week 4

1)      Name one ‘strategist’ for each of the following five categories, and explain why you consider them to be have strategic ability and strategic impact in their field:

Business leader: Richard Branson

Inventor or Scientist: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates

Sport manager: Mark Bartelstein

Civil rights campaigner: Aung San Suu Kyi

Musician, writer, film-maker or artists: Speilberg, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, JK Rowling.

2)      What sort of strategy job would you like to do? What skills do you have that would be valuable in a strategy role? What skills do you  think you need to work on?

I would like to do sport manager. Like other many sport manager you must have your own ideas and management policies to be a top sport manager. In soccer management is more important for any club or country. At the end of the day the manager who can outsmart the opponent manager gets all the credit. To become a sport manager I must learn many things and management is one such job where success depends upon experience. So I must learn from the mistakes and improve on my mistakes.

week 3

1)      Why is strategy making like a science and why is it also like an art or craft?

Strategy making is science as well as art or craft. IN science for a single person, strategy is analyzing and making local recommendation. Strategy as a rational is formulaic application of analytical tools or set of rules. Strategy as formulation and then implementation.
Strategy is also an art and craft, Strategy as a group activity involves conflict, politics and compromise. Strategy leads to creative and unpredictable process.

2)      In your own words and using referenced quotes describe the difference between intended strategy and emergent strategy?

Intended strategies are made before hand to tackle problems which are pre analyzed where as Emergent strategies are quick and strategies which are made after the problem has occurred. Emergent strategies are like responding to market and environment issues caused by unexpected problems which may occur.
Intended strategy are planned, figuring-out(analyzing), formal and structured, think and act, forecasted and is strategic planning whereas  Emergent strategy  emerges inclemently, finding-out(exploring), informal and unstructured, trial and error, experiment and strategic thinking.

3)      Choose two of the 10 schools of strategy thought and describe them in your own words.  Try and provide a real world example for each e.g. an organization or a situation?

i)                    The learning school: According to this school, strategies emerge as people, sometimes acting individually but more often collectively, come to learn about a situation as well as their organization’s capability of dealing with it. Strategy comes through adaption and experimentation. Strategies emerge informally, sometimes gradually, sometimes spontaneously, and usually in a collective process. A learning organization actively seeks to move knowledge from one part of the organization to another, to ensure that relevant knowledge finds its way to the organizational unit that needs it most. You learn by acting- as we proceed we learn and as we learn we build or improve.

ii)                   The Environmental School: It is based on the idea that strategy should be a reactive process based on the environment surrounding the organization. Environment dictates strategy - about being unique and different this school argues that organizations in the same environment tend to adopt similar strategies.

4)      Write about your experience with today’s case studies.What answers did you give to the questions?

week 2

1    WHAT IS STRATEGY?  WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR ANY ORGANIZATION?

Strategy is a plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time.  A business strategy is the means by which it sets out to achieve its desired objective. Strategy plays a major role in the success of any big organization. Every successful organization will have good strategy to tackle their problems and ensures to bring out the best from their resources. Strategy is fundamental to the success and sustainability of any organization for the following reasons:

I)                    Understanding the company and industry: Strategy helps to develop a clear understand of its own company and what is required to succeed the company. Strategy helps to deal with the weakness and minimize the risk by understanding its core capabilities.

II)                  Growing in the changing world: A business has to change its way of running by analyzing external environment and change them accordingly. Strategy helps to understand what is taking place in the industry and with the market place. Organization must run according to the social, technical and political.

III)                Creates vision and direction for the whole organization:  Organizations and their staff need to understand their goal. Strategy helps to provide an organization with a common purpose, goals and a set of actions to reach the goal ensures that everyone is working for the same outcome and that time and resources are being allocated to the same goals and objectives.

2      How is business strategy similar to military strategy? How is it different? 

The word strategy comes from the Greek word Strategos, "Stratos" meant "army" and "Agein" meant "to lead". Business strategy and military strategy are different in many ways such as A leader, who makes no mistakes and takes no risks, probably does not accomplish very much .It is the same for business leaders. Both business and military strategy must adapt to change and constantly improve to be successful.

3     What do you understand by the terms “strategic analysis”,“strategic development” and “strategic implementation”?

“strategic analysis”, “strategic development” and “strategic implementation” are the three core areas of strategic management. Strategic management helps a business to deal with fundamental issues that affect the future of the organization. For a strategic management to run it must first have strategic analysis then make a strategic development looking at the strategic analysis and then finally  make  strategic implementation by analyzing and developing the strategies.

4     Write about your experience with this week’s case study. What answers would you give? 

1.    All three places have been chosen as a place for expansion, Milton Keynes is almost exactly half way between London and Birmingham, Swindon between London and Bristol and benefits from the vitality of nearby Oxford just as Peterborough does from Cambridge. They all have a good motor ways well connected to London and also due to number of ad campaigns these places have been rapidly developing.

2.      Their strategy can be termed mad, as these places will be heavily populated soon and they might face the risk of  over crowdedness, also as the population increases the risk of  crimes might increase and not everyone loves the smell of concrete.

3.      This strategy might be a good one as lots of development activities will take place, new roads will give them access to different places. Also the plans of building new schools will provide a better future for the residents.

4.      I would love to live in these towns as they are rapidly increasing and have good transportation system in and around these cities. These cities have good infrastructure and as a student it is affordable for me to get in good universities and the living standard is cheap as well.