Strategic Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Strategic Management - Assignment Example Many research scholars still argue over creating cogent definition of strategic management. Various research scholars like Michael Porter, Philip Kotler, John Kotter, VA Zeithaml and many others successfully tried to create a theoretical framework of the concept but still their frameworks failed to create a universal theory of strategic management probably due to multidimensionality of the concept. Organizations use strategic initiatives in accordance with culture, leadership style, frequency of crisis and business objectives. Gray (1) has bifurcated strategic planning from strategic management and described two aspects in the following manner. ... Meyer (3) illustrated strategic management as process that helps top level management of the company to understand business objectives, future threat and opportunities; identifying suitable strategy to deal with these issues and taking control over external variables; creating direction to accomplish strategic objective of the organization. Nutt and Backoff (4) have modified the concept of Meyer. According to them strategic management actually combines short and long term planning of the organization in order to achieve organizational objectives like increasing profitability, increasing control over existing product portfolio, achieving high growth rate, expanding many business in foreign market, creating market entry barrier for competitors by increasing competency level (Tyndall, Cameron and Taggart, 1990, p. 9). Strategic management is a multidimensional concept and the study cannot cover all the aspects of strategic management. The study will focus on a particular concept of stra tegic management in order to create a cogent representation of assignment topic. This report will analyze Michael Porter’s generic competitive strategies from the view point of theoretical concept and real life application in order to understand functionality of the concept. 3.0 Michael Porter’s Generic Competitive Strategies In 1980, Michael Porter developed the basic strategic model for companies in order to achieve competitive advantage over competitors. He modified the concept into more confined model in 1985. Main agenda of the model is to help organizations to create a sustainable and not easy to copy strategy with which they can not only achieve competitive advantage over adversaries but also can build a sustainable