Strategic Management

An analysis of SWOT (i.e, strengths and weakness of the company and the opportunities and threats in the environment) plays a very important role in the strategic management process or the formulations of business policy. A look at the strategic management process would make the importance of the external internal factors nexus more clear.

Glueck defines strategy as a “unified, comprehensive and integrated plan relating the strategic advantages of the firm to the challenges of the environment. It is designed to ensure that the basic objectives of the enterprise are achieved. “Strategic management is defined as “that set of decisions and actions which leads to the development of an effective strategy or strategies to help achieve corporate objectives.”

Chandler describes strategic management as the determination of the basic long-term goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of course? Action and allocation of resources ‘necessary to carry out these goals.” According to Paine and Naumes, “Strategic management involves the decision-making and the activities in an organization which (1) have wider ramifications, (2) have a perceived opportunities or threats in a changing environment.

Strategic management or business policy is the means to achieve the objectives. Strategic management process involves ascertaining the objectives, analysis of the environmental opportunities and threats and appraising the strengths and weakness of the firm to tap the opportunities or to combat the threats, formulating strategies to achieve the objectives on the basis of the SWOT analysis, choosing the most appropriate strategy, implementation of the strategy and reformulation of the objectives or strategy, if needed.