Strategy Formulation and Implementation in Organizations

Question:

Describe about  the Report On Strategic Management?

Strategy formulation includes planning and decision making involved in the organizations strategic goals and plans. On the contrary the strategic implementation involves all the procedures which are availed by the organizations in order to execute the strategic plans. According to Coulter (2010) social science covers a broad range of disciplines namely demography, social statistics, methods and computing, development studies, human geography and environmental planning. The branches of social science like the demographics and the human behavior are directly linked with the formulation of the corporate strategies. There are two levels of strategies within organizations namely the planned strategies and the implemented strategies. David (2013) opined that the organizations face difficulties in managing the social environment of the company in case of implementing planned strategies. Hence in order to successfully implement the planned strategies the managers within an organization needs to understand the actions and the human behaviors of the employees. Hence the effective implementations of the planned strategies are related directly with the understanding of the social sciences.

Content strategy

Content strategy can be effectively defined as the type of strategy adopted by the corporate in planning of content creation, delivery of the content and creation of corporate governance. The development of an effective content strategy involves delivering of the fruitful information to the customer’s about the mindset, culture and approach of the organization. Hence this strategic approach helps the organizations to manage the content as a form of asset of the company. According to Ginter et al. (2013) the major need for the content strategies in the present business scenarios is the advent of the mobile and social media marketing. These forms of marketing influence the purchasing behavior and acceptability of the consumers in respect to any product or service. McCabe (2010) argued that traditional marketing techniques are no longer valid and workable hence the marketer have to adopt the content strategies in order to deliver content and message to consumers about their business value daily. Lynch (2012) has proclaimed that the content strategists play the role of the curator for the organization. Thus it is essential for the content strategists to create positive content relating to the company’s values so that the image projected about the company in the mind of the customers are effective for them to make wise purchase decisions.

The strategy formulations within the corporate takes place in several levels of management. The following are the three levels of strategies as per the importance the formulation.

Corporate strategy:  The corporate strategy refers to the overall strategy of the business organization which enlists the overall scope and direction of the organization and creates a framework for the business operations that will enable the company to achieve the long and short term objectives (Harris, 2011).

Business strategy: The business strategy is the narrowed strategy which is formulated from the corporate strategy and it is the aggregated strategies of given to the Strategic business units for the quick, easy and methodical implementation of the strategies. According to Nixon and Burns (2012) a firm must incorporate business strategies with cost leadership, differentiation or keeping a focus on the competitive advantage of the products and services.

Content Strategy for Effective Content Creation and Delivery

Functional strategy:  The functional strategies include the profitable strategies of the business. They are formulated keeping in mid the real market scenario. The general functional strategies are namely the new product development, promotional and marketing strategies, supply chain strategies, financial strategies, information technology strategies and human resource strategies.

According to Phillips and Lawrence (2012) there are two main approaches to strategic management namely The Industrial organizational approach and the Sociological approach.

The industrial organizational approach: This approach deals with the formulation of strategies which will deal with the external issues of an organization like competitive rivalry, resource allocation and economies of scale. Rosenberg (2012) stated that the approach is adopted assuming the social facts like rationality of the social players in the market, Self disciplined behavior of the market players and profit maximization motive of the organization.

Sociological approach: This is the approach adopted by the organizations to deal with human factors present within the organizations. The study of the social sciences helps the management of the organizations to determine the rationality, purchasing behavior and motivational factors of the human resources within the organizations.

As depicted in the given statement “The process researchers have shown again and again the real world messiness of strategy formulation and implementation. The implication is that it is impossible to analyze everything up front and predict the future, and that the search for economically optimal decisions is futile” the most crucial part of strategic management is the method of formulation as well as implementation of the strategies. No definite or specific decision exists that optimizes economically (Boiko, 2013). Rather, this is said to vary as per situation. When the concept of strategic planning entered the scene during 1960s, all corporate leaders had once embraced the concept to be the most effective mode for devising as well as implementing strategies which would promote the competitiveness of every business unit. Planning systems had produced the most effective strategies and that of instructions to conduct the mentioned strategies so that organizational managers do not go the wrong way (Capobianco and Rupp, 2014). As stated by the statement, various methods of strategy formulation as well as implementation make it difficult to state any particular economically effective decision. Organizations that are disenchanted with strategic planning must not get rid of the planners or ignore the need of programming (Clifton, 2009). In fact, conventional job of planning must be transformed by the organizations. Planners are responsible for making contribution around the process of strategy-making if not inside it. They need to provide the available information to conduct strategic thinking. Planners act as catalysts in supporting making of strategy by motivating managers to think in a strategic manner.

Strategic thinking is all about synthesis. It includes intuition as well as creativity. The basic result of such strategic thought process is an integrated viewpoint of the organization. These strategies may not be developed upon schedule or conceived immaculately (Lewis and Loebbaka, 2008). These should be independent in appearance at any given time or place within the organization, specifically by messy techniques of informal learning which need to be carried out necessarily by individuals at different levels involved intimately with particular issues at hand. Making of strategies require to be operated beyond the boxes, for promoting the informal pattern of learning which generates innovative perspectives as well as combinations (Li, 2003). Some failures of planning to transcend the groups explain the reasons behind discouraging serious changes in organizations. The failure is the main cause that system of formal planning has encouraged strategies to be copied from past. David (2013) opined that the organizations face difficulties in managing the social environment of the company in case of implementing planned strategies. Hence in order to successfully implement the planned strategies the managers within an organization needs to understand the actions and the human behaviors of the employees. Hence the effective implementations of the planned strategies are related directly with the understanding of the social sciences (McDermott, 2002).

