Strategic Management

Strategic management is a set of managerial decisions and actions that determines the long-run performance of organizations. It includes environmental scanning (both external and internal), strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. The study of strategic management, therefore, emphasizes the monitoring and evaluating of external opportunities and threats in light of organizations strengths and weaknesses. Strategic management allows an organization to be more proactive than reactive in shaping its own future; it allows an organization to initiate and influence activities and thus to exert control over its own destiny. Strategy formulation is the development of long-range plans for the effective management of environmental opportunities and threats, in light of corporate strengths and weaknesses (SWOT).Strategy implementation is a process by which strategies and policies are put into action through the development of programs, budgets, and procedures. Evaluation and control is a process in which corporate activities and performance results are monitored so that actual performance can be compared with desired performance.