The world is increasingly unintelligible and the occupation of management requires extensive skills to lead the company to success. This should be considered in companies and in business schools as he pointed out: the task of managing companies or business units is and will continue to be increasingly complex.
strategic-management-companies-sector-servicesThey must maintain a significant effort to improve the mechanisms for the development of skills in managers, since their skills and knowledge today may be insufficient in the near future, which is now constituted by the short term. Given an environment as dynamic and competitive as that experienced by tourism, strategic management for companies operating in this sector becomes a fundamental tool that allows them to differentiate themselves and be more profitable than the average of their rivals.. (Porter, 1996).
Business management
The definition of management offered by Salgueiro (2001) is related to carrying out the achievement of previously established objectives. The author calls management the set of actions related to activities that are oriented to the execution and development of objectives that have been previously established.
This being a first approach to the analysis of the term Management. The author Amat (2000) mentions with reference to the postulates of the administration classics; that management, organizationally speaking, refers to the development of the basic functions of administration, that is, planning, organizing, directing and controlling ”
Relating in this way in its definition the actions necessary to achieve an objective, and the development of the functions of the administration, which relates the terms management and administration.
Taylor (1967), known today as one of the fathers of the administration, argues that management is the art of knowing what you want to do and then doing it in the best way and by the most efficient way ”
Similarly, Fayol (1987) enunciates the concept as the way to take into account the
following actions: anticipate, plan, organize, command, coordinate and control "
For Hernández (2001) management includes a series of different functions that are committed to carrying out a task successfully; management is all about doing things. It turns out to be the way and the process of how an organization achieves the objectives or goals, and it is in this sense that management is considered an art and a science as well.
In addition to dealing with management as an art and a science, Hernández equates it with the creative faculty of man, since complementary knowledge and resources are applied to achieve a specific purpose. On the other hand, Menguzzato (1993) discusses the relevance of effective management in organizations since she conceives it only through effective management so that strategies are achieved to optimize benefits and offer customers the best product-services. For Chiavenato (2007), management is the discipline that pursues the satisfaction of organizational objectives, counting for it a structure and through coordinated human effort. Chiavenato focused on the management of human capital expresses that management is the art of doing the right things through people.His study of the term is based essentially on human capital rather than on processes, on the individual rather than on the tasks to be performed, and on skills rather than managerial functions.
In this sense, to channel a definition, two fundamental lines should be referred to. At first, the dynamic character of the word and closely linked to the term strategy that will be addressed later and which refers to the action of defeating the enemy, and acting against it, while on the other hand some authors refer to its artistic character. and cultural, by recognizing the practices of groups of people, as an artistic action and loaded with creativity.
Management as action goes through the entire organization and the relationships established in it internally, in the choice of means, procedures and work processes, in the set of scenarios that are analyzed from the diagnosis of interaction with the environment, the planning of the company and the rest of the companies, which generates different levels of management, and allows us to affirm that the rest of the administrative functions make sense through management, or its current equivalent, leadership.
For Huergo (2016), managing is the art of making a course possible and achieving a goal in the midst of difficulties and the unpredictability of events. It is not about avoiding difficulties or silencing conflicts, but about creating feasibility alternatives for the processes that a group, an organization or an institution lives. For this it is necessary to ponder, negotiate, always produce new consensus.
For the present author, management constitutes the set of actions that must be executed in the company in a creative way as part of the leadership function to achieve the pre-established strategic objectives during planning, and also guaranteeing the adequate organization and control of the systematic flow of knowledge. that must be applied to obtain the results of human capital and other resources effectively and efficiently in each process.
Strategy as a basic pillar in management
There are four basic pillars on which business management is based: strategy, organizational culture, organizational structure and leadership as part of the business decision-making process. In what remains, the conceptual elements linked to the strategic pillar are defined.
For Amat (2000), strategic management is the set of decisions and actions that lead the organization to achieve corporate objectives, which is directly related to the formulation, execution and control of the company's Strategic Plan and is based on understanding and management of the relationship and interaction of the company with the environment, that is, with suppliers and customers on the one hand and on the other, with other agents present in the environment such as competition, government, and in general all those that constitute the value chain to which the organization belongs.
Currently addressing the concept of strategy, and everything related to the strategic is a necessary reference to achieve competitiveness in any business, which in the tourism sector, being cross-cutting and encompassing other business sectors, becomes more prominent.
The term strategy is acquired from the military terrain and is taken to the economic area due to its essence, which is to compete and act against an enemy to achieve the objective that has been proposed. The Strategic Direction is defined by Ronda and Marcané, (2004) as: «the interactive and holistic process of formulation, implementation, execution and control of a set of strategies, which guarantees a proactive interaction of the organization with its environment, to contribute to efficiency and effectiveness in fulfilling its corporate purpose ».
