Strategic Management [antikvár]

This preface outlines the content and approach of this book and explains how it is appropriate both for managers and for students who will become future managers. There are suggestions about how different types of reader might make effective use of the material. Strategic awareness and change This book is about strategic awareness and the management of strategic change. It looks at how managers can become strategically aware of their com- pany's position and opportunities for change; at how changes often happen in reality; and at how the process might be managed more effectively. It is in five parts. The first part looks at the strategy process as a whole and includes in Chapter 2 a comprehensive framework of the process, around which the book is structured. This part also includes chapters on strategic leadership and decision making and on culture and values as these are forces which determine how strategy is managed within organizations. Part II concerns strategic awareness. Chapters on the organizational mission and objectives, strategic success and strategic failure are followed by an examination of the business and competitive environments. The section finishes with a discussion on competitive positioning and advantage. Parts III and IV separate competitive and corporate level strategies. Corporate strategy issues concern the overall portfolio of activities undertaken by an organization, and their relatedness; competitive strategy is about how an organization might achieve and sustain competitive advantage in each activity in the corporate whole. Part III, on competitive strategies, looks at how marketing, operations, human resource, financial and information strategies can all be an important source of, and support for, competitive advantage. Part IV is a consideration of how changes in corporate strategy are formulated, followed by a study of the various strategic alternatives which a firm might consider and the determinants of a good choice. The issues involved in strategy implementation are evaluated in Part V Organization structures, resource management and the complexities of managing change are included. Pressures to change are always present in the form of opportunities and threats. At any point in time the significance of these pressures will vary markedly from industry to industry and from organization to The manager's job is change. It is what we live with. It is what we are to create. If we cannot do that, then we are not good at the job. It is our basic job to have the nerve to keep changing and changing and changing again. Sir Peter Parker, Executive Chairman, Rockware Group, speaking at a BIM Workshop in London, February 1986