Corporate Strategies International

What is Corporate Strategy ?

Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations".

In other words, strategy is about: Where is the business trying to get to in the long-term (direction)

• How can the business perform better than the competition in those markets? (Advantage)?
• What resources (skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence, and facilities) are required in order to be able to compete? (Resources)?
• What external, environmental factors affect the businesses' ability to compete? (Environment)?
• What are the values and expectations of those who have power in and around the business? (stakeholders)

Strategy at Different Levels of a Business

Strategies exist at several levels in any organization - ranging from the overall business (or group of businesses) through to individuals working in it.

Corporate Strategy - is concerned with the overall purpose and scope of the business to meet stakeholder expectations. This is a crucial level since it is heavily influenced by investors in the business and acts to guide strategic decision-making throughout the business. Corporate strategy is often stated explicitly in a "mission statement".

Business Unit Strategy - is concerned more with how a business competes successfully in a particular market. It concerns strategic decisions about choice of products, meeting needs of customers, gaining advantage over competitors, exploiting or creating new opportunities etc.

Operational Strategy - is concerned with how each part of the business is organized to deliver the corporate and business-unit level strategic direction. Operational strategy therefore focuses on issues of resources, processes, people etc.

How Strategy is Managed - Strategic Management

In its broadest sense, strategic management is about taking "strategic decisions" - decisions that answer the questions above.

In practice, a thorough strategic management process has three main components, shown in the figure below: