Strategic Management, A System of Strategic Decisions That Provide effective Means to Attain Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Strategic Management
Strategic management is a broad discipline, its scope spanning the entire strategic decision-making structure of the organization, from the management processes and decisions to the activities and functions performed in all its functional units. The primary focus of this discipline is the conduct of the strategic management process, which pretty much covers all the activities and functions performed to enable the organization to cope well with change over the long term.

Strategic management is an ongoing decision-making process, concerned with managing the strategy-producing value chain of an organization. The strategic management process is more than a set of procedures and rules to follow. It is a philosophical approach to business. Strategic management allows firms to take an objective view of the activities being done by it, and do a cost benefit analysis as to whether the firm is profitable. Strategic management gives direction to corporate values. corporate culture, corporate goals, and corporate missions. The strategic management process can be systematically split into stages - Goal-Setting, analysis/diagnosis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation and control.

Goal-setting - Goal setting is to clarify the vision for your business. Goal-setting consists of identifying three (3) key facets: identify short and long term objectives; identify the process of how to accomplish your objectives; and customize the process for your staff.
Analysis/Diagnosis - Analysis is to gather information and data relevant to accomplishing the vision. The focus of analysis is on understanding the needs of the business as a sustainable entity/system, its strategic direction and identifying initiatives that will help the business grow. Diagnosis includes (1) performing situational analysis of the organization's internal environment, (2) analysis of the external environment, (3) identifying the major critical issues facing the organization. Some areas that typically produce strategic issues are: strategic focus, strategic competencies, culture modification/organizational change resource limitations, strategic alliances/acquisitions/mergers/joint ventures, e-commerce products.

Strategy formulation involves reviewing the information gleaned from completing the analysis stage of the strategic management process. Determine what resources the business currently has that can help reach the defined goals and objectives. Identify any areas for which the business must seek external resources. Prioritize the issues facing the company based on their importance to the organization's strategic success. Once prioritized, begin crafting/formulating the strategy.
Strategy implementation is the action stage of the strategic management process. It involves using the organization's current structure (which establishes the roles and responsibilities) to make the formulated strategy work as intended. Everyone in the organization must be made clear of their responsibilities and duties, and how that fits in with the overall strategic goal. All required resources including funding must be secured at this point prior to execution of the plan.
Evaluation and Control involves monitoring and evaluation of internal and external issues of strategic relevance, and making corrective actions if/when necessary. If the corrective actions made are not successful, then repeat the strategic management process. Data gained at this stage provide feedback enabling the organization to learn and deal better with future strategies. Performance Evaluation entails the process of evaluating the performance of a strategy, reviewing new developments and initiating corrective action to make adjustments in long-term direction, objectives, strategy, or implementation in light of actual experience, changing conditions, new ideas, and new opportunities.

In practice, most managers deal with all the strategic management process steps simultaneously; they engage in strategic analysis (environmental scanning) to update their analytical view of the organization, they are implementing and executing strategies formulated in the past, they are formulating strategies to execute in the future, and so on. This requires managers to think systematically and strategically and apply their thoughts to actions/process. 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.

Formulation
Implementation
Execution
Evaluation/Control
Strategic Options

Strategy Formulation
Strategy formulation is part of, and a function of strategic management. Strategy formulation is the process of determining and establishing the goals, mission and objectives of an organization, and identifying the appropriate and best strategies (courses or plans of action) among all available options (alternative strategies) to achieve them. Always, there is an end in sight, and that is the organizational goals of the firm. Strategy in business organizations can be conceptualized as a layered hierarchy of strategies that exist at three (3) levels in the organization, namely; : corporate, business and functional levels. Each of the levels in the hierarchy has a different focus that needs to be dealt with at the strategy formulation stage. The organization anticipates specific results, which can only be achieved by following a specific route, or acting within the confines or parameters of a specific framework. The route or framework is created through strategy formulation. Strategy formulation produces a clear set of recommendations, with supporting justifications, that revise as necessary the mission., and objectives of the organization, and supply the strategies for accomplishing them. A good recommendation should be: effective in solving the stated problem(s); practical (can be implemented in this situation with the resources available); feasible within a reasonable time frame; cost-effective; not overly disruptive; and acceptable to key stakeholders in the organization. In strategy formulation, we are trying to modify the current objectives and strategies in ways to make the organization more successful. This includes trying to create sustainable competitive advantage.

Strategy formulation is sometimes referred to at times as "strategic planning"; this is because they, both, basically follow the same concept. They create a structure to guide management decisions. Strategic planning allows management to evaluate its resources and determine the best ways to maximize the company's return in investment. The output of strategic planning - the strategic plan - serves as a framework or guide for the members of the organization in carrying out their respective roles.

Formulating Corporate Level Strategy
A sound corporate strategy is crucial to consistently meeting goals and achieving long-term success. Corporate strategy at its core is concerned with the entirety of a business, where decisions are made in regard to overall growth and direction. Corporate strategy should answer key questions of strategic relevance, such as follows in a unique way:

What business or businesses should the organization be in?
What is the organization's direction?
How should you add value to your businesses?
Who should be the target customers of your businesses?
What should be your value proposition to those target customers?
What capabilities should differentiate your ability to add value to your businesses and deliver their value proposition?

Corporate strategy is the set of decisions that define the destination towards which a business should move, and the way in which the business should strive to create value, develop a unique corporate advantage, and capture market share to attain that end. Corporate strategy is concerned with broad decisions about the total organization's scope and direction. Ultimately corporate strategy strives to create value, develop a unique marketing advantage, and seize maximum market share.

Corporate Strategy - What is it?
Corporate level strategies are the grand strategies designed to identify the firm's choices with respect to scope, the direction it follows to accomplish its set objectives. Grand strategies are concerned with the decisions about the allocation and transfer of resources from one business to another, and managing the portfolio of busineses effectively, such that the overall objective of the organization is achieved. Corporate strategy -grand strategy - can be classified into one of three (3) categories:

Growth strategy - This component is concerned with the direction that the business is taking and growth stances. Strategic direction focuses on the plans and actions you need to implement in order to progress towards a vision for the organization's future. Strategic direction can be established in a number of ways including: Mission, Culture, Values, Ideology, Principles, and Growth Strategy .
Portfolio strategy - This aspect is all about taking stock of the organization's operating structure. This is concerned with making decisions about the portfolio of lines of business (LOBs) or strategic business units (SBUs), not the company's portfolio of individual products. Portfolio matrix models can be useful in reexamining a company's present portfolio. The most important strategies developed at this level address queries on whether a business should diversify or focus on concentration.
Parenting strategy - This third component of corporate level strategy is only relevant for multi-business companies; it is moot for a single business company. This strategy is concerned with how to allocate resources and manage capabilities and activities across the portfolio of businesses.

Corporate strategy determines the long-term orientation and the development of corporate activities. Corporate strategy allows your business to be proactive, durable and efficient.

Corporate Strategy Formulation
Corporate strategy formulation is concerned, primarily, with decisions that establish the scope, goals and direction of the organization. In order to develop corporate strategy, a firm must look at how the various businesses they own, fit together, how they impact each other, and how the parent company is structured, in order to optimize human capital, processes, and governance. An effective corporate strategy is founded upon honest self-evaluation, which is derived by asking key questions about your business. These questions may include: "what's the current state of the company?"; "Where do you want your company to be in the next three (3) to five (5) years?"; "How does the company get there?"; and "What people, resources and finances are best capable of helping the company arrive there?".

It is useful to organize the corporate level strategy considerations and initiatives into a framework with the following three (3) components; growth strategy, portfolio strategy and parenting strategy.

The growth strategy component of corporate strategy is concerned with growth decisions to address the basic question; What should be our growth objectives and strategy?

This involves giving due consideration to the following: How is the overall performance of the organization? And does it coincide with what the business had in mind when it developed its growth strategy? Are the growth strategies still consistent with the growth objectives? And if not, what changes or modifications must be made? Growth strategies will help a company to consistently grow to meet financial expectations. Some of the growth strategies alternatives that can be followed by the organization to realize its long-term objectives include:

Expansion Strategy - This type of growth strategy is adopted by an organization when it attempts to achieve a high growth as compared to its past achievements. Expansion strategy involves when a company aims to grow considerably by broadening the scope of one or more of its business operations in the perspective of customer groups, customer functions/offerings, and technology alternatives, either individually or jointly. All expansion strategies can be classified into the following: Expansion through Concentration involving vertical and horizontal growth, Expansion through Diversification, Expansion through Integration, Expansion through Cooperation, and Expansion through Internationalization. Expansion can better be understood in the context of customer groups, customer functions, and technology alternatives.
Stability Strategies - There are a number of circumstances in which the most appropriate growth stance for a company is stability, rather than expansion. The stability strategy is adopted when the organization attempts to maintain its current position and focuses only on the incremental improvements by merely changing one or more of its business operations in the perspective of customer groups, customer functions/offering and technology alternatives, either individually or collectively. Stability strategies are geared towards getting "more" out of the existing business (i.e., profitability driven strategy) because the current situation already works well for the organization. This strategy assumes your company is doing well under its current business model. Stability strategy could be of three (3) types: No-Change Strategy, Profit Strategy, and Pause/Proceed with Caution Strategy..
Retrenchment Strategies - When an organization faces a challenging circumstances a Retrenchment Strategy is adopted with the aim of reducing one or more of its business operations in order to cut expenses and reach a more stable financial position. Retrenchment strategy is followed when a firm decides to eliminate its activities through a considerable reduction in its business operations, in the perspective of customer groups, customer functions/offering, and technology alternatives, either individually or collectively. It is a defensive strategy where the main objective is to change the negative trajectory and improve the company's position either through aggressive changes or "cutting off" the parts that pull it down. There are three (3) types of Retrenchment Strategies:Turnaround, Divestment, and Liquidation strategies.

The choice of growth strategy has to align with the life-cycle stage of the organization. Organizations are "born" (established or formed), they grow and develop, they reach maturity, they begin to decline and age, and finally they die. Organizations at any stage of the life-cycle are impacted by the external environment as well as internal environment factors.

Portfolio strategy is concerned with making decisions about the portfolio of lines of business (LOBs) or strategic business units (SBUs), not the company's portfolio of individual products. The basic question is, What should be our portfolio strategy? This involves giving due consideration to the following: What are the lines of business in the organization's portfolio? How are these lines interconnected or do they fit together?

The best test of the business portfolio's overall attractiveness is whether the combined growth and profitability of the businesses in the portfolio will allow the company to attain its performance objectives. Related to this overall criterion are questions such as: Does the portfolio contain enough businesses in attractive industries? Does it contain too may marginal businesses? etc. It is important to consider diversification vs. concentration while working on portfolio strategy, i.e., how broad or narrow should the scope of the company be.

