward the new strategy, (4) Failing to keep employees motivated and committed to the strategy implementation, (5) Lack of controls in terms of progress reviews and appropriate corrective actions.
2. Information Availability and Accuracy - This represents an organization capacity to provide information system of processes and information flows that link the organization together and make accurate information available in a timely manner to support effective decision-making, communication and learning. Inadequate information systems capacity leading to poor Information Flows and availability of accurate information to support fast and accurate progress tracking, timely intervention, and corrective action at the right time and place.may result in the degradation in certain management functions such as: (1) Poor Coordination - Poor coordination across functional areas, (2) Poor Strategic Decision-making  resulting in bad decisions such as late and/or untimely decisions, (3) Bad Strategic Decisions - Bad decisions.
3. Uncertainty - Uncertainty is a state of having limited knowledge of current conditions or future outcomes. Uncertainty creates obstacles and challenges to decision-making due to limited knowledge of current conditions and gaps in our understanding of future outcomes, and effects management behavior in performing their duties have on those outcomes. 
4. Organization Structure -  Organization structure provides an explanation of the decision-making process and clarifies the roles and responsibilities, allocation of human resources - the way people and tasks/work are organized and roles and responsibilities are assigned to people. The structure enables strategic alignment - effective cascading of objectives, goals, and decision rights to the appropriate people (actors) in the functional areas of the organization with the capability and capacity to perform the actions at the right time and place to accomplish the requisite goals and objectives.
5. Organization Culture - Organization culture defines the particular way the organization solves problems of survival through adaptation to external environment and internal integration which is supportive of the strategy. Organizational culture is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an organization, and the meanings they attach to their actions. Culture includes the organizational values, vision, norms, working language, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. Culture manifests itself in the particular way things are done in an organization including how decisions are made. It affects who gets hired, how they get trained (formally or informally), what behaviors get rewarded, who gets promoted, and virtually all organizational procedures and administrative protocols. 
6. Human Resources - Human resources are the people that comprise the workforce including managers of an organization, and the adequacy of their competencies, knowledge and skills. Human resources represent one the category of assets employed by an organization to create and deliver products and services to customers. "Do you have enough people to implement the strategies?" and "Do you have the right people in the organization to implement the strategies?" This core issues area relates to the knowledge, experience, and skills of the people (workforce) in the organization, and .is a determining factor in implementation success. Organizations invest in recruiting and training to build this capability critical to successful implementation.
7. Technology Trends - Technological trends include not only the glamorous invention that revolutionizes the lives of the actors in the organization and its environments, but also the gradual painstaking improvements in methods, in materials, in design, in application, unemployment, and the transportation and commercial base nd their diffusion into new industries and efficiency. 

​All these factors that influence the successful implementation of a strategy are interdependent and their influences are non-deterministic it is typically very difficult for managers to comprehend the contribution of these factors to the successful outcomes of strategy implementation making strategy implementation very hard. Each of the factors influences implementation outcomes (closing the gap) in a different way; if an organization fails to pay proper attention to one of these factors, it can result in implementation failure, therefore an organization needs a system and approach to support management in successful execution.

Effective Strategy Implementation and Management
Strategy implementation is the responsibility of top, middle and lower/line managers focused on building capacity through projects and programs to strengthen the organization, and enable it to better deliver value to customers while meeting stakeholders expectations. 

A strategy is implemented if the corporation has the capabilities, enterprise advantage, and business portfolio it wants, its corporate strategy is implemented. If the business unit has the customers, value proposition, and skills it has chosen to have, its business strategy is also fully implemented. Technically, a strategy can never actually be fully implemented because everything that was necessarily assumed when formulating the strategy - about customers, technology, regulation, labor market, competitors, and so on - is in a constant state of flux. There will always be a gap between where the company is and what its (corporate and business) strategy calls for. Closing this gap is implementation. 

