CRITICAL EVALUATION OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Critical Evaluation of Strategic Management

Critical Evaluation of Strategic Management

Introduction

Some organisations grow to be extremely large and profitable, while others go bankrupt. Some organisations diversify into new business activities, while others do not. The greatest challenge for a successful organisation is change. Change also challenges managers. It is not surprising that the concept of 'strategy', which provides a way to deal with change, was developed in a military setting. A strategy gives direction to diverse activities, even though the conditions under which those activities are carried out are rapidly changing. As the conditions under which businesses and not-for-profit organisations operate become increasingly competitive, as the ranges of responses become more constrained, and as the survival stakes become higher, strategy becomes increasingly relevant to sound management (Byars et.al, 1996). Strategic management can be thought of as having three main elements with in it, which includes understanding the strategic position of an organisation, strategic choices for the future and turning strategy into action

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate M&S's and Sainsbury's strategy on the possibility of participating more actively in the UK market. The first section of the report examines the strategic management process in relation to M&S and Sainsbury's. Under this section the paper conveys five stages of strategic management process. This includes the mission of the organisations, analyzing the internal and external environment, identification of goals and objectives, formulating strategies and implementation of the strategies.

This paper also explores the key strategic decisions that M&S and Sainsbury's will have to make in order to achieve their goal and objectives in the current economic condition. And finally the analysis of the implementation challenges in the UK market as well as foreign market will be illustrated.

The Strategic Management Process

The strategic management process is a five-step process that encompasses strategic planning implementation and evaluation (Robbins and Coulter, 2005). Strategic planning clearly defines organisations' objectives and assesses both the internal and external situation to formulate strategy, implement the strategy, evaluate the progress, and make adjustments as necessary to stay on track (Bradford et al, 2008). According to Robbins and Coulter (2005), the strategic management process model is given below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Strategic Management Process (Adapted from Robbins and Coulter, 2005)

Step 1: Define and Review Mission

Every organisation requires a mission. The mission is reason for an organization for being in the business. By defining the organization's mission, forces managers to carefully identify the scope of its products or services (Robbins and Coulter, 2005). M&S has defined their mission as, “To make aspirational quality accessible to all” (M&S, 2009). This mission statement has been kept up since the start of making it; M&S have worked hard to achieve all these factors.  Even though there have been ups and downs during the years they have tried hard and have kept to their word. There are many companies, which look up to M&S and measure themselves against them, helping their company to improve and gain more ...