Levels of Strategies within Organizations

There is no specific model of strategic planning and implementation for every business organization. It in fact depends upon several internal and external factors, such as purpose of such planning, organizational culture, changing organizational environment, etc.

Model 1: Goal-oriented Strategic Planning

This happens to be the most common model of strategic planning, though not suitable for every organization. It is suitable for organizations that do not have many issues to be addressed, and also sufficient resources to focus on the objectives. The very first step is identification of the organizational mission (McDermott and O’Connor, 2002). A statement must be enough to depict the overall objectives of an organization. This would change after several years of execution. It also includes creation of a vision statement, identification of specific approaches, action plans, and lastly monitoring of implementation of plan.

Model 2: Issues-based Planning

This model works from present to future, and it is shorter in duration. It includes some of the major steps like identifying recent issues that the organization is facing, brainstorming ideas for addressing each issue, combining those ideas into a definite strategic documentation, and monitoring the plan as structured against the result (Clifton, 2009).

Model 3: Alignment Model

The major purpose of this model is ensuring effective alignment amidst organizational vision along with the resources to conduct operations within the organization. This model is to be chosen when an organization is facing increased number of issues related to internal efficiencies. It involves outlining goals, resources, programs, and support (Miller and Osborn, 2007). It involves what all adjustments are required, how these to be made, and how these may be beneficial to strategic planning.

Model 4: Scenario Planning

This model is not often chosen by organizations; however it enhances strategic thinking within any planning model. It includes some external forces and also imagining related alterations that may impact the organization, such as demographic changes or regulation changes. This model suggests the action plans of an organization, including responses valid for each scenario. This model may be applied in accordance with other models.

Some of the earlier successful strategies included policies, systems, routines, and programs within an organization and institutionalization of these processes provide a powerful culture within the organization.  Formal planning has always been based upon the preservation as well as rearrangement of created groups like existing strategies at levels of corporate, business and functional (Miller and Osborn, 2007). However, a real strategic alteration requires not juts rearrangement of created categories, but also development of innovative ones. Although researchers may generate various ideas and perceptions by various techniques of planning and implementation, there can be no definite technique for all organizations.

Google Inc for instance is seen to adopt the sociological approach. The company makes extensive analysis of the human and the employee behaviors within the company. Human interaction helps the company to design the motivational tools and incentives and employee benefit which increases the productivity of the employees.

Stettinius (2005) further added that in understanding the corporate strategy of the organization an example of Tesco may be adopted. The corporate strategy of Tesco, the leading food retailer of UK, states that the company is committed in creating shareholder value through the process of innovative customer focused strategy. Following this strategy Tesco has generated the business strategies for the different SBUs namely customer care service, retail store service, innovative product strategy and financial strategies. In the same manner depending upon the corporate and the business strategies Tesco formulates the following functional strategies namely

• To grow the core UK market
• To be a creator of high valued brands
• To be outstanding international retailer in both stores and online segment
• To retain the market leadership in the retail segment (Thompson and Martin, 2010)

In judging the implementation of the content marketing strategies in the corporate sector it can be said that McDonalds Canada has successfully launched “Our Food, Your questions Program”. This app invites the Canadians to ask any questions related to the McDonald’s food products. The app was installed in the website of the company and was connected with Twitter or Face book. Hence with the help of the social media marketing the company was able to connect socially with the customers. Coulter (2010) opined that the formulation of the self served information, and identification of the customer knowledge gaps is possible in case of the content marketing techniques used by the company.

References

Coulter, M. (2010). Strategic management in action. Boston: Prentice Hall.

David, F. (2013). Strategic management concepts. Boston: Pearson.

Ginter, P., Duncan, W. and Swayne, L. (2013). Strategic management of health care organizations. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons/Jossey-Bass.

Harris, E. (2011). Strategic Project Risk Appraisal and Management. Strategic Direction, 27(4).

Lynch, M. (2012). Changes. Social Studies of Science, 42(2), pp.167-169.

McCabe, S. (2010). Corporate strategy in construction. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.

Nixon, B. and Burns, J. (2012). Strategic management accounting. Management Accounting Research, 23(4), pp.225-228.

Phillips, N. and Lawrence, T. (2012). The turn to work in organization and management theory: Some implications for strategic organization. Strategic Organization, 10(3), pp.223-230.

Rosenberg, A. (2012). Philosophy of social science. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Smelser, N. and Reed, J. (2012). Usable social science. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stettinius, W. (2005). How to plan and execute strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Thompson, J. and Martin, F. (2010). Strategic management. Andover: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Boiko, I. (2013). Instruments of Implementing the Enterprises’ Strategy. ECONOMICS & SOCIOLOGY, 6(2), pp.73-81.

Capobianco, B. and Rupp, M. (2014). STEM Teachers’ Planned and Enacted Attempts at Implementing Engineering Design-Based Instruction. School Science and Mathematics, 114(6), pp.258-270.

Clifton, S. (2009). Defining Issues in Pentecostalism: Classical and Emergent. Pneuma, 31(1), pp.113-114.

Lewis, A. and Loebbaka, J. (2008). Managing future and emergent strategy decay in the commercial aerospace industry. Business Strategy Series, 9(4), pp.147-156.

Li, F. (2003). Implementing E-Government Strategy in Scotland. Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations, 1(2), pp.44-65.

McDermott, C. (2002). Managing radical innovation: an overview of emergent strategy issues. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19(6), pp.424-438.

McDermott, C. and O’Connor, G. (2002). Managing radical innovation: an overview of emergent strategy issues. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 19(6), pp.424-438.

Miller, C. and Osborn, R. (2007). Innovation as a contested terrain: Planned creativity and innovation versus emergent creativity and innovation. Research in Multi Level Issues, 7(7), pp.169-189.