Every company designs strategic plans to achieve its objectives and goals, these plans can be short, medium and long term, depending on the size and magnitude of the company, since this implies how many plans and activities each unit must execute. operational, whether at higher or lower levels.
It is also important to point out that the company must precisely and carefully specify the mission that will govern the company, the mission is fundamental, since it represents the operational functions that it will execute in the market and will supply consumers. The use of any type of information system, including Business Intelligence systems, should serve as support to complete said plans and strategies, that is, they should be aligned with the business strategy.
Planning consists of setting the specific course of action to be followed, establishing the principles that will guide it, the sequence of operations to carry it out and the determination of times and numbers necessary for its implementation. (Hand, 2001). A little more synthesized, Kazmier presents his definition, since he says that planning consists of determining the objectives and formulating policies, procedures and methods to achieve them (Anonymous, 2001).
Stainer (1987) tells us that to better understand the concept of strategic planning we must see it from four different points of view:
First, planning deals with the future of current decisions. This means that strategic planning observes the chain of consequences of causes and effects over a period of time, related to a real or intentional decision that the director will make.
Second, strategic planning is a process that begins with the establishment of organizational goals, defines strategies and policies to achieve these goals, and develops detailed plans to ensure the implementation of the strategies and thus obtain the desired ends.
Third, strategic planning is an attitude, a way of life; it requires dedication to act on the basis of observing the future, and a determination to plan consistently and consistently as an integral part of management.
Fourth, a formal strategic planning system unites three types of fundamental plans, which are: strategic plans, medium-term programs, short-term budgets, and operational plans.
Goodstein, Nolan and Pfeiffer define strategic planning as the process by which the guiding members of an organization foresee its future and develop the procedures and operations necessary to achieve it (Anonymous, 2001).
Strategic planning is a tool par excellence of strategic management, it consists of the search for one or more competitive advantages of the organization and the formulation and implementation of strategies allowing the creation or preservation of its advantages, all this based on the mission and objectives, the environment and its pressures as well as the available resources. Strategic planning is the administrative process of developing and maintaining a viable relationship between the organization's resource objectives and changing market opportunities. The objective of strategic planning is to model and reshape the businesses and products of the company, so that they combine to produce satisfactory development and profits (Evoli, 2001).
Strategic positioning:
Positioning answers the question: What businesses do we want to be in? One of the first steps in strategic analysis is determining what business we are in. The businesses that we do are the product of a set of decisions taken or not taken in the past and of the evolution of the industry and the markets.
A high percentage of the results of a business is linked to the profitability of the industry and specific markets. Another comes from our decisions and actions, that is, from our strategies and their implementation. Positioning determines and delimits the "battlefield" where you will compete. Competitive strategies determine how to compete (Rodríguez, 2001a).
Strategic thinking:
To make good strategies you have to think in strategic terms. This is a skill that can be developed, but not all people, for some reason or another, can achieve it. In the organization, it is necessary to achieve the conjunction of the multiple skills of those who compose it. To do strategic development you need inputs that can be collected throughout the organization. What is essential is that these decisions are aligned with the strategic direction (Rodríguez, 2001b).
Value for the Company:
A good strategic plan and its effective implementation should result in an increase in the value of the company for the shareholder. Every strategy development process must culminate in a financial validation of the value of the company. This is achieved by making financial projections of the strategic options that are necessarily reached in the analysis. The financial dimension and the strategic dimension must go hand in hand in both strategy development and strategic control. (Rodríguez, 2001b)
In Figure 2 we can see the classic process of Strategic Management (analysis, formulation and implementation of the strategy). Within the strategic analysis we find three blocks:
- Mission and Objectives External Analysis Internal Analysis
Strategic Management Process
Source: Navas y Guerras taken from (Carrión and Ortiz, 2001)
The analysis of resources and capabilities seeks to identify the potential of resources and skills that the company possesses or to which it can access and is framed within the so-called internal strategic analysis of the organization (Carrión and Ortiz, 2001). In the strategy formulation block, the strategies are designed, later in the strategy implementation block, the best strategies for the business are evaluated and selected and these are implemented, finally, the control is carried out strategies using pre-established indicators.
Strategic Levels
Traditionally, we could place the strategic planning process at senior management levels, however Sallenave (taken from Evolvi, 2001), affirms that “Strategic Planning is the process by which leaders order their objectives and their actions over time.. It is not a domain of senior management, but a process of communication and decision-making in which all the strategic levels of the company intervene ”.
Strategic planning is not just a key tool for the manager. It necessarily involves a top-down and bottom-up interactive process in the organization; The general management sets general goals for the company (supported by market information safely received from the lower units) and establishes priorities; lower units determine plans and budgets for the following period; these budgets are consolidated and corrected by the superior units, which send them back down, where they are retouched again, etc. As a consequence, the establishment of a formal strategic planning system lowers strategic concern at all levels of the organization (Evolvi, 2001).