Strategic gap analysis attempts to determine what a company should do differently to achieve a particular goal by looking at the time frame, management, budget and other factors to determine where shortcomings lies. The implementation gap can be manifested as:

• management induced gap - Gaps caused by the way management acts to implement strategic initiatives. Management can cause gaps to exist between strategy and execution through both action and inaction. Some of the ways management causes these gaps includes: failure to secure support for the plan, failure to communicate the strategy, failure to adhere to the plan, and failure to adapt to significant changes.
• Process Induced Gap - Gaps caused by the failure of traditional processes (e.g., budgeting, forecasting, reporting) used to implement and monitor strategy.
• .Technology Induced Gaps - Caps caused by technology systems used to support those processes such as planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting processes.
• Culture - [TBD]

Typically, the  gap between the strategic plan and its implementation - is caused by missing integrative links such as:

1. Focus on Strategic Initiatives - Strategic change in organizations is largely delivered through multiple projects and programs. The absence of an implementation process that is focused on a portfolio of strategy-fulfilling projects can result in an implementation gap.
2. Shared Top-Down Understanding - The firm's vision and strategic plan are generally created by top executives of the organization. The plan's implementation is carried out by middle and line management, and professionals and lower level employees through changes in operations and delivery of projects. Disconnects in both directions (top-down and bottom-up views) are often found to exist in the organization.
3. Organizational Focal Point - Lack of organizational focal point that is responsible for overseeing the implementation of all the strategic projects. A vertical implementation rather than a cross-organizational implementation, invariably occurs. Delegating responsibilities to the functional level VPs is a common problem.
4. Alignment Across Functions - This missing link relates to not having a cross-functional group that is responsible for strategic level decisions during implementation. The key here is making priority, resource, and other trade-off decisions among all the critically important projects.
5. Executive Transition Mitigation - Frequent turnover of executives at VP level or above often result in dramatic implementation slowdowns and organizational conflicts.
6. Feedback Loop - A missing link is a set of performance metrics and control reports that enable feedback, organizational learning, and continuous improvement over time. Sustaining competitive advantage over time makes continuous improvement mandatory.

 ​​
Strategy implementation involves change - closing the gap between organization's current capacity and the capacity the strategy calls for. In a rapidly changing world any competitive advantage a firm creates is temporary and not sustainable; without systematic changes to the firm's strategy and plans so it can respond and take advantage of opportunities that emerge as a result of changes in the environment while managing emerging threats that successful execution. 

[TBD]

​Strategy implementation decisions and actions are the means through which management intentions and choices are actually realized. Typically, the value delivered by enhanced and strengthened existing assets or new assets is causally and temporally separated from the successful completion of the strategic initiatives that produced those assets. Any cause-effect relationships may involve two (2) or more stages; making it difficult for managers to fully comprehend the contribution of these assets to the success/failure of the execution of the strategy. In the absence of certain cause-effect relationships or experience in how these dialectical (verbal) processes between organizations will unfold, the firm can only hypothesize about the effects of different possible initiatives, and learn more about them through interaction with other actors such as competitors, regulators, customers, suppliers, and partners in its competitive landscape. 

Introduction
A strategic issue is essentially an issue - an unresolved question (i.e., a fundamental policy question) or critical challenge needing a decision or waiting for some clarifying future event. It is strategic in that it affects or has a major impact on successfully achieving the organization's mission. It is an issue that must be resolved if the organization is to achieve its mission.

An organization may believe that the strategic issue will be relatively easy to resolve or extremely difficult or even impossible to resolve (or somewhere in between). The degree of difficulty should not be the focus, but rather, the focus should be on the degree to which the issue is an obstacle to the organization achieving its mission. ​The identification and prioritization of strategic issues sets the strategic focus for the development of strategies.

