Summary: Strategic Management

Read the summary and the most important questions on Strategic management

• 1 Strategic planning

• When thinking strategically, a company should ask itself three big strategic questions. What are these questions?

  1. Where are we now?
  2. Where do we want to go? (businesses, markets, customers needs/groups, outcomes)
  3. How do we get there?
     

• 1.1 Mission statement

  This is a preview. There are 6 more flashcards available for chapter 1.1
  Show more cards here

• The mission statement deals with the presents and should mention three things about the core of the company. What are these?

  • Who we are
  • What we do
  • What our values are

• Besides the core three things that should be mentioned in the mission statement, what are the three things that should be mentioned about the business?

  • The company's present products/services.
  • The type of customers it serves.
  • Its technological and business capabilities.

• A good mission statement defines a company's situation in at minimum 3 dimensions and at maximum 5 dimensions. What are these dimensions?

  1. What it does for its customers
  2. What it does for its employees
  3. What it does for its owners
  4. What it does for its community
  5. What it does for the world 

• The mission statement is internally used for a number of reasons. Name three of them.

  • To ensure all noses point in the same direction.
  • So officers of the company act according to the company norms.
  • So all employees are aware of what the organisation they are working for is all about.

• The mission statement is externally used as what?

  As a PR instrument.

• What happens when the mission statement is not carefully thought out?

  It could limit the organisation's (future) activities, e.g. "Our business is renting cars".
  
  However, short mission statements do not necessarily limit the company's activities. It could actually help a company with targeting a niche market, e.g. "We always try harder".

• American mission statements are based on which model? Is it short-term or long-term? What is a different name for it?

  It's based on the shareholder value model. It's short-term and it's also called the Anglo Saxon model.

• The wording of the mission statement should be four things. What are these?

  1. Short
  2. Simple
  3. Operative (maximum of three verbs/elements)
  4. Clearly defines what you do (and by definition what you don't do)

• 1.2 Vision statement

  This is a preview. There are 4 more flashcards available for chapter 1.2
  Show more cards here

• The vision statement deals with the future and should mention two things about the core of the company. What are these?

  1. Where we are going as an organisation
  2. What do we want to achieve