Understanding Corporate Strategy

Understanding Corporate Strategy

Management outlook and procedures have been revolutionized by more and more innovations over the recent years. It is no longer possible to follow traditional approaches to develop your organization's direction, its management as well its effectiveness. Senior managers need to be good decision-makers. In this section, we introduce concepts for strategy, strategic planning, strategic leadership, their exact meaning and associated terms, and how to use them.

“Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy, it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things” —Miyamoto Musashi

Leaders need to motivate and influence their employees with their thought leadership, but many lack knowledge of the concepts, tools, and frameworks that are most helpful in thinking strategically. This section will give you a practical but rigorous foundation of frameworks and tools to help you be a more effective participant in strategic decision making.

Meaning of Strategy

You have undoubtedly heard the word strategy and perhaps know a bit about the concept of strategic planning. These have become important parts of management vocabulary and thinking. The word strategy is derived from the Greek word “strategtia” meaning "generalship" which was used first around 400 B.C. The army general organizes and uses his troops for military action. It is this deployment of troops and soldiers that is the basic meaning of the word.

The dictionary meaning of strategy is, “the art of so moving or disposing of the instrument of warfare as to impose upon the enemy, the place time and conditions for fighting by oneself.”

This connotes the art and science of directing military forces. In business parlance, there is no definite meaning assigned to strategy. However, in an organizational context strategy relates to the science or the art of identifying and applying your human and physical resources and carefully preparing for attaining the future goals you have set for your organization.

The strategy is to create a unified, comprehensive, and integrated plan to ensure the achievement of basic objectives through the proper implementation process. The strategy is in fact a plan or course of action or a set of decision rules which are based on policies, objectives, and goals and targeted at moving an organization from its current position to a desired future state. Challenges of the current environment are evaluated to find strategic advantage out of them and strategy also defined the requisite resources that are needed to implement a plan.

Definitions of Strategy

  • The pattern of  objectives, purpose, goals, and the major policies and plans for achieving these goals stated in such a way so as to define what business the company is in or is to be and the kind of company it is or is to be - Kenneth Andrews (1955)
  • “Strategic planning is the continuous process of making present entrepreneurial decisions systematically and with the greatest knowledge of their futurity; organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions; and measuring the results of these decisions against the expectations through organized, systematic feedback” – Drucker (1974).
  • “Strategy is the common thread among the organizations, activities and product markets, that defines the essential nature of the business that the organization was or planned to be in future”- Igor Ansoff (1965)
  • “Strategies are not always the outcome of rational planning. ………….a pattern in a stream of decisions and actions. - Henry Mintzberg (1987)
  • “Basically a strategy is a set of decision-making rules for the guidance of organizational behavior.” - Ansoff (1984)
  • “Strategy is the unified, comprehensive and integrated plan that relates the strategic advantage of the firm to the challenges of the environment and is designed to ensure that basic objectives of the enterprise are achieved through implementation process” - William Glueck
  • “Strategy is the creation of a unique and valued position involving a different set of actives. The company that is strategically positioned performs different activities from rivals or performs similar activities in different ways.” - Michael Porter
  • Strategy refers to basic directional decisions, that is, to purposes and missions. The strategy consists of the important actions necessary to realize these directions. Strategy answers the question: What should the organization be doing? Strategy answers the question: What are the ends we seek and how should we achieve them?

Nature of Corporate Strategy

A good strategy is one that helps in the accomplishment of the organization’s objectives. The top management of an organization is concerned with the selection of a course of action from among different alternatives to meet the organizational objectives. The process by which objectives are formulated and achieved is known as strategic management and strategy act as the means to achieve the objective.  A few aspects regarding the nature of strategy in the organization context is as follows:

  • Corporate strategy is related to what an organization wants to achieve and constraints in the external environment, which is about seeing the big picture and clarifying the strategic objectives. The strategy is the blend of internal and external factors. To meet the opportunities and threats provided by the external factors, internal factors are matched with them.
  • Corporate strategy is being formulated at the higher level of management and operational strategies are generally formulated taking a bottoms-up approach identifying relationships, patterns and trends,
  • The corporate strategy integrates three distinct and closely related activities in strategy making. The activities are strategic planning, strategic implementation, and strategic evaluation and control. A strategy is the combination of actions aimed to meet a particular condition, to solve certain problems, or to achieve a desirable end. The actions are different for different situations.
  • Corporate strategy is related to the long term. Corporate strategy is focused on the determination of long-term goals objectives. It further lays the process for adoption of courses of action and specifies the allocation of resources
  • It requires systems and norms for its efficient adoption in any organization. The strategy is future-oriented. Strategy actions are required for new situations that have not arisen before in the past.
  • It provides an overall framework for guiding enterprise thinking and action
  • It is concerned with a unified direction and efficient allocation of organization resources
  • The corporate strategy provides an integrated approach for the organization and aids in meeting the challenges posed by the environment. A well-made strategy guides managerial action and thought.
  • Strategies are the most important factor of an organization because they decide the future course of action for the organization as a whole. Successful strategic thinkers constantly reevaluate their environment and plan for the future.