Portfolio matrix models can be useful in reexamining a company's present portfolio. The purpose of all portfolio matrix is to help a company understand and consider changes in its portfolio of businesses, and also think about allocation of resources among different business elements. The two (2) primary matrix models are the BCG Growth-Share Matrix, and the GE Business Screen.

Parenting strategy, the third component of corporate level strategy, is concerned with how to allocate resources and manage capabilities and activities across the portfolio of businesses. The basic question is; What should be our parenting strategy? The main point of concern here is the allocation of resources and capabilities across the lines of business of the organization. How we allocate resources and manage capabilities and activities across the portfolio? Where do we put special emphasis, and how much do we integrate various lines of business? What is the manner in which management coordinates activities and transfers resources and cultivates capabilities among product lines and business units?. Answering these questions involves evaluating and making decisions on the following: Priorities in allocating resources? what are critical success factors in each business unit, and how can the company do well in them? Coordination of activities (e.g., horizontal strategies) and transfer of capabilities among business units? How much integration of business units is desirable?

Components of Corporate Strategy
Creating sound corporate strategy involves several important components that leaders focus on, these may include visioning, objective setting, resource allocation and prioritization.

Visioning - This involves setting the high-level direction of the organization - namely establishing the vision, mission, and corporate values - is the overriding purpose of the visioning component. In creating a corporate vision statement, the primary goal should be to respond to how leadership sees the company evolving in the future.
Objective Setting - This is the process of developing the visioning aspects created and turning them into a series of high-level objectives for the company, typically spanning 3-5 years in length. Strategic objectives are the big-picture goals for the company: they describe what the company will do to try to fulfill its mission. Having strategic objectives in place allows a company to measure its progress. Clearly communicating these objectives to personnel ensures that everyone is focused on the highest-priority tasks and is operating under the same assumptions about the company's future.
Resource Allocation - This component refers to the decisions which concern the most efficient allocation of human and capital resources in the context of stated goals and objectives. Resource allocation involves planning, managing and assigning resources in a form that helps to reach a company’s strategic goals. In an effort to maximize the value of the entire firm, leaders must determine how to allocate these resources to the various businesses or business units to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Key factors related to allocation of resources are: people - identifying core competencies and ensuring they are well distributed across the firm, moving leaders to where they are needed, and ensuring appropriate supply of talent is available for the businesses; capital - allocating capital across businesses so it earns the highest risk adjusted return), and analyzing external opportunities and allocating capital between internal projects and external opportunities.
Business Model - This component refers to the decisions concerning the business model - a high-level plan for profitably operating a business in a specific marketplace. A primary component of the business model is the value proposition. This is a description of the goods or services that a company offers and why they are desirable to customers or clients. A business model is a company's core strategy for profitably doing business. Business models generally include information like products or services the business plans to sell, target markets, and any anticipated expenses.
Organization Design - This component refers to the decisions concerning ensuring the firm has the necessary corporate structure and systems in place to create the maximum amount of value. Factors related to design include: centralization/decentralization - determining how much autonomy to give business units, deciding decision rights, influence on strategy of business units; organizational structure/reporting - determining how large initiatives and commitments will be divided into smaller projects, integrating business units and functions to eliminate redundancies, developing centers of excellence, determining the appropriate delegation of authority, setting governance structures, setting up reporting structures, and allowing for the balance between risk and return to exist by separating responsibilities.
Portfolio Management - Portfolio management looks at the way the business units complement each other, their correlations, and decides where the firm will :"play" (i.e., what businesses it will or will not enter). Corporate strategy related to portfolio management includes: Deciding what businesses to be in, or to be out of; Determining the extent of vertical integration the firm should have; Managing risk through diversification and reducing the correlation of results across businesses; Creating strategic options by seeding new opportunities that could be heavily invested in, if appropriate; Monitoring the competitive landscape and ensuring the portfolio is well balanced relative to trends in the market.
Strategic Trade-offs - This involves identifying the strategic trade-offs, and balancing risk and return on investment to ensure that the desired levels of risk management and return generation are being pursued. Since it’s not always possible to take advantage of all feasible opportunities, and because business decisions almost always entail a degree of risk, companies need to take these factors into account in arriving at the optimal strategic mix. The main factors to consider for strategic trade-offs are: Managing Risk - Firm-wide risk is largely dependent on the strategies the firm chooses to pursue; True product differentiation, for example, is a very high, risk strategy that could result in market leadership or total ruin. A company can adopt a copycat strategy by looking at what other risk takers have done and modifying it slightly. It's important to be fully aware of strategies and associated risks across the firm; some areas might require true differentiation, other areas might require cost leadership, or other areas might be better suited to copycat strategies that rely on incremental improvements. Generating Returns - Higher risk strategies such as true differentiation or cost leadership create the possibility of higher rates of return, if they are well executed. Swinging for the fences will lead to more home runs and strikeouts, so it is better to have the appropriate number of options in the portfolio. These options can later turn into big bets as the strategy develops.

Corporate strategy focuses on how to manage resources, risk, and return across the firm, as opposed to looking at competitive advantages. Leaders responsible for strategic decision making have to consider a number of factors , including: allocation of resources, organization design, portfolio management, and strategic trade-offs. By optimizing all of the above factors, a leader can hopefully, create a portfolio of businesses that is worth more than just the sum of its parts.

Formulating Business Level Strategy
A Business Level Strategy provides a way for organizations to provid value to customers by exploiting an organization's core competencies. Business Level Strategy can help an organization achieve competitive advantage in the marketplace, leading to customers - businesses and consumers - purchasing that organization's products instead of its competitors. Business level strategy can help your organization achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

What Are Business Level Strategies?
Business Level Strategies concern how an organization should compete. Business Level Strategies are focused on how to compete successfully in each of the lines of business the company has chosen to engage in. Business Level Strategies are a mechanism for a business to achieve competitive advantage. According to the Business Level Strategies theory, there are two (2) types of competitive advantage that an organization must chose between:

Cost Leadership - Ensuring your product costs less than competitors.
Differentiation - Ensuring your products are different from competitors.

Competitive advantage refers to factors that allow a company to produce goods/services better or more cheaply than its rivals/competitors. These factors include value proposition, target market and competitors. A company must be able to identify its value proposition that will be sought after by the target market, and cannot be replicated by competitors. These factors allow an organization to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals.

Competitive advantage is defined with a competitive/target market scope; and there are two (2) types of target market scope that an organization must choose between:

Broad Market - Serving a diverse market.
Narrow Market - Focusing on a niche market.

Plotting the all factors of competitive advantage and market scope on to a matrix gives us five (5) generic business level strategies, such as:

Cost Leadership Strategy - This strategy is for organizations that want to compete for a broad customer base, based on price. The organization is trying to be the lowest cost producer. Common mechanisms to drive down costs include: establishing rigid cost controls; building state-of-the-art facilities to produce at scale at a low cost; outsourcing to countries with lower wages. To be effective, this strategy requires your product or service to be standardized. This strategy can help defend your business against Porter's 5 forces.
Differentiation Strategy - This strategy is for firms that want broad customer base, based on their uniqueness. With differentiation strategy an organization is attempting to establish and maintain meaningful differences between the firm and its competitors. Typically, firms with this strategy will focus on building unique features to win in the marketplace. Common mechanisms to differentiate include: Superior quality; Customer service; Design; Uniqueness.
Focused Strategy - This is a specialization strategy. The focus dimension of a competitive strategy recognizes that either a cost advantage or differentiation strategy can be applied to a more narrow (niche) market.

Focused Cost Leadership Strategy - These organizations compete on price but also stand out because they focus on serving a niche market. Common mechanisms to adopt a Focused Cost Leadership Strategy include:Focusing on serving a small group of customers; By uniquely understanding the needs of your niche market, you can cut costs to serve the needs of that market. This strategy can help defend your business against Porter's 5 Forces in the same way that broad cost leadership strategy can.
Focused Differentiation Strategy - This strategy is very similar to that of a differentiation strategy except that it is focused on a very narrow segment of the market. These firms compete by offering unique features to a small market segment. Common mechanisms to focus include: Select a profitable narrow subset of the market; Focus on areas where competition is weakest; Focus on areas where product substitution is difficult.

Integrated Cost/Differentiation Strategy - This is a hybrid strategy. This strategy involves producing low-cost products with differentiated features. This strategy is about simultaneously focusing on two drivers of competitive advantage: cost and differentiation.

Note that no one generic strategy is better than another. An organization can be successful using any one of these strategies. An organization needs to choose the right strategy based its external environment factors (what competitors are doing), and also where the organization's strength lie (core competencies). Businesses and consumers purchase one product instead of another when the products are similar, because customers believe that one of the products has a difference they want/need. The difference could be a cost (a lower price), better warranty, or more status. It could be that the product is healthier, more environmentally friendly, more reliable, or some other benefit.

Business Strategy Decision Areas
Business strategy allows you to focus on capitalizing on your strengths, using them as competitive advantage that makes your company unique in the marketplace. Business strategy focuses on how your customer will experience your business. It is primarily concerned with how a company will approach the marketplace - where to play - You can't be all things to all people and all customers. You need to find the right markets (target markets) and locations to compete in, and make sure your value proposition is the right one for the the right customers and right locations.); and how to win - Every business or market has or will have competitors. Ultimately, this element comes down to how you develop and deploy the right message to customers to position your value proposition versus the value proposition of your competitors including their weaknesses.

Where to play answers questions like:

Which customer segments will we target?
What geographies will we cover?
What products and services will we bring to market?

How to win answers questions like:

How will we position ourselves against our competitors?
What capabilities will we employ to differentiate us from the competition? A business needs strong and differentiated capabilities to compete successfully. For example, if you are pursuing a cost leadership strategy, you need capacity, great supply chain management, and a culture that drives cost out of the system.
What unique approaches will we apply to create new markets?

Answers to these questions drive strategy formulation and implementation and guide deliberations ensuring management is making the right decisions to create a sound competitive strategy. Business strategy by identifying clear set of plans and actions that outline how an organization will compete in particular markets with current portfolio of products and services to reach its goals, enables organization success.

Components of Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage refers to factors that allow a company to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than its rivals. These factors allow an organization to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals. For a company to establish its competitive advantage, it must know the following:

Value proposition - HA company must clearly identify the features or services that make it attractive to customers. It must offer real value in order to generate interest. Having a clear and distinct value proposition to your customers is the first and most important part of a business strategy. Is our value proposition a product focus? Is it a customer focus? Or is it a cost focus? How do we differentiate and how do we choose to be different?
Target market - A company must establish its target market to further engrain best practices that will maintain competitiveness.
Competitors - A company must define competitors in the marketplace, and research the value they offer; this includes both traditional as well as non-traditional emerging competition.

To build competitive advantage a company must be able to identify its value proposition that will be sought after by the target market, and cant be replicated by competitors. A company has competitive advantage whenever it can attract customers and defend against competitive forces better than its rivals.

