Summary
The reason for this essay is to comment on the relationship that business strategies have to make decisions that will impact the company in a positive way, this topic represents one of the most important in the administration of any organization and it is important to understand how it influences to procure the business keep.
Business strategies for decision making
introduction
In the present work we carry out an analysis of the business strategies that lead to decision-making, since it seems to me an important topic in companies because strategies are the basis to prevent future events in organizations, we emphasize the process of preparing strategies and the importance of it, through this the companies based on the mission, vision and values create future courses of action to ensure the profitability of the company in all its functional areas, we also discuss some tools for the realization of strategies and possible causes of not obtaining the desired results. All of the above intertwined with the final action of business managers, decision making.
II. Background
The word strategy has been used in many ways and in different contexts over the years. Its most frequent use has been in the military field, where the notion of strategy has been prominent for many centuries. As of this more recent date, the term has been used in the business context. Another well-known use of the term strategy has taken place in sports and games.
The term strategy comes from the Greek Strategos which means "a general". In turn, this word comes from roots that mean "army" and "lead". The Greek verb, Stratego means "to plan the destruction of enemies by reason of the effective use of resources" (Bracker, 1980, p. 20). In the case of modern entrepreneurs with a competitive inclination, the roots of the strategy concept have an obvious appeal, although the strategists of the companies do not "project destruction" pretending to be at war with their competitors, this when it happens when they try to sell more than their rivals or get better results than them.
The first modern studies linking the concept of strategy to business were Von Neumann and Morgenstem, in their work on game theory. They defined business strategy as the “Series of acts that a company executes, which are selected according to the specific situation” (Henrry Mintzberg, 1997, p. 39). In accordance with the previous definition, I consider that business strategies thus become a rule for decision-making, which is based on complementary factors to arrive at the best answers to the questions.
“Decision-making is defined as the selection of a course of actions among alternatives, that is, that there is a commitment plan for management or reputation resources” (Romo, 2003, p. 22) represents the most important and basic task that It is carried out in an organization, the task of the "decision maker" in the company is a task of forecasting the future and of corrections depending on the evolution of the present.
Throughout the analysis, we will talk about how the decision-making process can be more feasible when supported by business strategies.
III. Development
Decision-making within a company is an action that those responsible for each position carry out frequently, however the decisions made by high-ranking positions are those that delimit the actions of the rest of the staff. The concept of the manager is to refer to who are the decision makers, they are the ones who decide what to do to any problem that may arise. Different problems require different types of decisions. Routine or minor issues can be managed through an established procedure, but important decisions need a specific solution achieved through less structured processes, however it is of utmost importance that those responsible for important decisions have the ability to create strategies that contribute benefits to the company,same that must be governed by the philosophy of the company, without missing its ethics and values.
A good strategist according to the Chinese author SunTzu is one who finds the effective way to carry out actions, from data relevant to the event that occurs, who in his business work "The Art of War" for business mentions the skills to have the ability to decide
Strategic management is a disciplined way that allows managers to understand the environment in which their organization operates and from there go on to execute the action, the process consists of two phases according to the authors Hofer and Schendel: a) Strategic Planning, where the process consists of establishing goals like that to formulate strategies, b) Implementation of the strategy, this stage includes the steps of administration and strategic control.
When speaking of strategies, it is essential to point out that there are three levels of strategies: a) Strategies at the corporate level, that is: "… Strategy formulated by senior management to supervise the interests and operations of corporations with multiple lines…"; b) Strategy of the business unit defined as "Strategy formulated to achieve the goals of a specific business, also called line of business strategy"; and c) Strategy at the functional level: “Strategy formulated for a specific area of functions with the purpose of putting into practice the strategy of the business unit” (James Finch, 1996, pp. 196,197). It is important to define what level of strategy corresponds to each decision that we are going to implement in the company.
Peter Drucker and other authors and management theorists argued that the most important question to ask managers was: What is your business? This in order to capture the creative and intellectual imagination of a whole generation of management thinkers, another essential question is: Why does the company do what it does? This question lies at the core of decisions in the administration, it helps us to know the starting point for the next questions.