The strategic issue is derived from the facts and data provided by the external and internal analysis and its synthesis through the SWOT model. Strategic issues are triggered by any one of a myriad of organizational issues or events of strategic relevance, such as:
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1. Mandates - Issues related to carrying out mandates successfully.
2. Mission and values - Issues related to successfully accomplishing the mission.
3. Stakeholders - Issues related to meeting stakeholders' expectations.
4. Internal Analysis - Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the organization and Issues related to successfully leveraging the organizational strengths such as resources, structure, processes, management, product offering, financing, or organizational design; or avoiding weaknesses.
5. External Analysis - Identifying the Opportunities and threats and Issues related to capitalizing on those opportunities - clients/customers, users or payers, or mitigating threats to minimize risk of loss. 

In order for an issue to be raised and resolved effectively, the organization must be prepared to deal with the conflicts associated with the issue. Strategic issues by definition embody conflicts. These conflicts may be over ends ("what"); means ("how"); philosophy ("why"); location ("where"); timing ("when"); and who might be helped or hurt by the different ways of resolving the issue ("who").

Strategic Issues Diagnosis
Strategic issues diagnosis is a problem formulation process involving strategic decisions and decision-making processes to identify problems underlying strategic issues that are of strategic relevance, and deciding on potential courses of action (strategies) to pursue to resolve those problem(s). Strategic issues diagnosis defines the methods/process for identifying strategic issues and problems facing the organization. Deciding how to solve the problem, i.e., strategy development, creates the need for more information and analysis. 

Strategic Issues Identification
Strategic issues identification focuses organizational attention on what is truly important for the survival, prosperity and effectiveness of the organization - and provides useful advice on how to achieve these aims. The strategic issues identification step focuses organizational attention on what is truly important for the survival, prosperity and effectiveness of the organization - and provides useful advice on how to achieve these aims. It is vital that strategic issues be identified and dealt with expeditiously and effectively if the organization is to survive and prosper. An organization that does not address its strategic issues may be unable to head off threats, and unable to capitalize on important opportunities, or both.

Problem Formulation 
​Strategic issues must clearly relate to specific strategic problems facing the organization; additionally, they must be specific to the particular organization or industry. Analysis is the process of organizing and presenting information in an analytical way/manner that assists in better defining the problem scope or narrowing  down its causes so that solutions may be more effectively created. This includes such things as determining what caused the problem, why does it continue to exist, will it go away on its own, how long has it existed, how serious is it, how soon does it have to be solved, and what internal and external factors contribute to the problem. 

Problem Analysis
​Problem analysis requires you to build a model of the problem, collect some data and information to test your hypotheses and assumptions underlying the problem to even discover what the real problems are to solve. The process is akin to an "empirical discovery loop" that enables systematic discovery and formulation of problems in complex real world situations such as strategy and policy making. Deciding how to solve a problem once its been stated creates the need for more information and data gathering, and analysis and synthesis.

Problem Statements
Defining problems of strategic relevance is hard because identifying these problems are difficult, partly because of complexity induced by the complicated structures of these problems, uncertainty due to incomplete information, and turbulence in the environment. Strategic issue problems are cross-functional in nature and have major long-term consequences for the organization's success because they impact the organization's competitive position - performing better than rivals/competitors. A strategic issue problem is composed of many interrelated sub-problems, possibly from different domains, e.g., such as expressed through business architecture domains, etc.
 
A problem statement for a strategic issue is based on a model comprising three (3) elements:

1. Description - The issue should be described succinctly, preferably in a single paragraph. The issue itself should be framed as a question the organization can do something about.
2. Factors - Factors that make the issue a fundamental policy question should be listed. In particular, what is it about mandates, mission, values or internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats that make this a strategic issue?
3. Consequences - The organization should state the consequences of failure to address the issue. A review of the consequences will inform judgments of just how strategic, or important various issues are. 

The problem statement describes the problem scope, variables and factors, and narrows the assumptions of cause-effect relationships so that potential solutions may be more effectively explored.

Strategic Issues Diagnosis Outputs/Results
The substantive outputs of strategic issues diagnosis are assumptions, cause-effects understanding (beliefs), predictive judgments, and symbolic language labels. These elements facilitate decision-making during the strategy (solution) development stages of strategic planning.

