The strategic management process is more than just following some set of rules for effective management in the business. The five stages of the strategic planning process are setting the goals, analysis, formulation of strategy, implementation of the strategy and evaluation and control. It helps to understand the various operational activities of the business.
This stage deals with the clarification of mission and vision of the company that can include three aspects. These are namely defining the short as well as long-term goals, identification of the process of accomplishing the objective and finally customization of the process for the employees by allocating tasks to every individual. This stage is also associated with giving a mission statement and proper communication of the goals to the employees.
This is the most important stage of the planning process as the information gathered at this stage is relevant for the other two stages. The primary focus of this stage is to make out the needs of the business, the strategic directions and proper identification of the initiatives that can help in growing the business. It is important to examine any external or internal issues that may become a hindrance in accomplishing the goals.
The initial step is to make a review of the information gathered after the analysis. The areas need to be identified where external resources are needed. The issues are given priorities and then strategies are formulated.
This is known as the stage of action where a new strategy is undertaken if one fails. Everyone if the organization needs to be aware about his or her responsibility. Any additional resources for the venture need to be stated at this step. Once everything is final, the plan is implemented.
Any control actions include measurements of performance, consistent review of the internal as well as external issues and taking necessary corrective actions if required. If the old strategy is not working then a new one needs to be formulated. Various types of internal and external issues are coming up every day and the data gathered need to kept with care for future use.
There are three types of plans, strategic, operational and tactical plans.
Strategic plans are formulated keeping in mind the entire organization and start with its mission (Cassidy 2016). These plans are designed by the top managers to set the long-term goals. A top level manager is responsible for making strategies for achieving growth, increase productivity and profitability. He can also boost the return on investments and improve the customer service.
Operational plans are made by the front-line or lower level managers (Drew, McCallum and Roggenhofer 2016). These plans focus on the processes that are at the lowest level of the organization. This plan includes scheduling the employees every week, assessing and stocking the inventory, creating budget and developing promotional activities to enhance the sales.
Tactical plans are the transformation of the strategic plans into specific plans that are required for the organization (McDonald and Brown 2016). It is concerned with the proper functionality of the lower-level employees in proper implementation of the strategic plans. Tactical plans may be trying out new things or testing any new process for the organization.
The SWOT analysis is a process that helps to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organization. It is an analytical framework that identifies the internal as well as external environment analysis of an organization.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Corporate social responsibility is the initiative of an organization to make assessment and undertake various activities to help the environment and think about the social wellbeing of the people. The companies spend a part of their profit for the social activities on the part of social responsibility activities.
The businesses should be socially responsible in order to create a brand loyalty. There can be some detrimental impacts for some of the organizational activities like oil spills of the petroleum industry or damage of agriculture because of some industries. These can be overridden through the social responsibility activities.
The four alternative views of ethical behavior are individualism, utilitarian, moral rights and justice. Individualism view of ethical behavior states that how a behavior of an individual or a decision taken by one encourages an individual with respect to ling term interest. Moral rights put focus on whether a decision or behavior of an individual is within the Act of Human Rights. Justice view on the other hand focuses on whether any behavior is fair or transparent. The utilitarian view is used when the target of the business is to maximize profit.
An ethical dilemma is a condition where a person needs to choose between two options, both of which are correct but has conflicts between them.
The causes of ethical dilemma in management may be because of unethical decisions taken by top managers, unclear policies, unethical culture and monetary issues.
Ethical standards may be established through four steps. First is setting the specific standards of ethical values and behaviors. Second is motivating everyone to embrace the objectives of the organization. Third is to ensure that the ethics is sustainable. Fourth and final is to ensure that the ethical behavior pervades in every aspect of the organization.
The components of a communication process are context, sender, receiver, message, medium and feedback. The context may be physical, chronological, cultural or social. Sender is the person concerned with conveying the message. Message is the information to be sent. Medium is the mean to exchange the information. Receiver is the person who takes the information.
The managers need to know the outcome of any communication, build a good reputation in the workplace, avoid flaunting power and intellect, have self-confidence, show awareness of others, consider the timing and become a good listener to effectively communicate in the workplace.
The barriers of communication are physical barriers, attitudes, languages, physiological barriers, problems with structural design, cultural noise, lack of common experience, information loaded, assumptions and jumping to conclusions, ambiguity and abstractions overuse (Lohikoski et al. 2015).