Every organization that has business strategies, goes through the process of "Strategic Planning" in the first place, which is a future projection of what we want to do and where we intend to reach in the long term, making the most of the potential that exists, to This we must establish rules, guidelines and processes to achieve an objective in a certain period and in optimal conditions, in this way strategic planning establishes an intelligent trajectory, looking for areas of opportunity, preventing and avoiding threats, this planning uses as we already mentioned the information As a starting point, but we must point out that there are business strategies that arise from the intuition of knowing that we can modify established trends in our field of action, when this is possible and necessary.
We have already mentioned the levels of strategies that can be carried out, but in this same way there are types of strategies classified by various authors of administrative science as general strategies, which are those that consider the company as a whole, that is, those that serve to achieve the general objectives of the company and the specific strategies that help to carry out the general strategies. But in order to formulate a business strategy we must follow three great steps that are fundamental to my point of view; first we must know where we are, with this I mean to make a situational analysis both internal and external, for this the author Henrry Fayol will propose a tool such as the SWOT matrix, the next step is to determine where we want to go, governed by the mission,vision and objectives, both at the corporate level and at the business unit level, finally define how to get there, this through the series of decisions that must be made.
However, it is useless to have a fabulous business strategy, if this is not carried out, it is important that every feasible strategy is put into operation, implementation is carried out through a plan that involves the allocation of resources, both financial and humans in addition to time, technology, etc. A human structure must be defined, they can be a command structure, work teams, etc. Depending on the manager's decision, since these people are the ones who will implement said strategy through the responsibilities established, the manager's job is to evaluate the results and make the necessary adjustments to avoid interrupting the objective.
But really, what is the importance of implementing business strategies? I think that the main objective of the strategies is to ensure the survival and prosperity of the company in the long term, the strategy will have to answer and solve the question: How does the company create value?
“However, there are times when our strategies fail, the causes that lead us to breach the strategy are: failure in market research, inability to predict the reaction, failures in operational coordination, lack of commitment to strategies, insufficient resources in the company to achieve the correct development of the task, poorly or insufficiently explained strategy to employees and inadequate understanding of internal resistance to change ”(Christopher, 2014)
Linking all of the above, the decision-making process should try to minimize problems and focus solutions in a versatile way. In this sense, whoever bears the responsibility, must avoid the conflict of interests between the parties involved, encourage contributions to enrich and strengthen the process, not lose sight of the goals to guarantee their achievement in viable and practical conditions, promote the creative thinking so that solutions produce added value and promote the quality of ideas, so that the decision-making process is truly built into a trigger for the company.
IV. conclusion
At the end of this document we can conclude that thanks to the business strategies derived from strategic planning, we constitute a management system that moves, emphasizing that "what to achieve" (objectives) to what to do (strategies), with this we seek to focus on those feasible objectives in correspondence with the opportunities and threats offered by the environment.
In essence, systematically identifying future opportunities and dangers, combined with important data, provides the basis for a company to make the best decisions today to export opportunities and avoid dangers. Competition is a constant threat to those who cannot offer a superior value to the client or count on the way to establish more solid relationships with him, that is why strategic planning is increasingly important in all the functional areas of the company.
In today's world constituted by a globalized market, it is necessary to use all the techniques and tools that have been developed to better position the company as profitable, the application of a strategic plan is the starting point of efforts to make the company have greater confidence in the success of meeting goals, today more than ever, with a changing national environment, with a variable political and economic situation, full of expectations, that there is openness with foreign markets, and on the other hand the lack of Competitiveness of our companies compared to foreign companies, it is of utmost importance that every organization enters the stage with strategies in accordance with the realities existing in the market, flexible foresight before the risks and that allow the business to survive.
V. References
- Bracker, j. (1980). The historical develoment of the strategic management concept.Christopher, H. (2014). Business strategies. I am Entrepreneur. Henry Mintzberg, JB (1997). The strategic process. Pearson.James Finch, RE (1996). Administration. Pearson Education, Rom, MA (2003). Subjectivized and culture in business decision making. Pearson Education.
