The strategic activities over the years are described as follows: Early strategic activities were concerned with budgetary and control mechanisms. Structured methods of allocating, monitoring and checking budget variances provided a means of managing complex processes. Here more emphasis is placed on estimation. Planning systems and processes expand on current trends and forecast factors such as sales, profits, and costs. Management can use such forecasts as a basis for decision making. The 1970s to 1980s was an era of strategic planning, with an emphasis on specifying overall direction and centralized control of planning activities. Much attention was paid to understanding the business environment, while based on forecasting and extrapolation of past trends. Managers hoped to be able to predict events through detailed analysis of cause and effect relationships. While planning systems aim to provide data and logic as a means of decision support, as well as increasing awareness of strategic issues in terms of the external environment, the process still focuses on creating corporate-wide plans. This is often achieved in a highly bureaucratic, centralized manner. Currently we are in the era of strategic management. Strategic management is concerned with both the formulation of strategy and how such strategy is implemented. While still undertaking analysis and forecasting, more emphasis is placed on execution. The concern is managing change and transforming the organization in an increasingly turbulent business environment.


The strategic activities over the years are described as follows:

Early strategic activities were concerned with budgetary and control mechanisms. Structured methods of allocating, monitoring and checking budget variances provided a means of managing complex processes.

Here more emphasis is placed on estimation. Planning systems and processes expand on current trends and forecast factors such as sales, profits, and costs. Management can use such forecasts as a basis for decision making.

The 1970s to 1980s was an era of strategic planning, with an emphasis on specifying overall direction and centralized control of planning activities. Much attention was paid to understanding the business environment, while based on forecasting and extrapolation of past trends. Managers hoped to be able to predict events through detailed analysis of cause and effect relationships. While planning systems aim to provide data and logic as a means of decision support, as well as increasing awareness of strategic issues in terms of the external environment, the process still focuses on creating corporate-wide plans. This is often achieved in a highly bureaucratic, centralized manner.

Currently we are in the era of strategic management. Strategic management is concerned with both the formulation of strategy and how such strategy is implemented. While still undertaking analysis and forecasting, more emphasis is placed on execution. The concern is managing change and transforming the organization in an increasingly turbulent business environment.

Strategic issues can be seen as three distinct elements.

First is the analysis, we need to understand the business environment and resource capacity of the organization. This needs to be considered in the context of the culture of the organization and the aspirations and expectations of stakeholders. Always remember that a shareholder is anyone who has a stake in an organization. Ex: Customers, employees, suppliers etc.


The second is that managers need to make strategic choices. This is achieved through the process of identifying, evaluating and selecting alternatives. The organization must define:

What is the basis of our policy?

What product/market areas can we work in?

Specific strategies need to be developed to achieve corporate goals.

A final point to consider is the implementation issue. It also requires planning actions, allocating resources and making appropriate adjustments to achieve strategic change.

The practical reality is that processes are interconnected and overlapping. For example, strategic analysis does not stop when other stages occur. As analytics is an ongoing activity, transforming analytics into successful strategy requires creativity, vision and leadership. Given the volatility in today's business world, a contingency approach may be necessary. It provides flexibility by developing contingencies for a range of future situations.

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