By;

Edson Ndyemalila
Manager Strategic studies and Military Science
Institute of Accountancy Arusha
Mobile; 0715839693/0755839693
E-mail: endyemalila@iaa.ac.tz
/endyemalila@gmail.com
Introduction
Imagine you have had enough of working for other people
and you want to start up your own business. In order to do
this, you need to have your strategy –
In fact, any business you join will always be looking at
where they currently are, and where they want to be in the
future. An important role for you will be to help shape
that strategy. The more you understand how a strategy is
built, the more important and useful you will be to the
organization.
This module will teach you the building blocks of how to
build a good strategy, maintain it and expand it to stay
ahead of your competitors. It will also ensure that you
progress well in your career too!
The characteristics of strategic
decisions
The words ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic decisions’ are typically
associated with issues like these:
The long-term direction of an organization.
The scope of an organization’s activities. For example,
should the organization concentrate on one area of
activity, or should it have many?
Advantage for the organization over competition.
Strategic fit with the business environment. Organizations
need appropriate positioning in their environment, for
example in terms of the extent to which products or
services meet clearly identified market needs.
The characteristics of strategic
decisions. Cont
The organization’s resources and competences. Following
‘the resource-based view’ of strategy, strategy is about
exploiting the strategic capability of an organization, in
terms of its resources and competences, to provide
competitive advantage and/or yield new opportunities.
The values and expectations of powerful actors in and
around the organization. These actors -individuals, groups
or even other organizations – can drive fundamental issues
such as whether an organization is expansionist or more
concerned with consolidation, or where the boundaries
are drawn for the organization’s activities.
What is Strategy?
What types of issues are strategic and what
distinguishes them from operational issues in
organizations?
The characteristics described above according to
Johnson, Scholes, & Whittington, (2008) can provide
the basis for a fuller definition:
Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization
over the long term, which achieves advantage in a
changing environment through its configuration of
resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling
stakeholder expectations
Defining Strategic Management
Strategic management is the art and science of
formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-
functional decisions that enable an organization to
achieve its objectives. Strategic management focuses
on integrating management, marketing, finance and
accounting, production and operations, research and
development (R&D), and information systems to
achieve organizational success.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT DEFINED
Strategic management is a set of managerial decisions
and actions that determine the long-run performance
of a corporation. It includes strategy formulation,
strategy implementation, and evaluation and control.
Strategic management is concerned with monitoring
and evaluating environmental opportunities and
constraints in light of a corporations strengths and
weaknesses.
LEVELS OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
 Corporate Strategy
 Business Strategy
 Functional Strategy
CORPORATE STRATEGY
Corporate Strategy explores the ways in which a
business can develop its activities favorably. It
establishes an approach of making decisions
about the type of business in which a firm
should be involved, the flow of financial and
other resources to and from its activities, the
relationship of the corporation to key groups in
its environment and the ways in which a
corporation can increase its return on
investment.
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business strategy occurs at the
divisional level and emphasizes on
the improvement of the competitive
position of a corporation’s products/
services in the specific industry or
markets segment served by the
division.
BUSINESS STRATEGY CONTINUED
A division may be organized as a Strategic
Business Unit (SBU) around a group of similar
products. Top management usually treats an SBU
as a semi-autonomous unit with the authority to
develop its own strategies also integrate various
functional activities so that divisional objectives
are achieved. A business strategy which is
sometimes called competitive strategy may be one
of overall cost leadership, differentiation or focus.
FUNCTIONAL STRATEGY
Functional strategy focuses on the
maximization of resource productivity.
Functional departments develop strategies in
which their various activities and
competencies are pulled together for the
improvement of performance.
Focus Areas
Mission
Vision
Core value
Why Establish mission, vision and
core values for an organisation?
Getting everybody on the same page through
established shared purpose, direction and principles
or means toward the ends
What is an organisation Mission?
A mission statement defines the core purpose of the
organization—why it exists (Niven, 2002)
It articulates the organisation’s purpose, defines its
customers or clients, describes the services provided, how
the service is provided and the benefits of the service
being provided
David (2010) argues that a good mission statement
include a number of components such as:
Customers; product or services; markets; technology;
survival, growth and profit; philosophy; public image; and
the employees
Why Mission Statement?
Defines the fundamentals, unique purpose that set a
firm apart from other firms of its type
Identifies the scope or domain of the firm’s
operations in terms of products/services offered and
market served
Promotes a sense of shared expectations in employees
Communicates a public image to important
stakeholder groups (Wheelen and Hunger, 2010)
Effective Mission
Niven (2002) argues that effective mission can be judged
on the following items:
 Inspire change: since the mission can never be fully realized,
it should propel your organization forward, stimulating
change and positive growth
 Long-term in nature: mission statements should be written
to last 100 years or more
 Easily understood and communicated: mission should be
written in plain language that is easily understood by all
readers.
 Rohm et al (2013) caution us about using weasel words that
are not specific with no defined meanings such as:
 We will be the world leaders
 We will incorporate best practices
 Examples of mission
statements
 Google:
 To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful
 University of Botswana:
 To advance the intellectual and human resource capacity of the nation and the
international community (Rohm et al, 2013:97)
 American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA):
 To provide members with the resources, information, and leadership that enable
them to provide valuable services in the highest professional manner to benefit the
public as well as employees and clients
 Wal-Mart:
 To give ordinary folks the chance to buy the same things as rich people
 Marriott:
 To make people away from home feel that they are among friends and are really
wanted
 Walt Disney:
 To make people happy
 Mary Kay:
 To give unlimited opportunity to women
SOURCE: Niven, 2002: 75
What is a Vision?