The strategy is the anticipated model of behavior, which includes positive and different elements from the past, a set of accumulated knowledge of the organization and the environment that must be ordered, integrated and organized in such a way as to identify what to resign if the future, optimize the position and results of the installation in the short, medium and long term, taking advantage of its competitive advantages and the weaknesses of the competition (Guerra, 2009).
The components of the business strategy are: field of activities, distinctive capacities and competitive advantages.
The company's field of activities: responds to which businesses the company plans to participate in.
- Define business in terms of the product-market binomial. Market products are delimited according to three essential aspects: Needs covered. Technology. Market
The distinctive capabilities include physical, technical, financial and human resources. The present and potential technological, organizational and managerial skills that the company possesses and dominates. Among the distinctive capacities are the competencies:
- The characteristics of the staff, its methods and technologies, its management and value system.
The competitive advantages are features that the company can and must develop and strengthen to obtain an advantageous position compared to its competitors.
A 5 p perspective of the strategy. Examples in the food and beverage sector
It is necessary to review other concepts that appear in various literatures. As for Mintzberg strategy, (1989) he raises in his book Five Ps for strategy five definitions with «p». Plan: consciously defined course of action, a guide to deal with a situation. Ploy: (maneuver in Spanish) aimed at defeating an opponent or competitor. Pattern: behavioral in the course of an organization's actions, consistency in behavior, even if not intentional. Position: identifies the location of the organization in the environment in which it moves (type of business, market segment, etc.). Perspective: relates to the organization and its environment, which leads it to adopt certain courses of action.
Figure 1 The new 5 P's of the strategy
Source: self made
The present author makes an adaptation of the five p's for which he proposes the following characteristics, which conceptualize them:
Plan: They constitute strategies oriented to specific situations that are the result of the application of management to the internal processes of the company, therefore they can be considered as a response to the environment, or a modification of the organizational culture of the company as part of the planned change in the company if its future is compromised. A case that shows this would be when it is proposed as a strategy to guarantee the commitment and satisfaction of the contact personnel with the food and drink offer of a restaurant, a line determined taking into account the low motivation of its personnel in the process of selling their offers. or the increase in sales strategies at points of competition due to the efforts and motivation of its staff.
Insight: It is part of the intelligence that is applied in the development of new products services or as part of the response to the investigative results of an object, process or business system in one of the innovation areas where the competition presents a superior knowhow is associated to strategies versus substitute products so they focus on smart reaction in strategic formulation. This is the case when the restaurants present in the destination have redirected their traditional menus to digital tables, and in response one of the restaurants uses a digital reservation service through a mobile application to confront the threat posed by the use of technology by the main competitors.
Pattern: Standard determined for certain attributes, values, procedures or beliefs that the company establishes as a line to maintain and develop, given that they constitute elements that are recognized as important and differentiating within the portfolio of products-services offered to customers.. These are very common strategies and determinants of customer value in the tourism sector. In the case of Cuban tourism, the strategy aimed at redesigning the supply of food and beverages could be pointed out so that they are representative of the restaurant's specialty with standards in accordance with the Cuban and international cuisine.
Position: it determines which are the distinctive capacities and competitive advantages of the company that must be considered as key factors of success within it, and before which in the strategies a determined competitive position is assumed through the strategy. When a restaurant specialized in seafood and fish has maintained a communication policy on its services that highlights some key success factor such as its proximity to the sea, the exploitation of this resource should be considered, and the connection of the different services to it as part of your strategy.
Perspective: they respond to the hypotheses established for the future scenarios of the company, they are based on some tool of the prospective box, they tend to the ideal state desired for the anticipated situations. Currently, all companies make use of them by relating them to their strategic conceptualization process, mission and vision, values or business philosophy as a starting point for a restaurant that considers variety as an attribute in its mission is essential chart a strategy that ensures purchasing management, a factor that must build strength or opportunity from any prospective analysis technique that can be used for its analysis or a variable with low dependence but strong influence on the system.
The business strategy "… explains the general objectives of the company and the fundamental courses of action, according to the current and potential means of the company, in order to achieve its insertion in the socio-economic environment" (Menguzzatto and Renau, 1995).
They constitute general action programs accompanied by commitments of emphasis and resources to implement a basic mission. Strategies are patterns of objectives, conceived and initiated in such a way, to give the entity a unified direction (Koontz, 1991, in Ronda, 2015).
The strategic business units are operational units into which an organization that sells different cases of products-services to customers (hereinafter UEN) is divided. A company can be seen as a whole or larger UEN or as parts, areas or departments of this when designing its strategies.
According to the basic text of the IEDE, Escuela de Negocios Chile (2002), William E. Rothschild, director of strategic development for General Electric refers to the characteristics to be taken into consideration when classifying a business unit as UEN:
- A UEN must serve a market outside the company, rather than an internal one; That is, we must have a series of external clients, and not merely sell as internal suppliers. It must have a clear number of external competitors, who try to equal or surpass us. It must have control over its own destiny. This means that you must be able to decide for yourself which products to offer, how and when to go on the market, and where you will get your stocks. This does not mean that you cannot use common resources like manufacturing plants, a combined sales force, or the R&D department. The key is to choose. You must be able to choose, and not merely be the victim of others' decisions.You must have options with which you can select the alternative (s) that best allow you to achieve corporate and business objectives. Your action must be measurable in terms of profit and loss; that is, it must be a safe profit center.
For the present author, the strategy corresponds to a set of lines, guidelines or creative paths to be followed in the company based on internal conditions, the elements of the environment and the factors that determine business success in general, and which encompass a set of coordinated activities that allow the achievement of the proposed objectives from each business business unit.
Strategy levels
Global strategy: It is known as a master strategy, its main interest is to define the strategic direction of the company and the definition of the strategic Business Units.
Business strategy: It exists when the company is diversified, it is also a divisional strategy and its objective is to see how the strategic business units develop their activity adequately.
Functional strategy: The question at this last level is how to use and apply the resources and skills within each functional area and within each strategic unit in order to maximize resource productivity.
Strategic direction going forward (DE) is any process related to making decisions about the future direction of a company and the implementation of these decisions.
Basically, ED can be divided into four phases or threads: strategic conceptualization or strategic direction, strategic analysis, strategic planning, and strategic implementation. The main features of each phase are outlined below:
Strategic conceptualization
- Creation of Vision Determination of Philosophy or Values Determination of Mission
Strategic analysis
- Analysis of the environment and determination of opportunities and threatsIndustrial analysis, determination of the attractiveness of the industry and determination of opportunities and threatsInternal analysis and determination of strengths and weaknesses, critical success factors and competitive advantage (s)
Strategic planning
- Establish short and long-term objectives to achieve the mission of the organization. Formulate various possible strategies and choose the one that will be most appropriate to achieve the objectives of the company or business unit.
Strategic planning is the preparation, development and implementation of different operational plans by companies or organizations. It is intended to achieve stated objectives and goals. Planning includes: objectives, mission and vision, analysis of the environment and operational plan. There are three types of planning in the short, medium and long term. The duration depends on the magnitude of the company, since planning responds to activities that must be carried out by the parts of the company. The objective is an achievement proposed within a certain period, it is stated specifically and positively. The Mission is focused on the present and the vision is an image for the future. Surrounding analysis:The important thing is to recognize internal and external factors. It is the contextual framework of strategic planning, since they influence the concretion of purposes and objectives. Operational plan: here are the objectives and steps to follow. It is not the same as an action plan, the latter prioritizes important initiatives to achieve the goals. It consists of an important guide to know where you are working and the framework in which it is developed.
Therefore, strategic planning is a systematic process of developing and implementing plans to achieve objectives and purposes.
Figure 2: Planning Process. Classic formulation.
Source: self made
Strategic implementation
- Develop an organizational structure to achieve the strategy Identify the desirable organizational culture Ensure that the activities necessary to achieve the strategy are effectively fulfilled: Leadership, Communications, Teamwork, Service Quality, Customer Focus, Process Vision, Management Competences, Control the effectiveness of the strategy to achieve the objectives of the organization through the development and implementation of information systems.
To achieve the proactive vision of the future it is necessary to integrate the following group of aspects:
- Overview: Ability to integrate all the parts. Orientation towards results. Ease of treatment: Ability for easy personal relationship. Versatility: Ability to adapt to the different functions of the position. Risk taking: Ability to make decisions involving uncertainty
Vision Features
- Clear, concise, easy to understand Memorable Exciting and inspiring Challenging Focus on excellence Stable but flexible Implementable and tangible
Figure 3: Components of vision
Source: self made
Examples of vision
Your goals can be quantitative or qualitative:
- Wal Mart 1990.- Be a company of 120,000 million in the year 2,000 Ford, early 1900s.- Democratize the automobile Boeing, 1950.- Be the dominant actor in the commercial aircraft industry and bring the world to the jet age.Sony, 1950.- To become the best known company for changing the poor image of quality that Japanese products have in the world.
You can incorporate enemies of the type David v / s Goliath:
- Philip Morris, 1950.- Dethrone RJR as the number one tobacco company in the world Nike, 1960.- Destroy Adidas Honda, 1970.- We will destroy Yamaha It can shape the future: Stanford, 1940.- Become the Harvard of the West.Watkins-Johnson, 1996.- Be as respected in 20 years as HP is today. Giro Sport Design, 1986.- Become the Nike of the bicycle industry.
