Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning
Clare Devlin
Patterns of Strategy
development
How strategies develop over time:
Punctuated equilibrium
Long periods of continuity
Periods of no clear direction
Transformational change
Clare Devlin
Strategy:three elements
Competitive strategy
Financial strategy
Investment and resource strategy
Clare Devlin
Competitive strategy
The firm has to decide how it will compete for
business and where it will make its money
This involves looking at:
Financial strategy
This deals with with the firms relations with
its investors and other providers of credit
Company has to:
provide an adequate return to shareholders
protect the value of investment by avoiding
excessive risk
obtain funds at an appropriate cost in order to
meet the need of the business
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Levels of Strategy
Corporate level
Business Strategy
Functional strategy
Clare Devlin
Environmental conditions
Simple/static
Dynamic
Complex
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Formal collection of
information 3
The management team will need
environmental scanning reports looking
at market trends, competitive behaviour
special reports on markets of particular
interest
research reports on market opportunities
and threats
accounting information on operating costs
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Realised strategy:
is only 10-30% of intended strategy
Emergent strategy:
pattern of decisions that are followed
Clare Devlin
Strategic Development
Different explanations of processes
Rational planning
Incremental view
Cultural political view
Command View
Enforced Choice
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Review
and
control
Position
audit
Mission
and
Corporate
appraisal
objectives
Strategic
option
generation
Strategy
evaluation
and choice
Environmental
analysis
Clare Devlin
Strategy
implementation
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Clare Devlin
Freewheeling Opportunism 1
Many initially small businesses follow a
different path of strategic development e.g
Jeffrey Bezos
Amazon
Richard Branson
Virgin
Anita Roddick
Body Shop
Alan Sugar
Amstrad
Clare Devlin
Freewheeling Opportunism 2
These companies follow strategies that have been
described as freewheeling opportunism or radical
entrepreneurship.They have the following in
common
Grew up in an industry dominated by large
corporation/s
The founders had a vision of how they wanted the
business to develop
Businesses often in areas of new technology
Clare Devlin
Freewheeling Opportunism 3
They did not depend on conventional financing
sources to develop
They did not appear to use rational strategy
formulation techniques but relied on vision, the
skills of the owner and a willingness to take
risks
The owner had a day to day involvement in the
business
Clare Devlin
Strategic Management
Processes implications
Beware equating strategic management with
strategic planning
Need to understand how strategies develop
in an organisation to:
account for strategic direction
manage formulation process
manage change
Clare Devlin
Strategic Management
Processes implications 2
Managing change means managing changes
to the realised strategy- not just the intended
strategy
Clare Devlin