• Assumptions - Assumptions are premises, conditions, events or attributes that are or must be taken as 'given' or true by any individual or group in exploring a strategic issue or problem. They are those data points, facts, or beliefs which in the view of individuals represent elements of the world around them. 
• Cause-effect understandings - In the course of resolving an issue or problem individuals generate understandings of how various events/conditions and concepts relate together in a causal manner. These beliefs are like the causal links which comprise cognitive maps except that they are specific to a particular strategic problem/issue.
• Predictive judgments - Predictive judgments are judgments that involve assessments of future events surrounding a strategic issue or problem. Assumptions and cause-effect understandings, tacitly accepted or consciously explicated, are crystalized in the form of predictive judgments. Some examples include: Estimates of the likely effects of changes in such variables as marketing expenditures; definition of market boundaries; cash flow projections based on current or desired portfolio; R&D expenses and investment intensity on performance in ROI, cash flow, and/or market share.
• Symbolic Elements - Language and label for defining domain concepts. 

These elements can constrain or facilitate strategic decision-making during the issues diagnosis and subsequent strategy formulation stages of strategic management. Strategic decision making requires the decision makers to provide judgement, evaluation, and insights into the problem definition. 

Solutions (Strategy) Formulation
Defining solutions to strategic issues' problems is a problem solving process that results in the formulation of a set of strategic alternatives/options. A solution - option/alternative - is a set of hypothetical solution approaches to solving the problems identified from strategic issues diagnosis. Solutions lead to the generation of possible strategic objectives. 

Linking Strategic Issues to Strategy Formulation and Mission
A solution may link strategic issue(s) directly to strategy formulation. The strategy derives most of its content directly from the strategic issues. This content is restated and augmented with additional information in the form of decisions - captured in a formal model - which clearly enunciates the organization's vision as to future course and direction. Formulation involves crafting appropriate strategies to respond to the strategic issues/problems, and is an intellectual and entrepreneurial endeavor. It often requires you to build a model of the problem, collect some data and information to test your hypotheses and assumptions underlying the problem, to even discover what the real problems are to solve. A model of the strategy allows us to explore and evaluate the upside potential, the downside risk, the resource consumption and the probabilities of success for the alternatives, and select the best direction.

Strategic issues may also link to the mission - defines the future role of the organization and organization goals - general and continually intended results necessary and sufficient to satisfy the organization's concept of success. This is a two (2) relationship: (1) these may arise because of the recognition that the organization is not fulfilling the commitments made in the mission statement; (2) the content of the mission statement and goals reveals some misalignments. These lead to identification of those strategic initiatives required in the next year or so to close the gap

Introduction
Organizations have to change in order to grow. Typically, organizations change as a result of their strategies to re-position themselves and adapt or react to changes in external factors that create market opportunities and/or threats. All businesses have internal and external environments in which they exist and operate; organization change invariably involve change in these environments' factors. Change is a certainty so business managers must actively engage in a process that identifies change in the environments and modifies organizational behavior to best take advantage of this change. 

Organizational change invariably involves change in people's behavior and relationships in the internal/external environments of the organization. Change in the internal environment factors involve those factors that are influenced by how the company is run, or strategic decisions that introduce conditions inside an organization that forces a change. Managers however, do have some control over how the business reacts to changes in the external environment through management of the internal environment factors which is to some extent are controllable and changeable through the strategic management process. Change in the external environment involve external environment factors that are not controllable by the organization; these include business competitors, changes to law, general economic conditions, etc. 

​​Internal Environment and Factors
The internal environment is defined by the set of internal factors resulting from either the way the business is run, or decisions made, or both. The factors resulting from how the business is run include: business reputation and image, credit worthiness, etc. The factors resulting from business decisions include:

• Direction - []
• management structure - ​The structure or form of an organization flows from (aligned with) its intended function and purpose which are realized through the organization's operations guided by the organization's strategy. 
• staffing - [TBD]
• physical decor of facilities/offices, etc.

