The strategy hierarchy

In most (large) corporations there are several levels of management. Strategic management is the highest of these levels in the sense that it is the broadest - applying to all parts of the firm - while also incorporating the longest time horizon. It gives direction to corporate values, corporate culture, corporate goals, and corporate missions. Under this broad corporate strategy there are typically business-level competitive strategies and functional unit strategies.

Corporate strategy refers to the overarching strategy of the diversified firm. Such a corporate strategy answers the questions of "in which businesses should we be in?" and "how does being in these business create synergy and/or add to the competitive advantage of the corporation as a whole?"

Business strategy refers to the aggregated strategies of single business firm or a strategic business unit (SBU) in a diversified corporation. According to Michael Porter, a firm must formulate a business strategy that incorporates either cost leadership, differentiation or focus in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage and long-term success in its chosen arenas or industries.

Functional strategies include marketing strategies, new product development strategies, human resource strategies, financial strategies, legal strategies, supply-chain strategies, and information technology management strategies. The emphasis is on short and medium term plans and is limited to the domain of each department’s functional responsibility. Each functional department attempts to do its part in meeting overall corporate objectives, and hence to some extent their strategies are derived from broader corporate strategies.

Many companies feel that a functional organizational structure is not an efficient way to organize activities so they have reengineered according to processes or SBUs. A strategic business unit is a semi-autonomous unit that is usually responsible for its own budgeting, new product decisions, hiring decisions, and price setting. An SBU is treated as an internal profit centre by corporate headquarters.

An additional level of strategy called operational strategy was encouraged by Peter Drucker in his theory of management by objectives (MBO). It is very narrow in focus and deals with day-to-day operational activities such as scheduling criteria. It must operate within a budget but is not at liberty to adjust or create that budget. Operational level strategies are informed by business level strategies which, in turn, are informed by corporate level strategies.

Since the turn of the millennium, some firms have reverted to a simpler strategic structure driven by advances in information technology. It is felt that knowledge management systems should be used to share information and create common goals. Strategic divisions are thought to hamper this process. This notion of strategy has been captured under the rubric of dynamic strategy, popularized by Carpenter and Sanders's textbook [1]. This work builds on that of Brown and Eisenhart as well as Christensen and portrays firm strategy, both business and corporate, as necessarily embracing ongoing strategic change, and the seamless integration of strategy formulation and implementation. Such change and implementation are usually built into the strategy through the staging and pacing facets.

Strategic management

Strategic or institutional management is the conduct of drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives^[1]. It is the process of specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives.

Strategic management is a level of managerial activity under setting goals and over Tactics. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies. In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency". According to Arieu (2007), "there is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context."

“Strategic management is an ongoing process that evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment.”Strategic management is a combination of three main processes which are as follows

Strategy formulation

• Performing a situation analysis, self-evaluation and competitor analysis: both internal and external; both micro-environmental and macro-environmental.
• Concurrent with this assessment, objectives are set. These objectives should be parallel to a timeline; some are in the short-term and others on the long-term. This involves crafting vision statements (long term view of a possible future), mission statements (the role that the organization gives itself in society), overall corporate objectives (both financial and strategic), strategic business unit objectives (both financial and strategic), and tactical objectives.
• These objectives should, in the light of the situation analysis, suggest a strategic plan. The plan provides the details of how to achieve these objectives.

This three-step strategy formulation process is sometimes referred to as determining where you are now, determining where you want to go, and then determining how to get there. These three questions are the essence of strategic planning. I/O Economics for the external factors and RBV for the internal factors.

Strategy implementation

• Allocation and management of sufficient resources (financial, personnel, operational support, time, technology support)
• Establishing a chain of command or some alternative structure (such as cross functional teams)
• Assigning responsibility of specific tasks or processes to specific individuals or groups
• It also involves managing the process. This includes monitoring results, comparing to benchmarks and best practices, evaluating the efficacy and efficiency of the process, controlling for variances, and making adjustments to the process as necessary.
• When implementing specific programs, this involves acquiring the requisite resources, developing the process, training, process testing, documentation, and integration with (and/or conversion from) legacy processes.

Thus, when the strategy implementation processes, there have been many problems arising such as human relations and/or the employee-communication. At this stage, the greatest implementation problem usually involves marketing strategy, with emphasis on the appropriate timing of new products. An organization, with a effective management, should try to implement its plans without signaling the fact to its competitors.