Business Competitive Strategy Formulation
Business strategy formulation involves decisions and choices regarding competitors, and the nature of competition and competitive advantage. The central thrust is how to build and improve the company's competitive position for each line of business. It is concerned with decisions and choices regarding products and services, and competition within a given industry. Successful competitive strategies usually involve building uniquely strong or distinctive competencies in one or several areas crucial to success and using them to maintain a competitive edge over rivals. Some examples of distinctive competencies are: Superior technology and/or product features; Better manufacturing technology and skills; Superior sales and distribution capabilities; Better customer service and Convenience.

Business competitive strategy is a clear set of plans, actions, and goals that outlines how a business will compete in a particular market, or markets, and with product, or a number of products and services. Business strategy is concerned with creating competitive advantage through creating a unique selling proposition for your business. This can help you create better products or services, offer better pricing, make it easier to buy, or create a benefit that your customers want/need. Business strategies for establishing competitive advantage may include:

Cost Leadership - The goal of a Cost Leadership Strategy is to become the lowest cost manufacturer or provider of goods or services. This is achieved by producing goods that are of standard quality for customers, at a price that is lower or more competitive than other comparable product(s). Companies employing this strategy will combine low profit margins per unit with large sales volumes to maximize profits.
Differentiation - A differentiation strategy is one that involves developing unique goods or services that are significantly different from competitors. Companies hat employ this strategy must consistently invest in R&D to maintain or improve the key product or service features.
Focus - A focus strategy uses an approach to identifying the needs of a niche market and then developing products to align to the specific need areas. The focus strategy has two (2) variants:

Cost Focus - Lowest cost producer in a concentrated market segment.
Differentiation Focus - Customized or specific value-add products in a narrow targeted market segment.

A company can consider formulating competitive strategy by using generic strategies as the fundamental choices, and then adding various competitive tactics. A choice of one of these generic strategies provides the foundation for a business strategy, however there can be many variations and elaborations; among these are competitive tactics such as: Timing tactics - when to enter a market, market location/positioning tactics - where and how to enter and/or defend, and cooperative strategies.

Business strategy is concerned with pursuing an ongoing process of brand management, pricing evaluation, distribution strategy and operational efficiencies in creating, maintaining, and improving your competitive advantage in your market place and increase customer preference and loyalty, sales, profits and market share. The point of interest is on how the organization competes within a specific industry/market as constrained by competitive priorities (established through the SWOT analysis).

Formulating Operations Strategy
Operations strategy is only one part of overall business and corporate strategy, but it is crucial for competitiveness and success. Operational level strategies are informed by business level strategy which is, in turn, are informed by corporate level strategies. Operations strategy underlies overall business strategy and both are critical for a company to compete in an ever changing market. The role of operations strategy is to provide a plan for the operations function so that it can make the best use of its resources. Operations strategy has a long-term concern for how to best determine and develop the firm's major operations resources so there is a high degree of compatibility between these resources and the business strategy.

Operations Strategy - What is It?
Operations strategy is the collective concrete actions chosen, mandated or stipulated by corporate strategy and implemented in the operations function. Operations strategy is a whole system of decisions that are aimed at shaping both the long-term capabilities of operations, regardless of the type of operations, and their contribution to overall achievement of organizational strategy.

Operations strategy consists of a series of decisions that organizations make in order to effectively implement and execute their business and competitive strategies. The realized operations strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape the long-term capabilities of any type of operations and their contribution to the overall business strategy. Operations strategy is the collective complete actions chosen, mandated, or stipulated by corporate/business strategy. Operations strategies connect the firms programs, policies, guidelines and workforce in a way that allows each part of the organization (functional areas) to support others in achieving a common goal.

Operations strategy drives a company's operations function, the part of the business that produces and distributes goods and services. Operations strategy determines operations approaches and goals. Each organization strategy requires a tailored operations strategy. Businesses and organizations use operations strategy to identify and implement cost-effective processes that give them competitive advantage in creating and distributing goods and services. Operations strategy focuses on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of production of services or goods while minimizing operating costs. Operations strategy consists of choices regarding how and where the products or services will be manufactured or delivered, technology to be used, management of resources, plus purchasing and relationships with suppliers. With an effective operations strategy, operations managers can optimize the use of resources, people, processes and technology.

Operations strategy guides operations management decisions on the design of operations functions. Operations strategy is focused on your people and processes. It is primarily concerned with accurately translating the customer-centric business strategy into a cohesive and actionable implementation plan. Operations strategy answers questions like:

Which capabilities need to be created or enhanced?
Which processes need improvement or complete redesign?
Do we have the people we need and do they have the right skills sets? (Example, Talent retention plans through strategic learning and development programs).
How will you allocate resources - physical nd human?
What risks do we face -and how can we mitigate them?

These decisions and specific market needs influence the type of operations strategy developed and employed by a business.

Operations Strategy Decision Areas
The various decisions that comprise Operations Strategy can broadly categorized into two (2) categories: structural, in that they define the overall tangible shape and architecture (e.g., capacity, technology type) of the operation, and infrastructural, in that they relate to the people, systems, and culture that tie together the operations activities.

Structure - physical attributes of operations. Structural decisions define the overall tangible shape and architecture (e.g., capacity, technology type) of the operation. Structural elements decisions are grouped as capacity, location, integration/networking, and technology. Structural decisions include

Facilities,
Capacity to produce,
Process technology and
Supply network.

Infrastructure - refers to the people, systems and software aspects. Infrastructure decisions include planning and control systems, quality management, work organization, human resources, new product development, and performance management of employees. Examples include:

Process Capacity and Design - This defines how the product - good or service - is produced (i.e., the production processes utilized and the specific technology, quality, human resource, and capital investments that the management will undertake in order to determine majority of the company's basic cost structure.
Product Design - This involves designing the products and services to be offered . For instance, product designs normally determine the lowest volume of costs and higher grade of quality as well as other features such as sustainability and human resources required.
Quality Management - This defines the expected quality from the consumers view point as well as established policies and procedures that the company intends to adopt towards attaining such quality levels.
Human Resources and Job Design - This relates to decisions on how to recruit, motivate and retain the staff with necessary skills and talents.
Supply Chain Management - This relates to decisions on how to integrate supply chain into the company's operations and strategy It includes decisions on what will be purchased when it will be purchased, whom it will be purchased from and the conditions for such purchases. Procurement is the process of getting the goods and materials your company needs.
Inventory Management - This relates to decisions about inventory ordering and holding, and how to optimize the process in order to ensure consumers' satisfaction, enhanced supplier capabilities and effective production schedule.
Scheduling - This relates to the decisions on how to determine and implement both intermediate and short-term schedules that can be utilized effectively and efficiently by both the personnel and facilities in the course of meeting consumers' demands.

Operations strategy guides the structural decisions and evolution of operational capabilities needed to achieve the desired competitive position of the organization as a whole.

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Structural decisions define the overall tangible shape and architecture (e.g., capacity, technology type) of the operation. Structural elements decisions are grouped as capacity, location, integration/networking, and technology.

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Maintenance - It relates to decisions about the capacity of the company's facilities, production demands, and personnel that are necessary in order to maintain a reliable and stable production process.
Forecasting and Capacity Planning - What does the short-term and long-term schedules look like? How much can we make in what period of time?

Infrastructure Decisions:
These are divided into four categories; planning & control, inventory management, capacity management, and supply chain management. Examples include:

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Very broad questions are addressed regarding how major resources should be configured in order to achieve the firm's corporate objectives.

Some of the issues of strategic relevance include long-term decisions regarding capacity, location of facilities, processes, technology, and timing.

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Operations strategy is very narrow in focus, and deals with the day-to-day operational activities, such as scheduling criteria.

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The role and main function of operations strategy is specification, design and use of resources to support the corporate and business strategies.

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Operations strategy decisions are the actual decisions that are taken over time and shape the operations strategy of a company.

Operations has important roles it can play in strengthening the firm's overall strategy. The two (2) options include:

To provide processes that give the firm a distinct advantage in the marketplace. Operations will provide a marketing edge through distinct, unique technology developments in processes that competitors can't match.
To provide coordinated support for the essential ways in which the firm's products with orders over their competitors, also known as distinctive competencies. The firm's operations strategy must be conducive to developing a set of policies in both process choice and infrastructure design (controls, procedures, and systems, etc.) that are consistent with the firm's distinctive competency.

Operations strategy helps a company examine and implement effective and efficient systems to achieve the corporate objectives.

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Common Types of Operations Strategies
A company's operations are the core activities that produce and deliver a product or service. Some common types of operations strategies an organization can use to enhance efficiency, boost capabilities and improve competitive advantage .include:

Customer-Driven Strategies - Operations strategies to meet the needs of a targeted customer segment. These are market based strategies that enable the organization to meet the needs and desires of a target market. These strategies must allow a company to evaluate and adapt to changing environments, continuously enhancing core competencies, and developing new strengths on an ongoing basis. This type of operations strategy aligns with sales and marketing strategies to manage and fulfill customer expectations. Companies using this type of strategy make operations decisions based on the customer experience.
Core Competencies - Strategies to develop the company's key strengths and resources. Core competencies are the strengths and resources within a company. Core competency based strategies are resource-based strategies, and may include having well-trained staff, optimal business locations, and marketing and financial strengths. By identifying its core competencies a company can develop processes such as customer satisfaction, product development, and building professional relationships with stakeholders. This type of operations strategy revolves around the main strengths of a company's business model. By identifying the best core business processes within an organization, this type of operations strategy focuses on leveraging existing strengths to maximize profitability.
Product and Service Development - Strategies behind the development of products - goods and service - should consider design, innovation, and added value. When developing a product - good or service - a company should consider the wants and needs of its customers, how it stands against the competition, and how its technical measures relate to its customers' needs. Companies should consider packaging services with immediately observable and psychological benefits and support services. This type of operations strategy resolves around the quality control of existing products or services as well as the development of new products and services. Businesses using this model often determine their operations strategies based on research and ideas from product managers.
Market penetration strategy - This focuses on capturing larger segments of the target customer market. This refers to. developing an operations strategy for market penetration - capture a large share of the market. It has several potential focus areas: A business can decide to attract customers away from competitors; It can attract nonusers that have no experience with your business or with a competitor. Another strategy might employ one or more geographic locations, centered around a target demographic. Businesses can also try to add more value to existing clients, thereby enticing increased spending on product or service upgrades. An insurance company might define market penetration success by the number of new automobile policies gained.
Corporate Strategy - Overall company strategy, driving the company mission and interconnected departments/functions. This type of operations strategy adhere to a company's mission statement and aligns itself to a larger corporate strategy. Businesses using this type of operations strategy develop production initiatives, key performance indicators, and decision-making processes based on strategic plan determined by company's leadership and stakeholders.