The factors resulting from the way the business is run - how the organization moves forward both as a self contained organizational entity and its responses to factors in its external and enabling environments - include:

• Learning - This involves feedback mechanism and feedback loop. The feedback loop is a process in which a system receives internal/environmental responses to its behavior and in turn, reacts to those received responses by accommodating and assimilating the energy/information received, by altering the system's structure, and then engaging in altered exchanges of energy/information. Feedback measures output against a standard in some form of cybernetic procedure that includes communication and control. Feedback can be positive or negative; routine or informational. Negative feedback generally provides the controller with information for action. Positive feedback reinforces the performance of the system, and is routine in nature.
• People - Organizational change invariably involves change in people's behavior and relationships. “Whether proposing a change in the executive compensation structure, establishing priorities for a diverse group of business units, consolidating redundant operations, or preparing for plant closings, etc., a senior executive’s conscious thoughts are foremost among the processes for accomplishing a change or implementing a decision: ‘who are the key players, and how can I get their support? Whom should I talk to first? Should I start by getting the production group’s input? What kind of signal will that send to the marketing people? I can’t afford to lose their commitment in the upcoming discussions on our market strategy.’” Change to individuals involve learning and their interactions and behavior.
• Knowledge - The knowledge, experience and capability of an organization workforce is a determining factor in the organization's success. For this reason, organizations must pay particular attention to the recruitment of staff and also to engage in the training of staff and volunteers to build the organization's capability. In pursuing both recruitment and training strategies, the organization is often limited by its financial strengths. Training of staff is an essential is an essential aspect of good business management practices; and even in difficult financial; circumstances is an achievable strategy.
• ​Organizational Culture -Culture and values describe the expected cultural norms for how people collaborate within and across functions or teams. Culture includes the organizational values, visions, norms, working language, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. Culture manifests itself in the particular way things are done in an organization. It affects who gets hired, how they get trained (formally or informally), what behaviors get rewarded, who gets promoted, and virtually all organizational procedures and administrative protocols. Culture reflects and affects the ownership that individuals feel for execution related goals. The culture within the organization is a very important factor in attaining business success. The attitudes of staff and volunteers, and their ability to "go the extra mile" makes a very significant difference. Negative attitudes can have severe impact on the organization's ability to implement strategies for development despite however thorough the planning processes are. Positive attitudes of staff and volunteers will not only make the management tasks easier, but also will be noticed and appreciated by customers as well as members of the organization. Organizational culture is the collective behavior of humans who are part of an organization, and the meanings they attach to their actions. Organizational culture can be supportive of the following: Learning and Development (Growth), Participatory Decision-Making, Power Sharing, Support and Collaboration, 
• ​Leadership - [TBD]

Internal factors can be controlled directly or indirectly; but changing these factors usually involves indirect costs such as lost productivity for example, while new employees are being trained, some direct costs such as a penalty for terminating a lease before it expires. The performance of an organization is influenced by factors or elements in the internal and/or external environments that shape the behavior as well as determine the strengths and weaknesses of the organization that are relevant to its survival and growth.

External Environment Factors 
The external environment is defined by external factors such as characterized by PESTEL factors e.g., Economic conditions - tight lending conditions, Legal - government regulations, etc., and competition. These factors are uncontrollable, and can be modeled as the institutional relations between the business and the external organization/entity of interest to the business, but are not directly controlled by it.

[TBD]

Managing Organizational Change
[TBD]

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Competitive Advantage
A competitive advantage is what makes an organization's goods or services superior to all of a customers' other choices. ​An organization is unlikely to achieve sustainable competitive advantage leading to sustainable growth and profitability if it fails to effectively convert ideas into good strategies, and translate those strategies into workable and effective actions which are executable. Competitive advantages are attributed to a variety of factors including: cost structure, branding, quality of product offering, the distribution network, intellectual property, and customer service. the more sustainable the competitive advantage, the more difficult it is for competitors to neutralize the advantage.

