Strategic management entangles the utilization of initiatives that managers deem appropriate and consistent with the emergent trends. They do this on behalf of the owners of corporations for purposes of ensuring sustained existence of their companies within the competitive market.
More often, it cuts across “specifying the organization’s mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans…then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs” (Nag et al, 2007, p.935).
The main reason for incorporating strategic management predominantly rests on the idea that any company whose members work towards a common goal has better chances of acquiring more profits. Profitability is critical since it marks a means of measuring a firm’s effectiveness in converting its resources into capital goods and other utilities (Mintzberg, 1973, p.38).
In the light of these expositions, as the paper unveils, by considering the World Wide Technology Inc as a case example, various alternatives are available to the organization in their endeavor to realize growth. Finally, the paper identifies the best value discipline, generic strategy, and grand strategy for an organization, further, recommending a strategy or combination of strategies an organization should implement.
In coming up with either generic or even grand strategies that enhance the growth of a company, a thorough scrutiny of the available strategic choices is perhaps compulsory. During the process of making a strategic choice and evaluation of the available options, one of the magnificent endeavors entails making a randomized, yet reliable environmental scan of every pertinent aspect that may afflict an organization’s existence.
These aspects are available within the industry itself or even external to industry. Environmental Scans reveal the “areas to capitalize on, in addition, to areas in which expansion may be unwise” (Henry et al, 2003, p.79).
Upon consideration of the myriad sphere of available choices, the evaluation of these choices becomes significant. In this end, Hunger and Wheelen reckon, “once the choices are identified they have to be vetted and screened by an organization with the objective of ascertaining the suitability, feasibility and acceptability of an option” (2006, p.56). The most subtle course of action is then determined.
Such a course of action is the generic or the grand strategic decision that can realize ample success to the company. However, such a grand strategy must stipulate a reliable mode and direction of action, set the basis for competition without negating the fact that for it to realize success.
It needs to possess high reliability in terms of its feasibility, sustainability and be acceptable by all the stakeholders of the organization as the most plausible strategy that has long-term effects in terms of realizing organizational success.
World Wide Technology Inc is perhaps one of the global organizations that have deployed an ample strategic management approaches that have enabled it influence and sustain its global presence. With the modern business operational environment characterized by dynamism, a strategic focus is critical. World Wide Technology Inc embraces this focus credibly as it may be supported by its diversification of its products.
This is largely enhanced by its decisions to form strategic alliances with various corporations: something that enormously improves the sustainability and competitiveness of its services and products. What this means is that successful organizations such as World Wide Technology Inc deploys and implements strategic plans that only makes economic sense in the long term but also on the short term basis.
For success, an organization deserves to develop and implement flexible management strategies. Strategic flexibility entails “the ability to shift from one dominant strategy to another” (Pearce & Robinson, 2011, p.47).
To attain this flexibility, organizations face a hefty task of deploying long-term commitments subtle for ensuring cute nurturing after the development of the resources that they perceive as critical for success of any organization.
Perhaps another incredible demand for ensuring that a company acquires flexibility in its strategic decisions, lies on the demand that it has to be a learning organization. A learning organization is well “skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights” (Hunger & Wheelen, 2006, p. 89). World Wide Technology Inc happens to be one of such organizations.
World Wide Technology Inc line of business encompasses systems integration. According to Bloomberg Business Week, the company “provides information technology and supply chain solutions to the commercial, government, and telecom sectors” (2011, Para 1).
Reselling of products of technology and technology services embraces its daily line of work. One of the significant services within its service lines entails the provision of solutions for asset recovery and chain management supplies.
In addition, Bloomberg Business Week posits that the company “offers network planning and design, equipment aggregation and staging, hardware configuration, software imaging, asset tagging, auditing, implementation, training, consulting, leasing, and managed services” (2011, Para 2).
World Wide Technology Inc business is much dependent on the technological innovations. One drawback of this area of specialization is that, technological changes are highly dynamic. The likelihoods of obsolescence are thus ever on the air. A company such as World Wide Technology Inc has a noble role to keep on reviewing and evaluating its strategic decisions and choices to help it remain in a competitive edge.
One of the critical strategic decisions would perhaps entail arriving at the decision to mobilize the company resources to keep up with the trends with the ever changing information technology: IT being the heart of its operation.
Arguably, the secret for success of such a company in terms of its strategic management need rest predominantly on employment of flexible management systems. World Wide Technology Inc is fully aware of this secret.
To enhance flexibility, World Wide Technology Inc does not seek to make provisions for creating a pool of its fully owned technological assets to help it carry on with its business. Rather, as Bloomberg Business Week (2011) informs, it embraces long-term strategic partnerships commitment.
It does this with “Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, EMC, Dell Computer Corporation, Novell, Computer Associates…Gateway Computer Corporation, IBM, Lenovo, Lucent, Alcatel, FileNET, Hitachi, Network Appliance, Sony Electronics, Network Technologies, Inc., and Iomega” (Para.3).
All these strategic partners of World Wide Technology Inc. carry out research and development of new IT technologies within the information industry in which the company happen to operate. The company then has both short terms and long-term advantage.
In the short term, the company enjoys the utilization of the currents technologies. In the end, as the new technologies are delivered and introduced to market, the company enjoys a firsthand feel of such technologies. This way, the company can cope with dwindled profitability likely to arise due to technological obsolesce.
Furthermore, in the evaluation process of its strategic decisions to form long-term strategic partnerships with all the aforementioned companies, which normally deal in similar industry and thus operates in the competitive mode, the company considered the advantages accruing from tapping the innovations of each of the competing company.
Based on the expositions made in the paper, it is evident that, through the deployment of strategic management, World Wide Technology Inc., which conducts its business as a subsidiary of World Wide Technology Holding Company, can obtain a competitive and sustained advantage in the global face. This way, the company profiles closely learning organizations.
The paper advocates for a grand strategic management plan that would help an organization take after learning organization approach in management. This is vital since, in the current global age, flexibility is critical in an endeavor to curtail the likelihood of firm’s failure due to obsolescence.
This is particularly significant since, in the information age, obsolescence is taking much less time to surface due to dynamics of technological changes within limited time spans.
In fact, as Hunger and Wheelen reckon, “People at all levels, not just top the management, need to be involved in strategic management: scanning the environment for critical information, suggesting changes to strategies and programs to take advantage of environmental shifts, and working with others to improve work methods, procedures and evaluation techniques” (2006, p.106).
Tantamount to World Wide Technology Inc., other firms can then learn to base their strategic decisions on the advantages of flexibility brought about by critically incorporating techniques of strategic management to realize sustained performance resulting to more profitability in the modern wave of technological dynamics.
Reference List
Bloomberg Business Week. (2011). World Wide Technology, Inc.
Henry, M., et al. (2003). The Strategy Process: Concepts, Contexts, and Cases. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. A Pearson Education Company. Print.
Hunger, D., & Wheelen, T. (2006). Essential of Strategic Management. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall. Print.
Mintzberg, H. (1973). The Nature of Managerial Work. New York: Harper and Roe. Print.
Nag, R., Hambrick, D., & Chen, M. (2007). What is strategic management, really? Inductive derivation of a consensus definition of the field. Strategic Management Journal, 28(9), 935–955.
Pearce, J., & Robinson, R., (2011). Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation, and Control. New York: McGraw-Hill Company.