Business operations constitute many processes, such as material acquisition, manufacturing, inventory management, delivery, etc. Operations strategy focuses on reducing process costs, and improving profits for the entire business. Operations strategy revolve around the core business processes, such as production, supply chain and logistics, etc.

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Location Strategy - This related to decisions as to how near the company and its products should be to the consumers, suppliers, and talent while taking into consideration costs, infrastructure, logistics, and government.
Layout Strategy - This relates to integrating capacity needs, personnel levels, inventory requirements, and technology in order to ensure that material, people, and information efficiently flow through the company.

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Operations strategy formulation
Operations Level Strategy formulation is a decision making process that shapes an organization's long-term plans to achieve the objective of its mission statement. Operations strategy formulation is the practical process of articulating the various objectives and decisions that make up the operations strategy.

Operations strategy is a guiding principle used to plan, analyze and execute a company's operations.

Operations strategy formulation involves comprehensive analysis of the operations capability from the perspective of operations, such as: top-down, bottoms-up, market requirements and operations resources perspectives.

The top-down perspective - This represents the top-down reflection of what the business wants operations to do by considering corporate and business strategy. Operations strategy facilitates the transformation of corporate and business level strategy (plans) into organizational methods in different function areas such as marketing, HR, production, finance, etc. to be implemented and executed.
The market perspective - This represents what market position requires operations to do. It involves market/needs analysis; and the translation of market requirements into performance objectives.
The operations resource perspective - This represents what operations resource can do. It involves operations describing the financial, human and physical resources involved in running your company - and setting out clearly how those resources should be allocated.
The bottom-up perspective - This represents what day-to-day experience suggests operations should do. It reflects bottom-up activities where operations improvements cumulatively build strategy.

Operations strategy is formulation involves, first determining the competitive priorities of the firm (top-down view), then translating these priorities into production requirements (operations resource view) related to the structure and infrastructure of the firm. The operations strategy must then be aligned with the company's corporate and business strategy, and enable the company to achieve its long-term plan. An operations strategy should guide the structural decisions and evolution of operations capabilities needed to achieve the desired competitive position of the company as a whole. An effective operations strategy considers a company's long-term objectives and creates steps that cohesively bond business plans with resources, capacity, time, location, and competition.

With an effective operations strategy, operations management can optimize the use of resources, people, processes, and technology. When implemented successfully, operations strategies strengthen a company's overall strategy and may help achieve market place advantage over the competition. It can also improve an organization's competencies and infrastructure allowing it to better serve customers and keep or extend its competitive advantage over others in the market.

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The content of Operations strategy refers to the actual decisions that are taken over time and shape the operations strategy of a company. The Operations Strategy process is the procedures that a company can adopt to formulate the the strategy. In other words, the way it goes about making content decisions.

To be effective and competitive all parts of a company must work together. All departments must contribute to the company's mission and have strategies underlying the overall corporate/business strategy. In addition to having an operations strategy, companies should also have functional areas strategies in finance, marketing, IT sales, human resources, and possibly other departments depending on the type of business and business model.

Operations strategy binds the various operations decisions and actions into a cohesive consistent response to competitive forces/factors by linking firm policies, programs, systems, and actions into a systematic response to the competitive priorities chosen and communicated by the corporate or business strategy. In simpler terms, the operations strategy specifies how the firm will employ its operations capabilities to support the business strategy.

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translation of a broad understanding of what resources, processes and capabilities operations may possess within its resources to an identification of key decisions (based on specific categorization of structure and infrastructure) that operations managers will need to take in order to exploit, build on and develop those capabilities.

Creating Operations Strategy
Operations strategy (as a plan) specifies the policies and plans for using the organization's resources to support its long-term competitive strategy. Operations strategy can have many different components, including:

Designing and Positioning the Production System - This element includes choosing the type of processing system, production design, and finished goods inventory plan, etc. for each main line of product in the business plan. Production systems are of two (2) types: Systems focused on Products; and Systems focused on Processes.
Focusing Production/Manufacturing and Service Facilities - One of the important elements of operations strategy is to plan for different production facilities to achieve some sort of specialization in each of them. This allows the production facility to gain a command over achieving specific objectives because the equipment, procedures, and supporting systems can focus on certain limited tasks for a particular set of customers.
Design and Development of Product/Service - The design and development process involve different stages and phases such as: generating ideas, making the feasibility reports, designing and testing prototypes, preparing a production model, evaluating production related economies of scale, market-based testing of the product/service, taking feedback, and developing final design and initiating production. In new product development activities such as marketing, operations, engineering, etc., are considered.
Selection of Technology and Process Development - An essential aspect of operations strategy is to determine the way of producing products/services. This includes making decisions and plans on every detail of processes and facilities in production. To achieve the optimum level of production, the analysis of the selected product for production is conducted for the process and appropriate technology. Operations managers face various challenges in taking such decisions due to the availability of lots of options or alternatives.
Resource Allocation - This involves the continuous allocation of resources such as: cash, capital, workforce, machines, materials, capacity, equipment, services, etc. The allocation of these resources must be done in such a way that helps in achieving the goals of operations up to a maximum extent. Allocating these resources at the right time and place of production shows the efficiency level of production managers. Economical production can be achieved by utilizing resources in an optimal way. A sound operations strategy is required to obtain superior quality products, minimize wastage and optimum utilization of available resources.
Planning of Capacity, Facility, and Layout - These are key decision areas critical to achieve competitive advantage, are creating layout, facilities, and location for the production of products/services, .The expansion of the manufacturing unit in the future also depends on these decisions related to the land and equipment acquisition for production, and location of new manufacturing units.

Operations strategy is essentially, about the different ways of aligning plans, activities, and objectives. By developing operations strategies a company can examine and implement effective and efficient systems for using resources, personnel and the work processes.

Strategy Implementation
Strategy implementation is an action-oriented activity; it is concerned with making the chosen strategy operational by translating it into action plans so it can be executed successfully. Implementation provides the connecting loop between the strategic choice - selected strategic option from formulation - and execution and control. It revolves around the management of people resources, and business processes. Implementation assumes the existence of an operations infrastructure such as; organization structure, systems (e.g., payroll system, performance management system, employee compensation and benefits system, employee on-boarding system, etc.). This infrastructure is dependent on operations structure such as: facilities, processes, etc. If the overall strategy does not work with the business' current structure a new structure should be installed at the beginning of this stage.

Strategy is implemented through the use of projects, programs and portfolios. Portfolios structure investments in line with strategic objectives, whilst balancing, aligning and scrutinizing capacity and resources. 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.

Strategy Implementation Planning
Strategy implementation is an action-oriented process for building a capable organization that can make the selected planned/formulated strategy work as intended, through execution of the initiatives in those plans to realize the actual strategy. 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.

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. Implementation planning involves the following:

Establish Organization Structure - Determine and define Roles, Responsibilities and Relationships that build an organization for achieving those goals and objectives. Set expectations among your team, and clearly communicate your implementation plan, so there’s no confusion. Document all the resources available including employees, teams, and departments that will be involved.
Establish Strategic Objectives - Identify the goals the new strategy should achieve. Goals help establish a clear picture of what you are trying to attain. Account for variables that might hinder your team's ability to reach the identified goals and lay out contingency plans. Usually, strategic choices selected for implementation are expressed as high-level statements that resonate with the board, and executive level management. Ensure the strategic choices are sound and described in statements that clearly communicate what top management wants and expects. The statements should be expressed in terms that middle-level and line management would understand; such as the products and services to offer and in which markets; what resources, capabilities, and competencies are needed to support these products and services; how to acquire or build these resources.
Cascade Strategy - Translating the selected strategic choices into organizational methods (functional strategies). This involves translating the organization's strategic goals into annual objectives and the actions needed over the next one or two years to implement the major proposed key objectives. The objectives are then assigned to organization units with the right competencies and capability (as defined by their functional strategies) to ensure successful implementation of the selected strategic choices.
Delegate Work - Determine who needs to do what and when. Develop action plans to help determine "what" specific actions or activities need to be carried out by "who", and "when" in order to achieve a goal within the constraints defined by the objective statements. An action plan gives a time table for implementing a strategy.
Putting Plan into Action - Execute the plan, Monitor progress and performance, and provide continued support. One effective strategy for monitoring progress is to use daily, weekly, and monthly status reports, and check-ins to to provide updates; reestablish due dates and milestones, and ensure all teams are aligned.
Take Corrective Action - Adjust or revise as necessary. Implementation is an iterative process, so the work doesn’t stop as soon as you think you’ve reached your goal. Processes can change mid-course, and unforeseen issues or challenges can arise. Sometimes, your original goals will need to shift as the nature of the project itself changes.
Get Closure on the Project, and Agreement on the Output - Everyone on the team should agree on what the final product should look like based on the goals set at the beginning. When you’ve successfully implemented your strategy, check in with each team member and department to make sure they have everything they need to finish the job and feel like their work is complete.
Review of How the Process Went - Conduct a retrospective. Once your strategy has been fully implemented, look back on the process and evaluate how things went. Ask yourself questions like:

Did we achieve our goals?
If not, why? What steps are required to get us to those goals?
What roadblocks or challenges emerged over the course of the project that could have been anticipated? How can we avoid these challenges in the future?
In general, what lessons can we learn from the process?

A strategy is fully implemented, if the corporate strategy is fully implemented, i.e., the corporation has the capabilities, comparative (enterprise) advantage, and business portfolio it wants; and the business business strategy is fully implemented, i.e., the business unit has the customers, value proposition, and skills it has chosen to have. In practice a strategy is never fully implemented since the environment factors on which strategy assumptions were based are in constant flux. 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 strategy call for. Closing this gap is implementation.

Successful strategy implementation can be challenging, and it requires strong leadership and management skills. Effective delegation, patience, emotional intelligence, thorough organizational abilities, and communication skills are crucial.

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Strategic issues in strategic implementation include:

Ineffective communication
Ineffective alignment
Ineffective change management
Ineffective performance management
Ineffective project management
Ineffective strategy.

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Implementation Plan
Implementation plan includes several different components that need to be coordinated and managed through the assignment and direction of personnel to carry out the plan. Implementation deals with organizational design changes and structural modifications, motivational plans, reward and punishment systems, leadership style, and control and information systems.

Strategy implementation is all about “how” the activities will be carried out, “who” will perform them, “when” and "how often" will they be performed, and “where” will the activities be conducted. And it does not refer only to the installation or application of new strategies but also to existing strategies that have always worked well in the past years, and are still expected to yield excellent results in the coming periods. Reinforcing these strategies is also a part of strategy implementation.

Once planning goals are set in the strategy formulation stage, managers organize the human resources and other resources that are identified as necessary by the plan to reach the planned goals. Strategy implementation means the strategic plans are carried out and translated into positive actions. These are essentially two (2) aspects/parts to implementation:

There are three (3) approaches to implementation control, including authority, persuasion, and policy.