To be successful, you need to be able to articulate the benefit you provide to your target market that's better than the competition. This is your competitive advantage. You must reinforce that message in every communication to your customers and employees through advertising, public relations, sales aids; and even your store front and messaging to employees.

​Types of Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage can be of two (2) types:

1. Comparative advantages - A firm's capability to produce a good or service more efficiently than its competitors, which leads to greater profit margins, creates competitive advantage. Economies of scale, efficient internal systems, and geographic location can also create a comparative advantage. Comparative advantage does not imply a better product (good/service), though, it shows the firm can offer a product of the value at a lower cost.
2. Differential advantages - A differential advantage is when a firm's products differ from its competitors' offering and are seen as superior. Advanced technology, patent-protected products or processes, superior personnel, and strong brand identity are all drivers of differential advantage. These factors support wide margins and large market shares.

. 
These elements are comprised of factors that allow the productive organization to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals leading to sustained profitable organization growth. 
[TBD]

An organization can be defined as a 4-tuple, composed by a set of goals and objectives, a set of (direct internal) sub-organizations, a set of institutional relationships, and a set of external organizations.

1. The internal sub-organizations are the organizational units linked by finite chain of direct internal sub-organization relations, and the people that are members of these sub-organizations.
2. The external organizations are the organizations that have institutional relations with the organization of interest, but are not directly controlled by it.
3. The goals of the organization are derived from its stated purpose for existence; this is refined and assigned to its sub-organizations so these sub-organization units become jointly responsible for attaining the goals of the whole organization (organization-as-system).
4. Institutional Relationships - These define the norms, policies and rules of an organization.

Organization System Structures
The organization structure defines the arrangement of accountability, authority and responsibility of a group of people in a hierarchy, and network of functional and business units, and the governance relations between these units. The organization structure is designed to enhance communication and information flow among organization system elements (people or groups of people) that comprise the organization social system. Within the structure, rules, policies, and procedures are uniformly and impersonally applied to exert control over members’ behaviors.

Organizational structures are the manifestation of strategic orientations and regulate information flows, decision making, and patterns of behavior, that is, the “internal allocation of tasks, decisions, rules, and procedures for appraisal and reward, selected for the best pursuit of a strategy. Structures develop due to the need to organize behavior in a meaningful way and provide orientation for organizational members to set actions that comply with organizational strategy, organizational culture, and, as a result, accepted patterns of behavior. The structure is comprised of organization units that organize activity within these units (business units, bureaus, teams, or departments) in which people perform specialized functions such as manufacturing, sales, IT, human resource management, accounting/finance, etc. People who perform similar functions (tasks) are clustered together.

Organizations as Systems
An organization as a system is a set of interacting or interdependent functional entities and individuals/groups of individuals forming an integrated whole. It can be one organization, a set of organizations, population groups or individuals. Organization as systems are “open”, social systems.

• Open systems are systems that continuously interact with their environments through acquisition of input, production of output, and exchange of information; they survive and grow by continuously adapting to their environment. 
• Organizations as social systems are configurations of "actors" (human systems or people) connected to each other to compose a system with a common purpose and a set of objectives. The central conceptual modeling construct in modeling social systems in real world situations is the "actor". It is an abstraction which is used to refer to people (the active elements/entity) that is capable of independent action. In creating social network models of real world situations, we adopt as a premise that the social world is unknowable and uncontrollable with respect to the behavior of "actors" (human agents, individual or groups of individuals). Social systems are essentially goal-seeking, information feedback systems. Organizations are social systems depend on norms and rules - policies. Policies are recognized descriptions which act as enforcement mechanisms to restrain individual behavior and regulate all sorts of organizational interactions such as delegation, dependency relationships with internal/external organizational entities as well as defining concepts within the organizational setting.

An organization is a system in that it is greater than the sum of its parts. How it performs cannot be calculated by adding up all the work arrangements - like departments - with the resources and processes that connect it all together.