The manager can take various measures to overcome the barriers of effective communication (Austin and Pinkleton 2015). These are clarifying ideas before communication, consult before communication, communicate based on need, aware about the language and content of message, and convey things of value, ensure proper feedback, be a good listener and follow up communication.
The managers can choose the right setting, keep the emotions in right place, and keep focus on action and plans, offer a chance for further discussion, train the employees properly and create a learning experience.
The five different conflict management styles are discussion with the employees to avoid any conflicts, written communication to address the problems, mediation and compromise (Redmond, Jameson and Binder 2016).
If the manager feel that the employees are in conflict with each other and are not interacting, then discussion is the best way to solve the problems. If any issue is escalated then written communication is the best way to solve the problem. Writing letters sometimes are more effective than talking face to face. When two individuals are in a conflict, then mediation is a good option to avoid it. Compromising instead of selecting an individual’s interest is always a good option. Voting is another effective option to reduce conflicts in the workplace.
Leadership is defined as the act of leading and encouraging a group of people to accomplish a common objective (Northouse 2015). It helps in coordinating and balancing the conflicting interest of many individuals. It provides people to tools to get success and build a consensus.
Power is the ability to create or prevent an action and making things happen (Allen 2015). It can also be defined as the possession of control or authority and influence over others.
There is a relationship between power and leadership in management. Both are used to influence the behaviors of the employees in the organization. Both can be defined as power efficacy. Secondly, both are able to create creative energy to do something.
Moral leadership is defined as the ability to serve rather being just motivating others to aspire (Owen 2017). It is all about particular capacities and skills. They are aware about how to motivate themselves and how to act with rectitude.
The managers can adopt transparency in decision-making and communications, establish a formal ethics and values statement for others, maintain ethical behavior with every one, insists everyone to meet the ethical expectations, recognize and reward the examples of ethical behavior and arrange meetings for ethical programs.
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to perceive, control and make evaluations about emotions (Di Fabio and Saklofske 2014). A manager’s emotional intelligence helps him to become self-aware and able to recognize the emotions. He is able to regulate himself and keep a control. A manager is able to communicate effectively with others and create social awareness. He is able to resolve conflicts in the workplace.
Fiedler’s contingency theory states about a leader’s personality or psychological disposition is the main aspect in his ability to lead (Fiedler 2015). He developed a scale known as least preferred co-worker scale. High score sates that the leaders are relationship-oriented and lowest ones are task-oriented.
Hersey and Blanchard Model states that there is no single specific optimal leadership style and leaders adjust themselves with the followers in order to succeed (Taboli and Soltani 2014). The model describes that the leaders adjust themselves with various levels of follower maturity and relationship behaviors.
From the two types of contingency model, it is inferred that the leaders need to adjust in different situations and maintain good relationships with the subordinates. They need to be participative in the workplace.
References
Allen, D., 2015. Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. Penguin.
Austin, E.W. and Pinkleton, B.E., 2015. Strategic Public Relations Management: Planning and Managing Effective Communication Campaigns (Vol. 10). Routledge.
Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Di Fabio, A. and Saklofske, D.H., 2014. Comparing ability and self-report trait emotional intelligence, fluid intelligence, and personality traits in career decision. Personality and Individual Differences, 64, pp.174-178.
Drew, J., McCallum, B. and Roggenhofer, S., 2016. Journey to lean: making operational change stick. Springer.
Fiedler, F., 2015. CONTINGENCY THEORY OF LEADERSHIP. Organizational Behavior 1: Essential Theories of Motivation and Leadership, p.232.
Lohikoski, P., Kujala, J., Haapasalo, H., Härkönen, J. and Ala-Mursula, L., 2015. Managing barriers of virtual communication in global new product development projects. International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 15(4), pp.277-298.
McDonald, M.A.L.C.O.L.M. and Brown, L., 2016. 5 Strategic marketing planning. The marketing book, p.86.
Northouse, P.G., 2015. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.
Owen, D.S., 2017. Moral leadership and the Chairperson.
Redmond, V., Jameson, J.K. and Binder, A.R., 2016. How Superior–Subordinate Relationship Quality and Conflict Management Styles Influence an Employee’s Use of Upward Dissent Tactics. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 9(2), pp.158-176.
Taboli, H. and Soltani, H., 2014. The role of job commitment and job satisfaction in job performance using Kano and fuzzy MCDM models.
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