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE STRATEGIES
For many years the military used strategy with the significance of a grand plan made in light of what an adversary was believed to do or not do. Although this kind of plan is usually competitive in scope, it has increasingly been used as a term that reflects broad global concepts of how a business operates. Strategies often denote, therefore, a general program of action and an effort and resources to achieve broad objectives. Anthony (taken from Evolvi, 2001) defines them as the result of the process of deciding on organizational objectives, on changes to these objectives and policies that should govern the acquisition, use and organization of these resources.
Fred (1997) as well as Heizer and Render (1991) agree that strategies are a means to achieve long-term objectives. Porter (1989) says that it is the course plan of activities in a company in the industrial sector. Mintzberg (1988) affirms that a strategy is the pattern or plan that integrates the main goals and policies of the organization, and, at the same time, establishes the coherent sequence of actions to be carried out, a definition very similar to that of Chandler that defines a strategy such as the determination of the fundamental long-term purposes, the objectives of a company, the adoption of courses of action and distribution of the necessary resources to carry out these purposes (Evolvi, 2001). Some business strategies would be geographic expansion, diversification, acquisition,product development, market penetration, divestment, liquidation, and joint ventures.
A properly formulated strategy helps to put order and assign, based both on its attributes and on the internal deficiencies and resources of the organization, in order to achieve a viable and original situation, as well as anticipate possible changes in the environment and the unforeseen actions of opponents (Mintzberg and Quinn, 1988).
Goals:
Simon comments that the objectives establish what will be achieved and when the results will be achieved, but do not establish how they will be achieved (Mintzberg and Quinn, 1988). For their part, long-term objectives are the specific results that an organization intends to achieve through the fulfillment of its basic mission in a period of time greater than one year (Fred, 1997).
Mission:
Pearce tells us that the mission is “a lasting definition of the object of a company that distinguishes it from others like it. The mission statement indicates the scope of a company's operations in terms of products and markets ”(Fred, 1997).
View:
The vision states the medium and long-term expectations, it is the foundation of the mission and the objectives (Loranca, 2001).
All these aspects and the estimates on the evolution of the business are considered in the company's global strategy and it is this that defines the business operating policies. Also, market fluctuations, competition, demand volume, analysis of the product or service provided by the company, among others, are essential factors to define a business strategy.
On the analysis of the current situation of the company and the evolution of its operations, the strategic business alternatives will be formulated, which after being evaluated will allow to establish the business objectives in the medium and long term, within the framework of a strategic plan. (Quinn, 2001)
Competitiveness:
Competitiveness is understood to be the capacity of a public or private organization, profitable or not, to systematically maintain comparative advantages that allow it to achieve, sustain and improve a certain position in the socioeconomic environment. Competitiveness has an impact on the way of planning and developing any business initiative, which is obviously causing an evolution in the business and entrepreneurial model (Heizer and Render, 1991)
Competitive advantage:
Competitive advantage of a company would be in its ability, resources, knowledge and attributes, etc., which said company has, the same ones that its competitors lack or that they have to a lesser extent that makes it possible to obtain superior returns to those of those. An organization, whatever the activity it carries out, if it wishes to maintain an adequate level of competitiveness in the long term, must sooner or later use formal analysis and decision procedures, framed within the framework of the "strategic planning" process. The function of this process is to systematize and coordinate all the efforts of the units that make up the organization aimed at maximizing global efficiency, Nieto (2001).
Porter (1999) reminds us that companies have concentrated on doing things better, whether through total quality systems, reengineering, among others. However, companies must build advantages rather than just eliminate their disadvantages.
If all companies in an industrial sector are competing within the same set of variables, then the standards are raised, but no company will have the head. In order to be in the lead (and stay there), the basic strategy of creating a competitive advantage must be followed, Porter (1999)
Table 2. Definitions of "competitive advantage", taken from Valencia (1996).
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"It is the power that consists of certain abilities or combination of unique abilities of an organization, for a performance superior or of a greater degree than any of its competitors", Charles Wiseman. |
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"They are factors that provide the firm with a cutting edge advantage and the firm's strategy is built on these factors", Jhon Pearce. |
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"It is an advantage over rivals in insuring their clients and defending against competitive forces", Arthur Thompson. |
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“It is the performance of the strategic activities of an organization in a better and cheaper way than its competitors”, Michael Porter. |
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"It is one that achieves or maintains a position of superiority in relation to the competition", Rogelio Rocha. |
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"It's when you have a higher rate of profit or you have the potential to make it," Robert Grant. |
Additionally, Porter (1990) in his book “Competitive Advantage of Nations” tells us that, in recent years, creating competitive advantages results from the effective combination of the nation's circumstances, as well as the strategy of the nation. company. National conditions can create an environment in which firms can achieve an international competitive advantage. To complement the concept of competitive advantage, see Table 2.
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