The vision creates a word picture of a successful
organisational future (Rohm et al, 2013:98)
It acts as an inspirational of where an organisation wants
to be and what it wants to achieve in future (Chua and
Mosha, 2015)
It answer as question what the organization intends
ultimately to become—which may be 5, 10, or 15 years in
the future (Niven, 2002)
It should be brief, tangible, easy to understand and
communicate, create a sense of urgency and be
emotionally inspiring to the people who will carry it out
and be accountable for performance and results (Rohm et
al, 2013:98)
Effective Vision Statements (Niven
2002)
Concise: often, the simplest and memorable visions
are the most powerful and compelling
Appeals to all stakeholders: everyone who has a stake
in the success of the enterprise: employees,
shareholders, customers, and communities….
Consistent with mission and values
Feasible: not dreams of senior management, but must
be grounded solidly in reality
Inspirational: should not only guide, but also arouse
the collective passion of all employees
Effective Vision Statements……
Verifiable: avoid jargon and buzzwords as no one will
be able to determine exactly when you became “world
class, leading edge, or top quality”. Write your vision
statement so that you will know when you have
achieved it
Examples of Vision
International Literacy Programme:
In two decade time our service will no longer be needed
 Starbucks (in the mid-1990s):
2000 stores by 2000
 Susan G. Komen for the cure:
A world without breast cancer (Rohm et al, 2013)
Guidelines to creating vision and
mission statements
Keep them relevant to the firm and staff
Keep them short and memorable
Involve a core group of management team
Organise meetings/retreat at an off-site location
Keep them simple
Keep repeating them to communicate their
importance and provide opportunity to make them
more real to everyone
Be led by a professional outside facilitator
(Stokely,2004)
Core values
Guiding principles (Niven, 2002)
Are what an organisation stands for and believes in,
supported by actions and deeds from the top
management (De Feo and Janssen, 2001)
Thus firms/schools must establish what they believe in
and the kind of behaviour it wants to reinforce (Rohm et
al, 2013:100)
The training and communication of the values for all
employees is fundamental (De Feo and Janssen, 2001)
Use of acronym such as FAITH (Fairness, Accountability,
Integrity, Teamwork and Honesty) is recommended
Examples of vision, mission and
core values a college
Vision and Mission Core values
 Vision PERFECT
 To become one of the most  Professionalism
competitive and reliable  Excellence
college in Tanzania in the
provision of quality education  Respect
embedded with moral
uprightness  Fairness
 Mission:  Efficiency
 To educate and guide students  Commitment
to the right path through
modern facilities and  Teamwork
competent and motivated staff
ACTIVITY
In a group of five participants, select any
company/organisation of your choice (visit the
organisation websites) preferably an organisation of
one of the group members and then review and
revalidate its vision, mission and core values and give
reasons for your revalidation
Stages of Strategic
Management process…
The strategic-management process consists of FOUR
stages:
Environmental Scanning
Strategy Formulation
Strategy Implementation
Evaluation and Control
ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING
The top management scans both the external
environment for opportunities and threats, and the
internal environment for strengths and weaknesses.
Those factors which are most important to the
corporation’s future are referred to as strategic
factors.
Strategy formulation
Strategy formulation includes developing a vision and
a mission in light of the corporate strengths and
weaknesses, establishing long-term objectives,
generating alternative strategies, and choosing
particular strategies to pursue. Strategy-formulation
issues include deciding what new businesses to enter,
what businesses to abandon, whether to expand
operations or diversify, whether to enter international
markets, whether to merge or form a joint venture,
and how to avoid a hostile takeover
Strategy implementation
Strategy implementation requires a firm to establish
annual objectives, devise policies, motivate
employees, and allocate resources so that formulated
strategies can be executed. Strategy implementation
includes developing a strategy-supportive culture,
creating an effective organizational structure,
redirecting marketing efforts, preparing budgets,
developing and using information systems, and
linking employee compensation to organizational
performance.
Strategy evaluation
Strategy evaluation is the final stage in strategic
management. Managers desperately need to know
when particular strategies are not working well;
strategy evaluation is the primary means for obtaining
this information.
Evaluation and control is the process in which
organization’s activities and performance results are
monitored. It involves comparing actual performance
with set/established standards. The results are used
to take corrective measures where there is a deviation.
Stakeholders Influences
on Strategies
Stakeholders are those individuals or groups whom
depend on an organization to fulfil their own goals
and on whom, in turn, the organization depends.
Internal Stakeholders groups ; are managements
and employees
External Stakeholders groups; are customers,
suppliers, local communities, governments, public
authorities, interest groups and competitors etc.
Stakeholders Mapping;
The Stakeholders influence the organization purpose
and strategies. The impact of such an influence
depends upon the nature of the relationship between
the organization and stakeholders.
Mendelow (1991) suggests we analyse our stakeholder
groups based on Power (the ability to influence our
organisation strategy or project resources) and
Interest (how interested they are in the organisation
or project succeeding). 
Mendelow’s Stakeholders Mapping matrix
Stakeholders Mapping cont..
The position that you allocate to a stakeholder on the grid
shows you the actions you need to take with them:
Low power, less interested people (Monitor): don’t bore
these stakeholder groups with excessive communication,
keep an eye to check if their levels of interest or power
change.eg. an office cleaner
Low power, highly interested people (Keep Informed):
adequately inform these people, and talk to them to ensure
that no major issues are arising. These audiences can also
help point out any areas that could be improved or have
been overlooked. Eg. average individual investors
Stakeholders Mapping cont..
High power, less interested people (Keep Satisfied):
put enough work in with these people to keep them
satisfied, but not so much that they become bored
with your message. Governments
High power, highly interested people (Manage
Closely): aim to fully engage these people, making the
greatest efforts to satisfy them. Big investor