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Planning - The cascade of objectives - decisions and actions down through the organization; this requires that there exists an appropriate operations infrastructure.

Controlling Execution - Monitoring performance to make sure that planned results - outcomes of successful execution - are actually achieved.

The planning aspects of implementation revolve around decisions about managing people and processes, taking into consideration management issues central to strategy implementation.

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Strategy Implementation Tasks
Although strategy implementation requires a customized approach, the following are some general tasks that managers must perform to successfully implement the selected/chosen strategy.

Exerting Strategic Leadership - Strategic leadership is a potential source of competitive advantage, and, therefore, highly essential for successful strategy. Strategic leadership is construed as the ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, and empower others to create strategic change as necessary. Strategic leadership is concerned with managing the entire organization and addressing the environmental changes in the industry and outside the industry, Successful strategic leaders in organizations effectively and gainfully influence the employees' behavior and thoughts. They are capable of creating intellectual capital.
Building a Capable Organization - This includes the following steps (1) developing competent personnel, this involves putting together a strong management team, and recruiting and retaining employees with the needed experience, technical skills, and intellectual capital; (2) developing competitive organizational capaboilities, this involves building core competencies, and competitive capabilities; and (3) dynamic organizational structure, this involves structuring the organization and work effort. It includes organizing business functions and processes, value chain activities, and decision making in such a way that help successful ‘strategy execution.
Linking Budget to Strategy - Effective strategy implementation requires reallocating resources to ensure that relevant business function/divisions/departments have sufficient budgets to do their work successfully. Budgetary requirements must be determined carefully, so that fund allocation can be made judiciously. When managers change strategy, resource reallocation becomes necessary if a particular business function/area has to play a more critical strategic role.
Establishing strategy-supportive policies and procedures - The organizational policies and operating procedures/work procedures must have conformity with strategy. Strategy-supportive policies are essential, as they provide useful guides for decision making. Similarly, strategy-supportive work procedures or work practices are unavoidable as any deviation from the existing ones may create resistance from employees. It is important that managers formulate policies and procedures in such a way that they can provide support to effective strategy implementation and execution. When a company embarks on implementing a new competitive strategy, the senior management should undertake a comprehensive review of the company's existing policies and procedures.
Instituting Best Practices - Best practices refer to the innovative manner in which activities or business processes are performed by companies, which are considered 'best-in-industry' or 'best-in-world'. In other words, best practices are those business activities of competitors or some other organizations that have proved very successful in achieving business goals. A company may have best practices, for example, in exceeding customer expectations or in motivating employees. A company can identify the best practices of other companies through benchmarking. Benchmarking is searching out the best practices of other companies. It finds out how well a company performs particular activities and processes against the best in the world. Benchmarking best practices and then adopting them is important for successful strategy implementation.
Instituting Mechanisms for Continuous Improvement - Mechanisms for continuous improvement of business operations and processes (including products and services) are many. Some of the most widely used of these are: Business Process Re-engineering, Total Quality Management, and Six Sigma.
Installing Support Systems - Successful strategy implementation entails the establishment of several support systems to carry out/on business operations. Well established support systems strengthen company capabilities and at the same time faciitate better implementation of the strategy.
Design Strategy-Supportive Reward Systems - The Reward and motivation systems in the company need to be such that they promote better strategy implementation. The reward system should be linked to strategy related performance and measures.
Build a strategy-supportive culture - Strategy implementation is made relatively easy when the corporate culture is compatible with the strategy. When the corporate culture does not fit the strategy either the factors/aspects of the culture is changed or the strategy id modified. Managers face real challenges in changing the inbuilt existing corporate culture into a strategy-supportive culture.
Design Strategic Control Systems - This involves managers selecting a strategy to implement and appropriate organization structure then creating control systems to evaluate and monitor the progress of activities directed towards implementing the strategies. This provides managers with the tools to regulate and govern their activities. Managers adopt corrective actions through adjustments in the strategy if variations are detected. Strategic controls can be both proactive and reactive.

These are some of the various strategy implementation tasks common to most companies that strategy implementation needs and strategy implementers need to take care of while giving careful consideration to the emerging changes that regularly take place in the organization.

Strategy Implementation Component Elements
Strategy Implementation consists of all the decisions and actions, and plans required to turn strategic choices into reality. Although a manager may talk about "implementing a differentiation strategy", the real implementation of a strategy happens at the bottom of the strategy hierarchy and the organizational hierarchy, through the actions of operational employees who carry out planned tasks that add value to the company's product. Such tasks may include: research and development to add new features, monitoring production to ensure company's products meet high quality standards, and marketing the product to add brand value in the eyes of consumers. Successful implementation depends on the following organization system elements being in place:

Resources - One of the basic activities of strategy implementation is the allocation of resources, both financial and non-financial resources, that are (a) available to the organization, and (b) are lacking but required for strategy implementation. Do you have adequate funding (financial strength) to support implementation, covering the costs and expenses that must be incurred in the execution of the strategies?" and "Do you have enough time to see the strategy throughout its implementation?" Financial strength is a factor in its won right that influences other internal environment factors.
People - These refer to the human resources. There are two issues to be addressed; (1) "Do you have enough people to implement the strategies? (2) "Do you have the right people in the organization to implement the strategies?"
Structure - Is the structure clear-cut with lines of authority and responsibility defined and underlined in the "chain of command?" "Are the lines of communication throughout the organization clearly defined by management?" Organization structure essentially defines how the work needed to carry out the mission is divided among the workforce/people.
Systems - What systems, tools, and capabilities are in place to facilitate the implementation of the strategies? What are the specific functions of these systems? How will these systems aid in the implementation? The availability of the appropriate systems can significantly impact the implementation and execution performance. If the right systems are not available, or the available systems are not up to expected standards then workers and management may be hindered in the performance of the duties. If the inadequate systems are used by customers then customer satisfaction will suffer. These are systems that support the organizational structure; they include:system of accounts, communication systems, information systems, order processing systems, customer relations systems, and other basic systems that support operations. These systems basically collect data, analyze the data and move the results around the organization to inform management decisions and actions.
Culture - Organization culture is influenced by the values and beliefs of the organization, and manifested in the attitudes of employees and partners, and their ability to "go the extra mile". Negative attitudes can severely and adversely impact the organization's capacity to successfully implement and execute its strategies.
Management - The capability of the management team and the leadership styles employed by managers will also have a major impact on employee morale and motivation, and organizational culture.

These component elements have to be in place for competent implementation; and are generally in agreement with the key success factors or prerequisites for effective strategy implementation as identified by McKinsey 7S.

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Goal Setting and Objectives
An objective is an outcome measure, not the measure of a process designed to achieve the outcome. If you can’t establish baseline or target numbers, it’s a sign that your objectives aren’t really goals. In reality, they are strategies or tactics.

Strategic Objectives
A strategic objective is a business need that is defined in quantifiable and measurable terms. Strategic objectives are big-picture performance indicators (goals) for a company, and they describe what the company will do to try and fulfill its mission. The business need must be bound by both a baseline and a target (how much?), as well as time (by when?). We must know the level of improvement required and how much time we have to achieve the established targets.

Corporate Objectives
Corporate objectives are those that relate to the business as a whole. Corporate objectives tend to focus on the desired performance and results of the business. It is important that corporate objectives cover a range of key areas where the business wants to achieve results rather than focusing on a single objective. Peter Drucker suggested that corporate objectives should cover the following areas:

Market standing - Market share, customer satisfaction, product range.
Innovation - New products, better processes, using technology.
Productivity - Optimum use of resources, focus on core activities.
Physical and Financial Resources - Factories, business locations, finance, supplies.
Profitability - Levels of profit, rates of return on investment
Management - Management structure; promotion and development
Employees - Organizational structure; employee relations
Public Responsibility - Compliance with laws; social and ethical behavior.

They are usually set by the top management of the business and they provide the focus for setting more detailed objectives for the main functional activities of the business.

Implementing the Selected Strategy
Strategy implementation from a strategy content perspective involves implementation of corporate, business and operations strategy re-enforced by the implementation of the relevant functional strategies.

Implementing Corporate Strategy
Corporate strategy at its core concerns itself with the entirety of a business, where decisions are made in regard to its overall growth and direction. Corporate strategy implementation entails making corporate strategy operational by translating corporate level strategy goals into programs and projects that accomplish those goals. If the corporation has the capabilities, enterprise advantage, and business portfolio it wants its corporate strategy is fully implemented.

Corporate strategy entails a clearly defined, long-term vision that organizations set, seeking to create corporate value and motivate the workforce to implement the proper actions to achieve customer satisfaction. When clearly defined, a corporate strategy will work to establish the overall value of a business, set strategic goals and motivate employees to achieve them. The pillars of corporate strategy include; allocation of resources, organization (structure) design, portfolio management, and strategic trade-offs.

Implementing corporate strategy involves:

Understand the strategic goals - Understand the goals in terms of various strategic initiatives that the goals really represent to establish the business portfolio the organization wants.
Translate Goals into major programs - Translate goals into major initiatives at the beginning of operational planning. This is accomplished mapping the goals into chunks of work.
Map programs to Organizational Structure - With grouping of initiatives into programs completed, the question is "How do initiatives impact the organization?" Profit and Loss accountability, organizational structure and resource control must be understood with respect to how they relate to strategy programs. Where will resources need to be shared? How will program funding affect budgets across the organization's structure?
Define Accountability for the programs - Accountability must be clear in terms of time frames. RACI models can aid in mapping out Responsibility, Accountability, Consult and Inform roles relative to the programs or initiatives supporting the plans.
Break programs down into projects - Operations planning is about execution, so estimating work effort and time to complete correctly, for chunks of work is important. Programs are too unwieldy to be estimated and managed without breaking down the effort into smaller chunks, i.e., projects.

Corporate-level strategy is an action taken to gain a comparative advantage through the selection and management of combination of businesses competing in several industries or product markets. For multi-business firms, the resource-allocation process - how cash, staffing, equipment, and other resources are distributed - is established at the corporate level.

Implementing Business Strategy
Business level strategy at its core is concerned with the actions and decisions a company plans to take to reach its goals and objectives.

