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Strategic Planning
Many things have changed in the area of strategy from 1960’s. In the early times everything was stable and can be predicted with some effort. CEO’s had the gift of controlling a company with a strategy that does not require a lot of inputs from external or internal stakeholders.
However, good old days came to an end when global competitors were at the gates of America by the early 1980’s and Corporate America found itself trying to catch up with them. At first it was thought that America could compete with productivity and efficiency. However it was not the comeback that Corporate America was looking for, “The pure efficiency approach did very little to generate distinctive competitive advantages,” as Dwight Gertz put forward.
The strategic planning was the key concept companies were searching and questioning, and trying to make better in order to achieve higher revenues and profits. Coming up with new products, expanding existing businesses, and creating the markets of tomorrow were the problems companies faced with.
Business strategy became an important management issue and most of the new wave gurus and consulting firms offer service to help companies developing their business strategies. The change in management perspective erased the abstraction, sterility, and top-down arrogance of the old model. Jack Welch of General Electric was one of the pioneers of strategic planning when he found out that GE planners were wasting time with unnecessary details and not analyzing competitive positioning and the creation of future markets.
Systematizing of the strategy process is of high importance. The process should be handed to line and staff managers and should include ...