It may contain internal transformation objectives, especially for large organizations:
- GE, 1980.- To become number one or number two in each market we serve, and revolutionize this company to have the strength of a large company and the sobriety and agility of a small Rockwell organization 1995.- Transform this company From a defense contractor at the most diversified high-tech company in the world · Finally, an engaging, engaging, sales-driven, motivating description is required. It is about telling an attractive story that seduces, and at the same time incorporates passion, conviction and emotion.
Henry Ford: I will build a motor vehicle for the great crowds, it will be so cheap that no man earning a reasonable salary will not be able to own one and enjoy with his family the blessing of the open spaces that God has given us. When this has been achieved, each person will be able to access one and each person will have one. The horse will disappear from our roads, the car will be a standard and we will give many people a good job and good wages.
Four Points By Sheraton Havana Hotel: To be recognized as the flagship city hotel in Cuba, for offering an excellent service for businessmen, leisure and other events with great professionalism, uniqueness and dynamism. Mission
- It must be known by the workers, and should serve as a guide to align their effort with that of the objectives and strategies of the company Customers, to anticipate in some way what they should expect and demand of the company. providers and the community at large
Figure 4: Questions to elaborate the mission
Source: self made
Mission Examples:
XEROX: Our strategic intent is to be the leader in the global document market, providing document solutions (hardware, software and services) that enhance business productivity and knowledge sharing.
JOHNSON CONTROLS, INC.
To be an industry leader in providing products, systems and services for energy control, generation, management and storage functions, and for the protection of life and property.
COCA-COLA, COMPANY
We believe that in the 90's we will continue to be or will become the dominant force in the non-alcoholic beverages industry, in each one of the countries in which it is economically feasible to do so. We will continue to give emphasis or quality products throughout the world, as well as entering into growing markets.
HOTEL FOUR POINTS BY SHERATON HAVANA
“We are the Four Points By Sheraton Havana city hotel with a five-star category that we are located in the Miramar area, close to the natural wealth of the coast, the Business Center and the Monte-Barreto ecological park. We focus on a segment of businessmen, leisure, events and other motivations with highly personalized service in an elegant and calm environment, with a committed and specialized professional who exceeds the needs and expectations of clients through a constant feedback system. ”
In conclusion, it is necessary to consider aspects that are key in the strategic management of service companies:
- The strategic management as one of the fundamental tools of management to achieve the relationship between the company and the environment. The importance of maintaining a prospective attitude of the company and achieving it. The use of the strategy as an action plan that allows the company achieve its competitive position. Dominate that the strategy has three levels of action: the global, the strategic business unit and the functional. Define the strategic direction of the company, and define the strategic business units. The level intermediate of the strategy is in charge of carrying out thestrategic planning. The functional level of the strategy is in charge of the functional areas to take advantage of the resources that are available to the strategic business units
Bibliographic references
- Acevedo, JA & Gómez, M. (2001 / b /). Customer service design. LOGESPRO. CETA ISPJAE Editions. Havana, Cuba.Amat, J. Management Control: A Management Perspective. Barcelona: Ed. Ediciones Gestión 2000 SA, 1992. - 270p.Chase, RB; Aquilano, NJ & Jacobs, FR (2002). Production and Operations Administration. Manufacturing and Services (8th Ed.). Mc Graw-Hill Interamericana, SA, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Colombia.Chiavenato, I. Human Resources Administration. Publisher: Mcgraw-hill 2007, 8th edition. Pages 45-59. Fayol, H., Taylor, W., Hitz, H. Principles of Scientific Management: General and Industrial Management. Editorial El Ateneo, Buenos Aires. 1987. Pages 39 - 50. Guerra, Y. Strategies for restaurant management. University of Havana. Word document. 2009.Hernández, M.Control of Business Management. Criteria for performance evaluation. Havana: Ed. Del ISPJAE.2001.-Pág. 14- 25.Huergo, J. The management processes. Bogotá. Labor.2016.IEDE, Business School. Strategic Business Management Course. Chile. 2002 Menguzato, A. and Renau, P. The strategic direction of the company an innovative approach to management. SPI Editorial Future. 1995.Menguzzato, M. The Strategic Direction "An innovative approach to Management" Ed. Euroed. Valencia Spain. 1993. Pages 19 - 27. Mintzberg, H. Design of efficient organizations. Editorial El ateneo, Madrid- Argentina, 1989.Ramírez, JS The two dimensions of strategy.Ronda, GA and Marcané JA, Information Sciences Vol. 35, No. 1, April, 2004.Ronda, GA The concept of strategy, Future Editions, Havana, Cuba. 2015.Salgueiro A.Management Indicators and Dashboard. Editorial Díaz de Santos. Madrid Spain, 2001. Pages 24 - 30. Taylor, W. The Principles of Scientific Management Norton Library New York 1967. First Edition. By arrangement with Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated.Wilensky, A. Keys to Competitive Strategy. OSDE Foundation, 1997.
