Strategy

Strategy
See also
Strategic planning functions Strategic management model Change management model Strategic goals Strategic marketing Structure follows strategy Classification of goals and functions Mission and vision Strategic management

Strategy is a program of general activities aimed at exploiting the production potential and resources to achieve the stated objectives.

Strategy:

• general program for the definition and implementation of the main activities of organization,
• time based plan of responses to environment,
• specifies the role of the organization in society,
• defines the mission of the organization (a specific reason for its existence, distinguishing it from others)
• formulate the tasks that managers and employees must perform in order to achieve the objectives.

Features of strategy

• the time horizon - remote from the point of view of the implementation of actions and their effects,
• focusing efforts on most important task (however it can limit resources available for other activities)
• structure of decisions - managers take many decisions of the specified type at the time, they need to be consistent,
• ubiquity - the strategy includes a wide range of company activities,
• is subject to evaluation by various indicators,
• includes the analysis of resources of competition.

Types of strategy

Due to direction of changes

• development - company expands by investment, market share, diversification of production,
• stabilizing - stable company position, stalling, waiting for a more favorable moment,
• recovery - on the one hand, involves reorganization (resolving identified action errors), on the other hand, it is focused on the creation of mechanisms to protect the company against potential external and internal disturbances,
• defensive - orientated toward survival,
• combined - combination of above.

Due to market and product

• market penetration - market expansion
• development of the market - market expansion
• product development - technological expansion
• diversification - market and technological expansion

Due to relationships between companies

• competition (combat, agreement, avoiding, ignoring)
• cooperation.

Strategy as a way of action in the face of problems

A different approach to the understanding of the strategy, are the definitions relating to the behavior of the organization in the face of problems.

On the one hand, the strategy is defined as a string of decisions defining the behavior of the organization within a range of time, on the other hand, strategy is a set of ideas and the structure through which the company recognizes, interprets and solves certain problems and in accordance with which managers choose certain actions.

See also:

• SWOT analysis
• TOWS analysis
• Cost leadership strategy
• Functional strategy
• International marketing mix strategy

References

• Ansoff, H. I. (1970). Corporate strategy: An analytic approach to business policy for growth and expansion. Penguin books.
• Andrews, K. R., & Roland, C. (1987). About strategy. We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them, 150.
• Chandler, A.D. (1972), Strategy and Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge.
• Mintzberg, H. (1979), The Structuring of Organization, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs.
• Mintzberg, H. (1994). The fall and rise of strategic planning. Harvard business review, 72(1), 107-114.
• Wozniak, K., Management information system as an instrument of strategic management in the company, PhD Thesis, Cracow University of Economics, Cracow 2005
• Yarger, H. R. (2006). Strategic theory for the 21st century: the little book on big strategy. Lulu. com.

Author: Krzysztof Wozniak