Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Strategy
Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise. Strategy form
ulation requires examining where the company is now, deciding where it should go
, and determining how to get it there. Strategic assessment involves situation a
nalysis, self-evaluation, and competitor analysis, both internal and external, m
icro-environmental and macro-environmental.
Objectives are determined by the results of the strategic assessment. These obje
ctives should run parallel on a timeline, some short-term and others long-term.
This involves crafting vision statements (long-term projections for the future),
mission statements (describing the organization's role in society), overall cor
porate objectives (both financial and strategic), strategic business unit object
ives (both financial and strategic), and tactical objectives. These objectives s
hould suggest a strategic plan that provides details (tactics) for achieving the
se objectives.
Tactics
Strategy involves the future vision of the business; tactics involve the actual
steps needed to achieve that vision. For example, a marketing strategy for a mot
el might be to develop a business package targeting travel agents that includes
an e-commerce solution. Tactics are practical steps for implementing strategy. O
ther tactics for the travel-agent strategy might include:
building a list of local travel agents
preparing a business incentive scheme
outlining how they can use the motel website to make reservations and keep up-to
-date
personally visiting the agents to follow up
monitoring the response to determine if the sales target is met
One can see from this that strategy always comes first, followed by tactics. For
example, a value-based commitment to environmentally responsible hospitality co
uld be reflected strategically by working toward Green Globe certification and t
actically by incorporating energy efficient appliances in the motel retrofit.
Operational Control
Operational control regulates the day-to-day output relative to schedules, speci
fications, and costs. Are product and service output high-quality and delivered
on time? Are inventories of raw materials, goods-in-process, and finished produc
ts being purchased and produced in the desired quantities? Are the costs associa
ted with the transformation process in line with cost estimates? Is the informat
ion needed in the transformation process available in the right form and at the
right time? Is the energy resource being used efficiently?
Operational control can be a very big job, requiring substantial overhead for ma
nagement, data collection, and operational improvement. The idea behind operatio
nal control is streamlining the process to minimize costs and work as quickly an
d efficiently as possible