Implementing business competitive strategy may involve the following:

Assess Business situation - Give due consideration to your business situation and make sure your competitive strategy is developed in the context of that business situation. Is the company a mature firm with well-developed brand and reputation for stability, or a brand new startup? What are your business imperatives? Do you need to grow in size or maximize profitability? These kinds of business objectives shape whats possible and what's optimal.
Research target markets and competitive environment - There are two (2) types of research of relevance here; research on your target markets and research on the competitive environment. This type of research offers you the opportunity to understand how your firm is, or could be different from competitors in ways that are meaningful to your potential clients/customers.
Identify Current or potential sources of competitive advantage - In the research step,you may have identified some likely potential advantages; you may consider these and add additional ones for evaluation. Evaluation involves applying the following tests: is the potential advantage true? i.e., is it grounded in reality?; id it relevant?; and is it provable? Is there objective support for your claim?
Validate your Competitive Strategy - The choices of competitive strategy are high stake strategic decisions; it is prudent to validate your selection of advantages before implementing them.
Develop your competitive strategy - There are two (2) types of implementation cases an organization might need to consider:

Type 1 - Some competitive advantage may already have been fully implemented in your company, or you are planning on. In those cases your task is to focus on communicating those advantages to the market place. This element of the plan is called marketing or building brand strategy and focuses on target audiences, messages, communications techniques, budget and schedule.
Type 2 - You are planning to implement a new strategy that involves developing a completely new characteristic of the organization; it involves planning how (tactics) this is going to happen. Does it involve new hires? Training existing staff? Changing policies and procedures? Acquisitions? These sort of organizational changes do not happen on their own. They must be planned for and deliberately implemented.

The business strategy is fully implemented, if the business unit has the customers, value proposition and skills it has chosen to have.

Implementing Operations Strategy
Operations strategy refers to the methods companies use to reach their objectives. Developing operations strategies enables an organization to examine and implement effective and efficient systems for using resources, personnel and work processes. Service-oriented companies also use basic operations strategies to link long- and short-term corporate decisions and create an effective management team.

There are two (2) parts to implementing (making strategy operational) a strategy; both parts require that an appropriate operations infrastructure is in place. The two (2) parts involve consideration of a number of important points relevant to strategy execution such as:

Activation of lower decisions - This involves the cascading of decisions and actions through out the organization. The process entails translating the organization's strategic goals into annual objectives and the actions needed over the next one or two years to implement the major proposed key objectives. The objectives are then assigned to organization (functional) units with the right competencies and capability (as defined by their functional strategies) to ensure success implementation of the selected strategic choices.
Controlling Results - This involves monitoring performance to make sure the planned results are actually achieved. It involves the implementation of performance control systems.

Implementation means the strategic plans are carried out and translated into positive actions.

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Establish Annual Objectives - Establishing annual objectives is a decentralized activity that directly involves all managers in the organization. This involves managers identifying and defining the short-term objectives that turn the strategic long-term goals and objectives (of what is to be accomplished) defined in the formulation stage, into short-term objectives - specific, measurable, time-sensitive statements - of what is to be achieved and when they will be achieved. Account for variables that might hinder your team's ability to reach them, and layout a contingency plan. Annual objectives are essential for strategy implementation because they: represent the basis for allocating resources; are a primary mechanism for evaluating managers; are the major instrument for monitoring progress towards achieving long-term objectives; establish organizational, divisional, and departmental priorities.
Devising policies for execution of strategies - Changes in a firm's strategic direction do not occur automatically. On a day-to-day basis, policies are needed to make the strategy work as intended. Policies let both employees and managers know what is expected of them, thereby increasing the likelihood that strategies will be implemented successfully. Policies guide and constrain decision makers and ensures that the various functional strategies are integrated and complementary. Policies establish the conditions to enable effective execution.
Allocating resources - This involves allocation of resources - financial, physical, human, and technological resources - to the departments and function areas responsible for executing the strategy. Resource allocation is a central management activity that allows for strategy execution. Strategic management enables resources to be allocated according to priorities established by annual objectives.
Managing Conflict - Approaches for managing and resolving conflict may include: Avoidance, Diffusion, and Confrontation.
Matching Strategy with Structure - Changes in strategy often require changes in existing organizational structure for two (2) basic reasons: structure largely dictates how objectives and policies will be established; and structure dictates how resources will be allocated. Structure should be designed to facilitate the strategic pursuit of a firm and, therefore, follow strategy.
Linking performance and pay to strategies - Develop incentive and compensation plans that link performance and pay to strategies through mechanisms such as profit sharing, gain sharing, bonus programs, etc.
Minimizing resistance to change - Creating an organizational climate conducive to change
Matching managers with strategy - []
Developing a strategy-supportive culture - []
Adapting production/operations processes - []

During implementation stage, organizations may also find that they have to perform further planning, especially in the discovery of issues that must be addressed.

Implementation Decisions and Tasks
Implementation of planned strategies involves the process by which an organization translates its chosen strategy into action plans and activities which will steer the organization in the direction set out in the strategy, and enable the organization to achieve its strategic objectives. Translating strategy aims - goals and objectives - into actionable processes in an ordered fashion is, however, not easy. The setting of priorities and development of plans may present organizations with formidable management challenges.

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Enacting Organization System Instance
Organizations as social systems exist in the real world through people who are members of the organization and some physical structures (such as offices and facilities). Enacting an organization involves translation from the abstract model of the formal definition to concrete system elements, such as assigning individual actors (people) to positions in the organization structure (for example, organized around functional areas) in specific locations and facilities. The assignment of actors to positions is formally made through the signing of legal contracts (created and regulated through organization policies) with the actors. The signature of this contract represents a conveyance of the goals of the position to the actor(s) who are assuming that position, i.e., the goals of the position are expected to be executed by the actor(s) enacting that position.

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Structure Decisions
Structural decisions of operations strategy are decisions that define the overall tangible shape and architecture (e.g., facility, capacity, technology, etc.) of the operations of an organization.

Infrastructure Decisions
The operations infrastructure consists of the following: organizational structure and the systems, human resources, culture and resources to support it. Within this framework managers have to consider:

the way operations function fits into the broader organization.
support systems such as information, communication, financial, control and other support systems.
internal policies, methods and culture that support the implementation.
budgets and resources for operations.
integrated supply chains to ensure the flow of materials.
motivation of people to pursue targets.
leadership to drive implementation forward and to continually look for improvements.

The appropriate operations infrastructure needed to support an operations strategy has to be in place for strategy implementation to begin.

Organization Management Structure
An organizational structure divides the organization into distinct parts, and defines the relationships between those parts. The structure shows who has responsibility for what,who has authority over whom, and who reports to whom. The main options are: functional structure, product structure, hybrid structure combining the two, some time of matrix structure, or self-managed groups.

Human Resources and Staffing
The human resources aspects of the organization as a system involve decisions and actions about staffing and staff levels, job responsibilities, employment conditions, motivation, etc.

Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is an intangible aspect of the the organization as system. It is defined by the values and norms, beliefs and assumptions, and influences the way people within the organization think and behave.
Establish Organization Structure - Determine and define Roles, Responsibilities and Relationships that build an organization for achieving those goals and objectives. Set expectations among your team, and clearly communicate your implementation plan, so there’s no confusion. Document all the resources available including employees, teams, and departments that will be involved.

Implementation Model
Implementation intentions are modeled as action goals in the action plans that specify an anticipated critical situation linked to it and to an instrumental goal-directed response. Implementation intentions (plans) have the structure of "If situation X is encountered, then I will perform the goal-directed response Y!". Holding an implementation intention commits an individual to perform the specified goal-directed response (action) once the critical situation is encountered.

The choices to pursue an implementation intentions (plans) that specify an anticipated critical situation linked to it and to an instrumental goal-directed response. Both strategy formulation and implementation intentions (goals models) are set in an act of willing. The former specifies the intentions to meet a goal or standard; the latter refers to the intention to perform a plan. Commonly, implementation intentions are formed in the service of goal intentions, because they specify the where, when, and how of respective goal-directed responses.

A plan specifies a set of goals and objectives that need to be achieved to successfully satisfy the intended goals of the plan. The goals of the plan are assigned to functional areas (that define key organizational capabilities or departments and then cascaded to the resources in key capability areas for implementation and execution.

Strategic and operational planning most often use time, dollars, percentages, and numerical counts to measure strategic goals/objectives. Strategic objectives are typically a type of performance goals - for example, launch a new product, increase profitability, grow market share for the company's product, etc.

Implementation plan
The implementation plan is a complex mix of decisions and activities on managing people, strategy, and operations in creating "fits" between the ways things are done and what it takes for effective strategy execution to make the strategy work as intended.

Action Plans
The action plans are schedules for actions to be taken, and policies and procedures that guide resource allocation and prioritization decisions. The implementation plan defines the responsibility of top, middle and lower level managers focused on the creation of new strategic assets and/or enhancement and strengthening existing strategic assets needed by the entity in order to build an organization capable of carrying out the strategy and maintaining its ability to achieve future outcomes. The basic elements of the action plan are a list of activities needed for implementation, and time table showing when, responsibilities for each activity, time table of activities, budgeted costs, expected flow of funds, resources needed, etc.

Operations Plans
The Operations Plan describes milestones, conditions for success and explains how or what portions of a strategic plan will be put into operation during a given operations period. The operations plan is a basic tool that directs the day-to-day activities of organizational staff. An operational plan addresses four basic questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? How do we measure our progress?

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Resources are constraints on the course of action. It also involves budgeting - identifying the sources and levels of resources that can be committed to the courses of action. Management can select the type of budget that best suits the planning needs of the organization.

Strategy Evaluation
The evaluation is based on a set of selection criteria/factors that ensures the chosen strategies will be effective. A viable strategy is defined in terms of the degree to which the strategy meets those criteria i.e.,:

Consistency - The strategy must not represent mutually inconsistent goals and policies.
Suitability (Appropriateness) - Is the strategy consistent with the organization's mission, values, and operating principles? Does it fit with the vision and mission?
Consonance - The strategy must represent adaptive response to the external environment and to the critical changes occurring within it as defined by the SWOT Analysis information..
Advantage - The strategy must provide for the creation and/or maintenance of a competitive advantage in the selected areas of activity.
Flexibility - Can it be adapted and changed as needed?
Cost-Benefit - Is the strategy likely to lead to sufficient benefits to justify the costs in time and other resources?
Timing - Can and should the organization implement this strategy at this time, given external factors and competing demands?

The whole point about strategy is that the critical factors determining its quality are often not directly observable or simply measured; and by the time strategic opportunities/threats do directly affect operating results, it may well be too late for an effective response.

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The cascade within a particular capability area terminates when the organization unit that abstracts that area reaches individual or team of individual resources that fill the relevant positions in the organization unit. The cascading process is based on goal refinement techniques. The goal refinement network model that represents the cascaded goals can be elaborated by associating with each cascaded goal element assigned to a position filled by resources responsible for employing the means to be employed in accomplishing actions/tasks/activities to achieve the specified goals and objectives. Goal refinement and elaboration decisions are critical and decisive in the planning process as alternative actor assignments define alternative system proposals. A prioritized implementation time schedule and budgets can be generated from the planning model.

Strategy Execution
Strategy execution is one of the three (3) co-incident determinants of the strategic management process including strategy formulation and strategy implementation. Strategy execution takes place within the context of strategy implementation, and is a change control process involving a series of integrated decisions/actions that take place over time, and inextricably change the organization and its relationship with its environments.