Actors
Actors represent the perspectives and objectives of the individuals themselves responsible and accountable for implementing the organization design and strategy through their behavior. Actors are taken to be inherently autonomous, i.e., their behaviors are not fully controllable, or are they perfectly knowable. Although the behavior of actors is not perfectly knowable or fully controllable, they are nonetheless not completely random. The behavior of actors can be explained and rationalized through the motivations and intentions attributed to actors.

​Organization System Behavior
The behavior of an organization is usually guided by its strategic and tactical goals. The performance of the organization can be expressed through goal-based performance indicators and measures. Behavior and performance unfolds as observable manifestations (phenomena) of predefined strategies as regulated by organizational structures. This domain puts into effect patterns of behavior, derived from strategies and structures. It makes an organization’s existence as a market player visible.

Organizational System Dynamics
Organizations are dynamic social systems which are a collection of people with a common purpose. The dynamics of social systems are expressed in terms of the intentional properties of the actors that comprise the system, and the interaction relationships between these actors rather than the actual behavior of the actors. An intentional description of actors' behavior offers a way of characterizing actors that respects the autonomy premise underlying the actor concept.

Organization System Interactions
Interactions between actors can occur to satisfy goals that are either common to actors or global goals which pertain to the society (organization) as a whole and lay outside the scope of any one individual actor. Considering sub-organizations as a kind of structured logical actor, interactions among the sub-organization units can be viewed as a way of realizing society goals.

Introduction  
Generally, the term strategy refers to decision and choices about how - means by which - a given objective will be achieved. The term "strategy" is an overloaded word in everyday business conversations. ​Every company ( "for-profit" or "non-profit") has a strategy, but most people including professional practitioners do not bother to explicitly establish their point of view into what is essentially a layered concept when talking about strategy. This creates confusion in the shared understanding about a critical differentiator and a necessary element for long-term success of an organization.

Strategy as a Layered Concept
Strategy in a business organization is about how the organization seeks to survive and prosper within its environment over the long-term. ​Strategy provides an organization with an offensive device to compete against competitors and guides their actions when faced with a range of choices. 

Strategy as a concept exists at three (3) levels in a strategy hierarchy - corporate strategy, business strategy  and operations strategy - with horizontal relationship at each level to functional strategy which reinforces that level. 

• Strategy Hierarchy - The strategy hierarchy model is company specific, customized to the company's own situation and performance objectives. 

1. Corporate strategy is concerned with decisions about the vision, mission, and values of the organization and establishing its direction and scope - product, vertical and geographic integration - of the firm. The focus is on decisions about growth, business portfolio, and comparative advantages.
2. Business strategy is concerned with how the firm competes within a particular industry or market. It is concerned with decisions about competitive advantage through cost leadership or differentiation focus. 
3. Operations strategy is concerned with structural strategic decisions related to production or supply chain's configuration and infrastructures, the strategies to allocate resources, and the technologies to perform processes at each stage in the organization's value chain.

• Functional Strategy - The strategic role of each function is to support those competitive dimensions within a market for which it is wholly or partly responsible. In this way the market comprises of the agenda based on functional strategies and becomes the mechanism for determining development and investment priorities, which is part of Corporate Strategy.

The three (3) levels of strategy hierarchy model are interrelated through a specific dual integration, built through a vertical orientation - top-down and bottom- up to create sustainable competitive advantage. The success of  a strategy hierarchy is reinforced by functional strategy such as; marketing, finance, IT, HR, sales, etc., that appear simultaneously at all three levels of the strategy hierarchy. ​

Categories of Strategy
The concept of strategy is usually used in different ways, even though, traditionally, it has been defined in only one way. Explicit recognition of the multiple definitions corresponding to the different viewpoints can help people when developing strategies. The various viewpoints can be defined in terms of Mintzburg's 5Ps of strategy:

1. Plan - This is a device to help brainstorming options and planning how to deliver them. This may be general or detailed, formal or informal (in the mind). As a plan, strategy is conceived in advance, has a purpose and is thoughtful to some degree. This is deliberate and planned strategy which is a result of the rational planning approach of strategy development. The rational planning approach (e.g., Ansoff, 1979) defines an objective in advance, describes "where we are now," and uses a prescriptive approach in which "the three (3) core areas - strategic analysis, strategy development, and strategy implementation - are linked together sequentially" (Lynch, 2000; 24).
2. Perspective - This defines an orientation  - patterns of thinking - that shapes an organization's perspective on vision and direction - a view of what the company or organization is to become - and the things the organization is able to do well. Mintzburg points out that strategy as a perspective is the same as "Strategy as a Plan" but without the formal planning. In this view, many people in the organization have the same orientation or perspective when they make strategic decisions.
3. Pattern - A "realized pattern" of organizational behavior emerging as strategy. This comprises the decisions and actions over time that may be consistent or inconsistent but represents an emergent strategy. Emergent strategy is realized pattern (behavior) that was not expressly intended or planned that emerged from execution. It is a set of actions, or behavior, consistent over time, “a realized pattern that was not expressly intended” in the original planning of strategy. An emergent strategy develops when an organization takes a series of actions that with time turn into a consistent pattern of behavior, regardless of specific intentions. It consists of the moves made and approaches taken by management to produce successful performance of the organization in successfully competing against rivals. For example, the day-to-day decisions and actions in areas such as enter new business to diversify, extending geographically to grow, efforts to integrate forwards or backwards, efforts to broaden or narrow product/services, actions to capitalize on new opportunities, and actions to respond to changing industry conditions i.e., shifting demand patterns, new airport regulations, entry of new competitors. A consistent pattern of decisions may be the result of an explicit and written strategy or it may be result from organizational culture, or it may result from the influence of one or more leaders. An inconsistent pattern of decisions also represents a sort of strategy - a non-strategy, perhaps, but a strategy that governs decisions. So, in a sense, every organization has a strategy; they all make strategic decisions or non-decisions that are also decisions. 
4. Position - We may view a position taken by the organization that reflects decisions to offer particular products and services in particular markets as a strategy relative to the environment. 
5. Ploy - This is a deliberate exercise and device that can help the organization explore the possible future scenarios in which competition will occur. 

​These viewpoints help in developing robust and successful strategy by highlighting problems that would undermine a strategy at implementation.
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Decision makers or managers start with a given perspective, conclude that it calls for a certain position, and sets about achieving it by way of a carefully crafted plan. Over time things change; a pattern of decisions and actions marks movement from starting point to destination end-point (goal). This pattern of decisions and actions is called "realized pattern" or "emergent" strategy. The actual strategy of an organization is the combination of the executed parts of deliberate strategy and emergent strategy.

Roles of strategy in Business
Strategy plays a number/variety of roles in organization's success, including:

1. Preparing an organization for the future - This does not necessarily imply long-term planning or planning in general; it does imply forward-looking, which helps organization anticipate future needs. Strategy shapes the future so the organization can position itself to win in both the short- and long-term.
2. Distinguishing an organization from others - This implies focus on the organization's unique assets (capabilities/competencies) and features, and exploiting them in a meaningful way to gain advantage.
3. Providing an organization with some stability - This implies the organization transformation or change is guided by strategy so it is not caught in constant flux or reorientation which would cause it to drift.
4. Serving as a common frame of reference - This implies strategy offers an organization a common point of reference even in rapidly changing circumstances. This makes it possible for people in the organization to have a shared understanding and know what assumptions, ideas or plans they are going to deviate from.
5. Support for internal and external alignment - This implies strategy provides an overarching and integrative framework for the most important internal and external factors to be taken into account by management, thus helping to align the organization both internally as well as with its external environment.
6. Guides organizational action - The reason for having a strategy is to give direction and meaning to the things that an organization does. 

Strategy is a significant determinant on a company's success or failure, in addition to the significance of competence of its managerial leadership.