In order for a policy to work, there must be a level of consistency from every person in an organization, including from the management. This is what needs to occur on the tactical level of management as well as strategic.

MARKETING MIX

Definition

The 'marketing mix' is a set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that work together to achieve company's objectives

Four Ps

Elements of the marketing mix are often referred to as 'the four Ps':

• Product - A tangible object or an intangible service that is mass produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units. Intangible products are often service based like the tourism industry & the hotel industry. Typical examples of a mass produced tangible object are the motor car and the disposable razor. A less obvious but ubiquitous mass produced service is a computer operating system.
• Price – The price is the amount a customer pays for the product. It is determined by a number of factors including market share, competition, material costs, product identity and the customer's perceived value of the product. The business may increase or decrease the price of product if other stores have the same product.
• Place – Place represents the location where a product can be purchased. It is often referred to as the distribution channel. It can include any physical store as well as virtual stores on the Internet.
• Promotion – Promotion represents all of the communications that a marketer may use in the marketplace. Promotion has four distinct elements - advertising, public relations, word of mouth and point of sale. A certain amount of crossover occurs when promotion uses the four principal elements together, which is common in film promotion. Advertising covers any communication that is paid for, from and cinema commercials, radio and Internet adverts through print media and billboards. One of the most notable means of promotion today is the Promotional Product, as in useful items distributed to targeted audiences with no obligation attached. This category has grown each year for the past decade while most other forms have suffered. It is the only form of advertising that targets all five senses and has the recipient thanking the giver. Public relations are where the communication is not directly paid for and includes press releases, sponsorship deals, exhibitions, conferences, seminars or trade fairs and events. Word of mouth is any apparently informal communication about the product by ordinary individuals, satisfied customers or people specifically engaged to create word of mouth momentum. Sales staff often plays an important role in word of mouth and Public Relations (see Product above).

Broadly defined, optimizing the marketing mix is the primary responsibility of marketing. By offering the product with the right combination of the four Ps marketers can improve their results and marketing effectiveness. Making small changes in the marketing mix is typically considered to be a tactical change. Making large changes in any of the four Ps can be considered strategic. For example, a large change in the price, say from $19.00 to $39.00 would be considered a strategic change in the position of the product. However a change of $130 to $129.99 would be considered a tactical change, potentially related to a promotional offer.

The term 'marketing mix' however, does not imply that the 4P elements represent options. They are not trade-offs but are fundamental marketing issues that always need to be addressed. They are the fundamental actions that marketing requires whether determined explicitly or by default.

Extended marketing mix

There have been attempts to develop an 'extended marketing mix' to better accomodate specific aspects of marketing.

For example, in the 1970s, Nickels and Jolson suggested the inclusion of packaging.

In the 1980s Kotler proposed public opinion and political power and Booms and Bitner included three additional 'Ps' to accommodate trends towards a service or knowledge based economy:

• People – all people who directly or indirectly influence the perceived value of the product or service, including knowledge workers, employees, management and consumers.
• Process – procedures, mechanisms and flow of activities which lead to an exchange of value.
• Physical evidence – the direct sensory experience of a product or service that allows a customer to measure whether he or she has received value. Examples might include the way a customer is treated by a staff member, or the length of time a customer has to wait, or a cover letter from an insurance company, or the environment in which a product or service is delivered.

Four Cs

The Four Ps is also being replaced by the Four Cs model, consisting of consumer, cost, convenience, and communication. The Four Cs model is more consumer-oriented and fits better in the movement from mass marketing to niche marketing. The product part of the Four Ps model is replaced by consumer or consumer models, shifting the focus to satisfying the consumer. Pricing is replaced by cost, reflecting the reality that price is set by the market, not necessarily by the firm (if the price is too high, the firm will not sell enough and be forced to lower the price). Thus, the firm must focus on cost considerations rather than on what the correct price is to set. Place is replaced by the convenience function. With the rise of internet and hybrid models of purchasing, place is no longer relevant. Convenience takes into account the ease to buy a product, find a product, find information about a product, and several other considerations. Finally, the promotions feature is replaced by communication. Communications represents a broader focus than simply promotions. Communications can include advertising, public relations, personal selling, viral advertising, and any form of communication between the firm and the consumer.