Strategic Management, What Is It Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Strategic Management, What Is It - Essay Example Essentially, strategic management is a vehicle for giving forward-looking leadership concerning the most essential issues of concern to an organization and its surroundings in a very determined, efficient, and valuable manner. At the heart of the progression is "the communal management of a strategic agenda that transforms as an organization's problems and opportunities transform. Effective strategic management needs intensive, continuous, and collective concern of senior management" (Eadie and Stein bacher , 1985, p. 425 ). The purpose of strategic management is to help formulate, implement, and evaluate cross-functional decisions in such a way as to assist the organization in achieving its long-term objectives. The strategic management process is seen as "an objective, logical and systematic approach for making major decisions in an organization" (David, 1997: 6) in which both analysis and intuition have a role to play. Effective strategic management entails the configuration of a strategic management group to give leadership for the process. Characteristically, the framework of this group will comprise the C.E.O., top-line managers, and key executive staff members. In a small organization, for example, the strategic management group might comprise the mayor or the city manager and the heads of numerous operating departments. It is the responsibility of the strategic management team to give the configuration for developing and modernizing strategic plans and for guiding their realization in all areas. As strategic management is a continuous process, the strategic management group must meet on a usual basis to confer strategies, monitor development, evaluate efficiency, and generally sustain a shared focus on the strategic agenda. This comprises identifying newly promising strategic issues, estimate problems and opportunities as they develop, adapting strategies, and giving direction and control over completion plans to preceding the strategic agenda efficiently. Sporadically, it may consequence in the development of new strategic initiatives. The strategic management process also may rivet a strategic planning systems approach in which planning efforts at different levels are centrally coordinated within the frame of an organization wide strategic planning process. With the acceptance of this overall plan, the strategic management group might well direct the operating departments to originate their own strategic plans, which counter to mandates established in the overall plan and also address strategic concerns at their own level. The strategic management convenes cross-departmental task forces or action teams to plan more