Strategy execution involves 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. It is concerned with managing initiatives - this is where strategy is translated into practice or remains on paper - and building adequate organization strategic capability. Strategic capability refers to the organization's ability to harness all its skills, organizational capabilities, and resources in order to gain competitive advantage, and thus survive and increase its value over time. The focus of strategic capability is on the organization's assets, resources, market position in projecting how well it will be able to employ strategies in the future.

Strategy execution makes the implemented strategy work as intended, and turn implemented strategy into commercial/social success. Successful strategy execution involves the successful transformation of the organization to better position it to deliver its mission and meet the desired outcomes. Successful strategy execution involves decisions about managing changes to appropriate elements of the Operating Model which 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.

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Execution involves integration of both top-down and bottoms-up flows. The top-down integration involves cascaded flows of coordinated decisions and actions (participation and communication) through the implemented layers of corporate strategy, business strategy and operations strategy in the organization. The bottom up flows of participation and communication of information up to the organization managers through feedback mechanisms. Successful execution requires the capacity to monitor and evaluate changing environment factors and take decisive corrective action. The whole execution system/engine is synchronized by functional strategy that provide resources and capabilities to all three (3) strategy levels.

Strategy Execution Tasks and Process
Execution involves the decisions and activities the organization undertakes in order to turn the implemented strategy into commercial success. These decisions and activities encompass the thousands of decisions and actions taken every day by executive, middle and line managers, and employees acting according to information they may have, and their own self-interest as influenced by organizational culture, and constrained by organizational policies and procedures. These strategic decisions have to be timely - this refers to "when", in the evolution of changes in the organization, the decisions are made rather than how much time the decision maker has to make the decision. Successful execution is the best possible results a strategy and its implementation will allow in the actual realized strategy.

Strategy execution tasks may include:

Visualize the Strategy - Visualization of the strategy enables shared understanding of what the strategy is. An effective way to visualize the strategy to improve understanding is an illustration that shows the important elements of the strategy and how each related to one another and to the mission goals. Frameworks such as the Strategy Map by Kaplan and Norton, etc. help in this regard.
Measure the Strategy - The key goals elements of the strategy should be assigned an easily understood performance measure. The full set of strategic performance measures can be organized into a Balanced Scorecard based dashboard to help managers determine the progress or lack there of of the strategy execution.
Report Progress, Compare and Learn - Your strategy is a hypothesis, its your best estimate of the route to success. It is essential to check your hypothesis at the end of an execution cycle (just like budgets are reviewed monthly to ensure financial commitments are being kept), to ensure the strategy is producing results, versus controlling performance. Compare your initial strategic assumptions with what you have learnt from the reality of the results from the completed execution cycle. In addition, look back at your Strategy Execution Capability as well to ensure it is supportive of your strategy.
Make Decisions and Update strategy - Strategy execution is much like sailing a boat toward a planned destination. A defined course and full complement of navigational charts will not eliminate the need to remain vigilant, to assess the environment, and to make corrections as conditions change while on the journey. As part of the regular reporting process leaders must make ongoing strategic decisions and update the strategy to keep it current and on course. A company needs to update its strategy based on changes in its competitive environment and on the strategy execution feedback from reporting on the previous cycle, as well as update and fine tune your execution capabilities if necessary..
Manage Initiatives - This is about selecting, prioritizing, and executing the right initiatives - those actions/plans - that will lead to achieving specific strategic objectives or closing objective performance gap. Strategic initiatives are new plans or actions to improve strategic asset or solve a strategic problem.
Manage Projects - Develop a capability in project management to coordinate and control - monitor and report progress - the execution of critical strategic projects focused on improving an organization's delivery on its mission. These projects statements include scope, budget, and start/end dates.
Communicate Strategy - Leaders must communicate their visualized strategy to the workforce in a way that will help them understand not only what needs to be done, but why.
Align Workforce Individual Roles - Set individual performance goals and objectives for managers and employees. Make to link all individual objectives with the strategy at the organization level. Aligning Individual Roles - Senior leadership must ensure that employees at all levels can articulate and evaluate their personal contribution towards achieving specific strategic goals.
Reward Performance - After explaining the strategy and aligning the workforce to it, senior managers must institute the incentives that drive behaviors consistent with the strategy. Monitor and coach regularly to motivate and provide feedback in the right way.
Evaluate Performance - Most organizations conduct a formal performance evaluation and review at the end of the individual performance management cycle. The evaluation should answer the basic question; "have the individual performance objectives been achieved?"

Strategy execution is the continuous process of closing the gap between where the company is, and what the strategy calls for. The execution flow involves both top-down flows and bottom-up flows of feedback.

Top-Down: Top-down flows of decisions and actions from corporate strategy decisions through business strategy decisions to strategy implementation decision and actions (participation and communication down and across operating units),
Bottoms-Up: Bottom-up flows of information resulting from day-to-day decisions and actions taken in operations influencing corporate level strategic decisions,

Once the dyadic information flow is completed, further refinement of the whole process might start again, based on the outcome of this process.

The successful execution results in a company's actual/realized strategy - typically a combination of (1) planned - deliberate and purposeful actions and (2) emergent - as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh competitive pressures. A realized strategy is the strategy that an organization actually follows. Realized strategies are a product of a firm’s intended strategy (i.e., what the firm planned to do), the firm’s deliberate strategy (i.e., the parts of the intended strategy that the firm continues to pursue over time), and its emergent strategy (i.e., what the firm did in reaction to unexpected opportunities and challenges).

Execution Process Building Blocks
The ideal execution process for each organization is different, but all include some basic and fundamental building blocks that enable executive management to influence the actions of employees in all areas of the organization that result in effective execution of intended and emergent strategy. These building blocks include:

Clarifying decision rights and norms - How decisions are made; How people instinctively act or take action.
Designing Information flows and Mindsets - How data and knowledge are processed; How people make sense of their work and environment.
Motivators and Commitments (Aligning motivations of employees with organization purpose) - How people are encouraged to perform; How people are inspired to contribute.
Aligning Organizational Structure and Network to Strategy - How work and responsibilities are allocated; How connections are made beyond the organizational chart.
Allocation of resources - This is a set of basic activities in implementation that refers to both financial and non-financial resources that are (a) available to the organization and (b) are lacking but required for strategy implementation. How much funding would be needed to support implementation, covering the cost and expenses that must be incurred in the execution of the strategies? Another resource is time - Is there more than enough time to see the strategy throughout its implementation?

These building blocks are inextricably linked in a coherent system.

Strategy Execution Management
Execution management involves integration of the series of decisions/actions that take place over time, and inextricably changes the organization and its relationship with its environments. The change may be planned or emergent.

Strategy execution management facilitates systematic planning, performance measurement standards, monitoring, evaluation of performance and corrective action of strategic initiatives. Strategy execution management involves control of execution. It is the constant monitoring of the progress of the strategy, its implementation and assessing whether the planned results are being achieved. In order to exercise control, managers have to take the following steps:

Setting performance standards - Every function in the organizations begins with plans which specify objectives or targets to be achieved. In the light of these, standards are established which are criteria against which actual results are measured.
Measuring actual performance,
Analyzing variance, and
Taking corrective actions.

After a strategy is selected, it is implemented over time so as to guide a firm within a changing environment. Managers want to know if the company is headed in the right direction and if current company trends and changes are keeping them on that right path. To answer this question requires the implementation of strategic control.

A firm’s successive strategies are greatly affected by its past history of implemented and executed strategies which determine its current state, emergent strategy, and actual/realized strategy. It is important to reexamine past assumptions, and compare actual results with earlier hypotheses.

Strategy Execution - process for executing the strategic choices by means of budgeted resource allocations; focus on getting the work of the business done efficiently and effectively;

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Successful execution involves decisions about:

Strategy - This is a hypothesis (educated guess) of the intended approach/means to accomplish specified actions/tasks that contribute to desired goals and objectives. Strategy is achieved through the constant interplay between doing, planning and evaluation in closing the performance gap.
Structure -
Coordination -
Information Sharing -
Incentives and Controls - []

These decisions take place within the organizational context of power, culture, leadership and the ability to manage change.

Strategy execution is the process of translating strategy into the best business results possible, within the framework of its implementation.

Strategy Execution Tasks

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Strategy Execution as a System
Strategy execution depends on each member of the organization's daily tasks and decisions, so its vital to ensure everyone understands not only the broader strategic goals, but how their individual responsibilities make achieving them possible. Strategy execution system is a social-technical system that provide the framework to integrates strategic decisions and actions such as:

Strategic decisions, and actions taken resulting from those decisions.
Operations management decisions and activities performed resulting from decisions.
Observing the outputs and outcomes of strategic actions through reporting and monitoring environment changes.
Diagnosing the issues resulting from the patterns of organization behavior effected by organization outputs.
Timely adaptation to changes in environment and timely response to any identified opportunities or threats to achieving the mission objectives and strategic goals.

Successful execution is the best possible results a strategy and its implementation will allow in the actual realized strategy that closes the strategy-to-performance ('strategy-execution') gap.

A company's actual strategy is typically a combination of (1) planned - deliberate and purposeful actions and (2) emergent - as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh competitive pressures.

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Execution
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Integrating Functional Strategies - Identify and give due consideration to the cross-functional implications of strategy at implementation when the critical issues of strategy are appraised. [Horizontal Integration]
Develop Tactical plans for functional areas such as marketing, production, personnel, finance, and plant facilities. Implementation requires outstanding collaboration between all members of the various groups throughout the whole organization from top management to line workers.
Developing budgets that steer resources into those internal activities critical to strategic success.
Finalizing strategic plan with input from all invested parties.
Aligning the budget to annual goals.
Producing various versions of the plan for each group.
Establishing a system for tracking and monitoring the plan.
Establishing a performance management and reward system.
Presenting the plan to the entire organization.
Building annual department plans around the corporate plan.

The role of managers is to guide the organization towards goal accomplishment. Managers are responsible for combining and utilizing organizational resources to ensure their organizations achieve their purposes.

Strategic Control - Strategy Evaluation and Control
Strategy evaluation involves the assessment of performance measures collected through monitoring of projects and programs to determine the effectiveness of a strategy in meeting strategic objectives. Strategic evaluation is a necessarily intertwined with strategic control. In practice, the term strategic control is used to include evaluative aspects, because unless the resuts of an action are known, corrective action cannot be taken. The evaluation and control process is concerned with defining, attaining, and presenting constructive information for reviewing alternatives to the analyzed action plan. This is a process for making necessary adjustments based on monitoring and control information and strategy performance review.

Strategic Issues and Questions
Company strategies are action plans that businesses use to guide the development of their products and understand their target consumers better. A company's strategy is a list of actions and decisions that a company makes to builds a consumer base, establish itself in the competitive market, and achieve its major objectives. A business's leadership team generally develops the company's deliberate strategy during the business's creation to help the business grow and thrive. The strategy also helps develop measures/metrics for measuring the progress towards its goals.

A good strategy must resolve a strategic issue and solve associated problem(s). Strategic issues of concern at this stage may relate to premises/assumptions, strategy implementation, and the strategy. include:

Are the premises made during the strategy formulation stage proving to be correct?
Is the strategy being implemented correctly?
Is there any need for change in the strategy? If yes, what's the type of change required to ensure strategic effectiveness?

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Strategy evaluation
Strategy evaluation ensures that all key supporting elements of the business systems including Measures and Rewards, Structures and Processes, Culture and People are aligned behind the chosen strategies and hinged on the mission, vision, values and critical success factors (CSF) of the organization. An effective evaluation of the strategy begins with defining the parameters to be measured; these parameters should mirror the goals set in the direction setting stage of the strategic management function.

Performance Evaluation entails the process of evaluating the performance of a strategy, reviewing new developments and initiating corrective action to make adjustments in long-term direction, objectives, strategy, or implementation in light of actual experience, changing conditions, new ideas, and new opportunities. To evaluate performance, firms' need to establish a set of "desired" outcomes as well as the metrics they will use to monitor how well their organizations delivered against those outcomes. Those outcomes may include: achieving certain levels of productivity, revenues, profits, market share, market penetration, customer satisfaction, etc.

Implemented Strategy Evaluation
The implementation evaluation method assists managers in deciding whether or not the chosen strategies are steering the organization in the right direction towards achieving the strategic objectives and mission, It provides an intuitive and model-driven approach to assess the execution feasibility of the chosen strategy implementation. The evaluation method is comprised of the activities defined by the process steps below.

Define the strategy to evaluate - Managers need to specify the implemented strategy and the progress results that need to be evaluated. Such results have to be objectively measurable and consistent; and can be defined using goals modeling.
Outline Predetermined Standards - Managers need to outline standards according to the chosen implemented strategy. These standards often consist of a tolerance of range which defines adequate variations.
Obtain data to Map Out Onto Set Standards - Data to obtain consists of results from the actions taken on the chosen strategies.
Measure Performance - Assess the performance of the mapped out data.
Performance Match Standards -if the performance of the identified strategy achieves the standards within the tolerance range then the process stops here; otherwise, Take Corrective Action.
Take Corrective Action - The performance measured does not achieve the standards; managers must take necessary actions to resolve and amend the implementation Process.

The implementation evaluation method assists managers in deciding whether or not the chosen strategies are steering the organization in the right direction towards achieving the strategic objectives and mission, It provides an intuitive and model-driven approach to assess the execution feasibility of the chosen strategy implementation. The evaluation method allows an organization to take into consideration a lot of the points that can influence successful implementation before an ideal strategy can be implemented. It is important to note that for a given organization and business environment not all strategies are executable.

Strategic Control
Strategic control involves monitoring a strategy as it is being implemented, evaluating deviations, and making necessary adjustments. Strategic control is related to that aspect of strategic management through which an organization ensures whether it is achieving its objectives contemplated in the strategic action. If not, what corrective actions are required for strategic effectiveness. Management Control is the process for tracking a strategy as it's executed, detecting problems or changes in its underlying premises, and reporting to appropriate management levels. Strategic control is required to steer the company towards its long term strategic direction and avoid pitfalls and obstacles. Strategic control is related to that aspect of strategic management through which an organization ensures whether it is achieving its objectives contemplated in the strategic action. If not, what corrective actions are required for strategic effectiveness.

Strategic control may involve:

The reassessment of a strategy due to an immediate, unforeseen event. For example, if a company’s main product is becoming obsolete, the company must immediately reassess its strategy.
Monitoring the progress of strategy Implementing, which often involves a series of activities that occur over a long period time, at various milestones, or intervals at . Managers can effectively monitor the progress of a strategy at various milestones, or intervals to determine whether the overall strategy is unfolding as planned.
Monitoring internal and external events. Multiple sources of information are needed to monitor events. These sources include conversations with customers, articles in trade magazines and journals, activity at trade conferences, and observations of your own or another company’s operations. For example, Toyota gives tours of its plants and shares the “Toyota Way” even with competitors.

Strategic control is concerned with tracking the strategy as it is being implemented, detecting problems or changes in the premises and making necessary adjustments.

Types of Strategy Controls
Strategic control is concerned with tracking the strategy as it is being implemented, detecting problems or changes in the premises and making necessary adjustments. The types of strategic control techniques include:

Premise Control - Every strategy is founded on certain assumptions relating to environmental and organizational forces. Premise control serves to test continuously these assumptions to determine whether they are still valid or not. This facilitates the strategists to take necessary corrective action at the right time than just pulling on with the strategy based on vitiated or invalid postulations.
Implementation Control - In order to implement a chosen strategy, there is need for preparing quite good number of plans, programs and projects. The purpose of implementation control is to evaluate as to whether these plans, programs and projects are actually guiding the organization towards its pre-determined goals or not. This type of control is a step-by-step assessment of implementation activities. It focuses on the incremental actions and phases of strategic implementation, and monitors events and results as they unfold. Is each action or project happening as planned? Are the proper resources and funds being allocated for each step? There are two (2) basic types of implementation control:

Monitoring Strategic Thrusts -This is the assessment of specific projects or thrusts that have been created to drive the larger strategy;
Reviewing Milestones - During strategic planning, you likely identified important points in the implementation process. When these milestones are reached, your organization will reassess the strategy and its relevance. Milestones could be based on timeframes, such as the end of a quarter, or on significant actions, such as large budget or resource allocations. Implementation control can also take place via operational control systems, like budgets, schedules, and key performance indicators.

Strategic Surveillance - If premise and implementation strategic controls are more specific by nature, strategic surveillance, is more generalized and overriding control which is designed to monitor a broad range of events both inside and outside the organization which are likely to threaten the very course of a firm’s strategy. They allow the organization to monitor a broad range of events and conditions inside and outside the company that are likely threaten the successful achievement of the firm's strategic objectives. This provides the opportunity to uncover important, yet unanticipated information.
Special Alert Control - When something unexpected happens, a special alert control is mobilized. This is a reactive process, designed to execute a fast and thorough strategy assessment in the wake of an extreme event that impacts an organization. The event could be anything from a natural disaster or product recall to a competitor acquisition. In some cases, a special alert control calls for the formation of a crisis team—usually comprising members of the strategic planning and leadership teams—and in others, it merely means activating a predetermined contingency plan.

Strategic control involve actions that may include performance measurements, monitoring, consistent review of internal and external issues and factors, and making corrective actions when necessary.

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Strategic Control System
A control system monitors the performance of operations and adjusts the strategy to improve performance. There are five (5) parts to a control system, including:

Review the goals, objectives and constraints of the operations strategy,
Monitor conditions and changes in the operations and their environment,
Measure actual performance in key areas,
Compare actual performance with plans from the strategy and identify gaps,
Adjust the strategy to improve performance, moving or adding resources, revising plans, or in the extreme changing the whole strategy,

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The errors associated with strategic control are usually major, such as failing to anticipate customers’ reaction to a competitor’s new product. BlackBerry had a strong position in the business cell phone market and did not quickly see that its business customers were switching to the iPhone. BlackBerry could not recover.

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A control system monitors the performance of operations and adjusts the strategy to improve performance. The levels of control may include: strategic control, operational control and tactical control. Strategic control always comes first, followed by operations then tactics.

Choosing Best Strategy Alternatives (Strategic Option)
Strategic choice is the decision-making process of selecting the best or most appropriate strategy from the stock of alternatives that serves the company's objectives. Strategic choices are the result of elements like judgment, bargaining, and analysis. Strategic options are goal-oriented alternatives that an organization has towards the uncertain external environment. It is not only the choice but also the obligation of the management to choose the best possible alternative. It should be done in context with the organization, its needs, resources, vision, and other similar considerations. It involves in Generation of strategic options, e.g. growth, acquisition, diversification or concentration,

The determination of these options involves a thorough study of the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats from the internal and external environments. This becomes more complex if the organization has a portfolio of various businesses or products. Similarly, it becomes complex to decide and implement if it operates in different geographies. Because the tastes and preferences of the customers may vary considerably. Then the proper evaluation of each of the options has to be done by the management. Each will have its own advantages as well as disadvantages. This involves a lot of brainstorming and making tough decisions and choices. After evaluation comes to the selection stage, where one or multiple options can be chosen as per the need and circumstances. Also, the management needs to decide how these options will place to use and practice.

Some of the key techniques for the generation of strategic options are:

Using the Ansoff Matrix - The Ansoff matrix provides strategic options with regard to the growth of an organization. And what modifications/amends are needed in the existing portfolio of products to grow. It considers new and existing markets, new and existing products, and their inherent risks. After analyzing these aspects, the matrix provides four different strategic options. And these are Market penetration, Market development, Diversification, and finally, fourth Product development. The matrix helps guide and make decisions to sell the existing products and services to new customers and clients, altogether new products and services to the existing clients, or new products and services to new clients. Thus, it can be a very useful tool to provide sales and growth options and outline their risks. This tool is widely in use due to its ease of use and simplicity. In other words, this matrix is a quick and simple way of understanding and appreciating the risks of growth.
Using Porter' Generic Strategies - Porter’s Generic Strategies is a framework to plan the direction of the organization. It suggests ways to gain a competitive advantage in the market. This tool gives an organization a road map to get an edge over the competitor by taking sales away from them and establishing leadership in the market.Porter’s generic strategies suggest using three key strategic options: Cost Leadership, Differentiation, and Focus. These three options aim to give an organization a competitive advantage and evolve as a leader. Cost leadership advocates capturing a bigger pie of the market share. This can be done by lowering costs or increasing profits by maintaining average and competitive prices. Also, this option advocates minimizing costs so that it is lower than that of any competitor. The strategy of differentiation focuses on offering products and services with a tinge of differentiation or uniqueness. The offerings of the organization should be such that they provide additional value and features than any competitor offers. The strategy of focus pushes an organization to gain a competitive advantage. This is done by focusing on niche markets and clientele. The organization can either use cost leadership or differentiation to achieve this goal.
Using BCG Analysis - The BCG Analysis is an important tool for companies to determine where their products stand in front of the competitor’s products. It answers important questions like which products to invest in and grow, which products to develop more, and finally, which products to discontinue or stop investing in.
SWOT Analysis - SWOT analysis also provides relevant strategic options for an organization. It helps to fight competition and is useful in doing project planning. The meaning of SWOT is (S) for strengths, (W) for weaknesses, (O) for opportunities, and finally, (T) for threats. An organization can use the analysis for decision-making and decide whether the option will help it meet its goals and objectives.

A company should be cautious and thoughtful before making a particular choice. The decision-making process is continuous, and the management should continue looking for better options even when it has chosen one.

Making Good Ideas Happen

Strategic Management, A System of Strategic Decisions That Provide effective Means to Attain Sustainable Competitive Advantage