Related Links

Creation Date Monday, 25 June 2012 Hits 13235

You May Also Like

  • Bad Leadership Style

    Bad Leadership Style

    A good leadership style is something that every effective leader must have in order to succeed, but identifying what that entails or does not entails might be difficult to understand. Most of the research on leadership focuses on the exemplary, best practices, and positive attributes of effective and successful leaders. This article talks about a new approach to learn leadership using lessons from bad leadership. That is the lessons to be learned by examining leaders who have not effectively exercised their power, authority, or influence.

  • Developing Functional Skills

    Developing Functional Skills

    Functional skills are the core competencies that can be transferred to different work areas like understanding of finance is independent and a finance expert can comfortably adapt to a manufacturing or service industry. Functional skills are obtained by understanding the various processes and the principles applicable to a business function. Functional experts are in great demand as they are specialists and required to manage the business processes like human resources, operations, or finance.

  • Concept & Definition of Stress

    Concept & Definition of Stress

    Stress is a popular expression used by people in day to day life. Pressures of day to day living sometimes necessitate coping or dealing with them and stretch the body beyond its natural capacity. They are called stressors. Stress is a natural, ongoing dynamic, and interactive process that takes place as people adjust to their environment.

  • Authentic Leadership Style

    Authentic Leadership Style

    Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader's legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. The authentic leader acts upon his or her values and beliefs, and inspires others to do the same, is committed to know and develop oneself. Are you committed to developing yourself; know your motivations and the purpose of your leadership? Read this article to know more about authentic leadership style and discovering your authentic self. 

  • Tools for Developing Your Team

    Tools for Developing Your Team

    If a manager has too many weak spots in the talent of the team, the ability to empower the team members to independently execute the project is impaired. Assignments fall behind schedule or stretch out because the needed skills or knowledge are not in place when needed. To successfully execute important projects, hiring talented people, and increasing the talents of existing staff are most important.

  • Importance of Technical Skills

    Importance of Technical Skills

    Today’s business environment is complex and changing at a fast pace. Tough business problems require technical expertise to create cost-effective & sustainable solutions. All industries need some kind of technical skills to accomplish complex actions, tasks, and processes relating to computational and physical technology as well as a diverse group of other enterprises. The acquisition of advanced technical skills requires specific education certification or training, often with practical hands-on learning.

  • Consequences of Stress

    Consequences of Stress

    A manager or an employee in an organization who is experiencing a high level of stress may develop high blood pressure, ulcers, irritability, difficulty in making routine decisions, loss of appetite, accident proneness, and the like. These can be subsumed under three general categories, physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms. Stress can give rise to a number of changes.

  • Guide to Technical Leadership Skills

    Guide to Technical Leadership Skills

    Technical leaders care about building amazing products and the best technical capabilities in their teams. Everything they do is focused on improving the user experience and bringing competitive advantage for their organization. Learn the skills and competencies you need to build a technical career path for yourself that starts with building technical expertise and grows into developing technical leadership.

  • Know Yourself & Your Values

    Know Yourself & Your Values

    At different points in your professional career, it is helpful to identify your core values. Values are the qualities considered to be the most important guiding principles that determine the priorities in your life and greatly influence your career choices. Your career brings happiness when it is in agreement with the beliefs you have about what is important and meaningful to you. Awareness of your values will help you develop a clearer sense of what's most important to you in life.

  • Time Management Skills

    Time Management Skills

    How often do you have a plan for how you are going to spend your day but you aren't able to complete the tasks on your plan because of unimportant tasks, interruptions, or your own procrastination? Wouldn't it be great to be able to manage your schedule and your time while avoiding, or at least controlling, these time stealers?  Learn the strategies to manage your schedule while still handling interruptions and demands on your time. 

Explore Our Free Training Articles or
Sign Up to Start With Our eLearning Courses

Subscribe to Our Newsletter


© 2023 TechnoFunc, All Rights Reserved