What is STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT and WHY is it IMPORTANT?

Strategic management involves managing an organization's resources to achieve its objectives through establishing goals, assessing the competitive landscape, examining internal operations, evaluating tactics, and ensuring implementation across the firm.

Strategic thinking fosters creativity, innovation, and the ability to devise new methods to address challenges like the COVID pandemic. It also helps in spotting development opportunities during tough times and achieving financial gains for long-term company growth.

Strategies help companies make more money, safeguard future expansion, handle the urgency of the climate crisis by developing long-term green solutions, adapt to digital changes, and gain a competitive advantage. It also ensures a legitimate social license to operate and integrates ethical perspectives into business plans.

Strategy determines the products or services a company offers, sets goals, develops plans for implementation, aligns activities with goals, and goes beyond just increasing the bottom line to provide a social license to operate.

The four steps include strategic intention (goal setting), formulation of a strategy (conducting SWOT analysis), strategy implementation (putting plans into action with proper structures and systems), and strategy evaluation (assessing outcomes and making adjustments as needed).

Strategic management aids in identifying, prioritizing, and achieving goals, adapting to change, being proactive and flexible, setting employee goals, boosting motivation, and ensuring company survival. Continuous assessment and adaptation to market forces are crucial for success.

Effective strategic management training equips individuals with the skills, thinking processes, and technologies necessary to extract value for the business, overcome obstacles, adapt to change, and ensure long-term success in a dynamic business climate.