Defining Strategy And What It Means Within An Organization

‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through it’

Strategy is a set of complicated tactics formulated by the executives of a company directed towards the achievement of company’s goal (Salmela, 2002). It is about all the path ways that a company would follow to reach its ultimate goal. It is a company’s strategy which helps to identify what it does better than the other companies in the industries, which may be different from what it does best. For successful strategy formulation and implementation, a company should know the needs of customers and should have knowledge of its competitors. Through a good strategy a company would identify that opportunity which makes it different from the others (Thompson, 2005).

A competitive strategy, or business-level strategy, is the way a business used to successfully enter and penetrate into a market (Eastwood et al, 2006), and also, to succeed in this chosen market against its competitors (Johnson et al, 2014). A company needs to develop and apply appropriate strategy to help the company to generate distinctive competences (David, 2007). Compared with the strategies implemented in other levels of operation, competitive strategy is more focused on the competition against other competitors and strategic choices to better attain market share (Harrison and St. John, 2009). According to

Corporate-level strategies are liable for market definition; they address the entire scope of the business. This strategy helps a business to diversify its service. It gives them direction in which geographic region they should operate and which service markets to strive in. “Thus, an effective corporate-level strategy creates, across all of a firm’s businesses, aggregate returns that exceed what those

Programs and Tactics stage, where we put all of the strategies in place and put them into actions. Budget stage, this is the gathering of all of our resources needed to accomplish all of the steps in the program stage. Procedures stage, the final of the three and just as important as the other two, by this stage steps and resources are in place and all that is left is the sequence of steps needed to do the job. Finally, I explained the strategy implementation process as I used it to work for me in the Distance Learning Center. The overall experience that I went through was worth every second I had to work extra to have it all in place. But I know that this process will make the Distance Learning Center more efficient for all that follow and in the hopes that they too will make the necessary improvements to keep the entire process working

In an organisation, there are various levels of strategy as shown in the figure 1 below. At each level there is a specific strategy in support of the ultimate business objective be it to maximise profit or shareholder wealth or customer satisfaction or increase sales, etc.

Corporate Strategy is defined as the overall scope and direction of a corporation and the way in which its various

What is a strategy and why is necessary to have one? A strategy can be simply defined as a long term action plan for achieving a goal (InvestorWords.com, n.d., n.p.). Strategies are an integral part in the success of any company and are key in a company 's overall ability to accelerate its sales, gain market leadership, and really power up its revenue growth (Rowe, 2010, n.p.). In other words without a strategically developed strategy a company can not attain its future goals and objectives.

...In fact, such straightforward definitions (of strategy) go fundamentally astray, for strategy is a process, a constant adaptation to shifting conditions and circumstances in a world where chance uncertainty, and ambiguity dominate.

An organisation’s strategy plays an important role of providing direction of where company wants to be and how best to allocate the company’s resources to meet its objectives. The formulation of business strategies has evolved over the years and has been made more difficult in recent by the uncertain operating environments and global financial crises.

Alfred Chandler(1963) defines strategy as ‘ the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals’. And Michael porter(1996) sees it as ‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’.

Strategy is well explained as the effective use of well laid out plans to achieve success. It is no less of spectacle to attribute strategy to individual achievement, achievement from a company, a country or at the very least a non – financial institute to achieve strategic success.

A strategy is said to be a plan that is made for the long term success of a product or brand. It is extremely important to have a strategy in order to figure out a direction towards which any company is able to focus all its resources efficiently and achieve desired outcomes. Formulating effective strategies is a considerably long process in itself that combines analysing several factors, situations and issues that are already present in a company and looking to improve on them alongside trying to implement various innovations and ideas to collectively create a direction towards which they can move and direct the resources available to them.

Johnson, Wittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér (2014, p. 3) defines strategy as ‘the long-term direction of an organisation’.

A strategy, according to Robbins and Barnwell (2002, p. 139) is “the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary to achieve the organisation’s goals”.