Strategic Management

04 Nov Strategic Management

Strategic management is defined as the science and art of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions to help an organization achieve its long term goals (Burgelman et al., 2008). The process consists of three phases: strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation (David and Hall, 2008). Environment likely affects strategic formulation; therefore, investigating its influence must be seriously considered with respect to the dynamic and competitive conditions. One of the most popular tools for formulating the right strategy to help organizations in achieving their goals is Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis which can expose both external and internal factors. Internal factors are categorized as either strengths or weaknesses that are helpful or harmful to the achievement of an objective; external factors are either opportunities or threats that may help or hinder an organization in achieving its objectives (Gao and Peng, 2011). Using SWOT analysis, an organization can recognize factors that play key roles in its success or failure and then formulate strategies to cover and fit these factors (Fedrizzi and Brunelli, 2010; Gao and Peng, 2011; Kangas et al., 2003). Indeed, SWOT analysis extracts the most important environmental factors referred to as strategic factors, which may affect an organization’s future (Babaesmailli et al., 2012). With the SWOT matrix, managers can formulate appropriate strategies by comparing internal and external factors. The process consists of three phases: strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation (David and Hall, 2008). Environment likely affects strategic formulation; therefore, investigating its influence must be seriously considered with respect to the dynamic and competitive conditions. One of the most popular tools for formulating the right strategy to help organizations in achieving their goals is Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis which can expose both external and internal factors. Internal factors are categorized as either strengths or weaknesses that are helpful or harmful to the achievement of an objective; external factors are either opportunities or threats that may help or hinder an organization in achieving its objectives (Gao and Peng, 2011). Using SWOT analysis, an organization can recognize factors that play key roles in its success or failure and then formulate strategies to cover and fit these factors (Fedrizzi and Brunelli, 2010; Gao and Peng, 2011; Kangas et al., 2003). Indeed, SWOT analysis extracts the most important environmental factors referred to as strategic factors, which may affect an organization’s future (Babaesmailli et al., 2012). With the SWOT matrix, managers can formulate appropriate strategies by comparing internal and external factors (Valipour Khatir, M., Akbarzadeh, 2019).

Reference

• Babaesmailli, M., Arbabshirani, B., Golmah, V. (2012). “Integrating analytical network process and fuzzy logic to prioritize the strategies–A case study for tile manufacturing firm”. Expert Systems with Applications, 39(1), 925-935. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2011.07.090.
• Burgelman, R. A., Christensen, C. M., Wheelwright, S. C. (2008). “Strategic management of technology and innovation”. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
• David, F. R., Hall, P.P. (2008). “Strategic management: Concepts and cases”. Journal Entry, 5(2).
• Fedrizzi, M., Brunelli, M. (2010). “On the priority vector associated with a reciprocal relation and a pairwise comparison matrix”. Soft Computing, 14(6), 639-645.
• Gao, C. Y., Peng, D. H. (2011). “Consolidating SWOT analysis with nonhomogeneous uncertain preference information, Knowledge-Based Systems.” 24(6), 796-808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2011.03.001.
• Kangas, J., Kurttila, M., Kajanus, M., Kangas, A. (2003). “Evaluating the management strategies of a forestland estate—the SOS approach”. Journal of environmental management, 69(4), 349- 358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2003.09.010.
• Valipour Khatir, M., Akbarzadeh, Z. (2019). “Elucidation of structural relationships of SWOT: A mixed method approach based on FMADM for formulating science and technology strategies”. Technology in Society, Volume 56, February 2019, Pages 44-56.