The following course in Strategic Planning is provided in its entirety by Atlantic International University’s “Open Access Initiative” which strives to make knowledge and education readily available to those seeking advancement regardless of their socio-economic situation, location or other previously limiting factors. The University’s Open Courses are free and do not require any purchase or registration, they are open to the public.
The course in Strategic Planning contains the following:
- Lessons in video format with explaination of theoratical content.
- Complementary activities that will make research more about the topic , as well as put into practice what you studied in the lesson. These activities are not part of their final evaluation.
- Texts supporting explained in the video.
- Evaluation questionnaire, that will grant access to the next lesson after approval.
- Final exam for overall evaluation of the course.
The Administrative Staff may be part of a degree program paying up to three college credits. The lessons of the course can be taken on line Through distance learning. The content and access are open to the public according to the “Open Access” and ” Open Access ” Atlantic International University initiative. Participants who wish to receive credit and / or term certificate , must register as students.
Lesson 1: Strategic Planning
Organizations sometimes summarize goals and objectives into a mission statement and/or a vision statement. Others begin with a vision and mission and use them to formulate goals and objectives. A newly emerging approach is to use a visual strategic plan such as is used within planning approaches based on outcomes theory. When using this approach, the first step is to build a visual outcomes model of the high-level outcomes being sought and all of the steps which it is believed are needed to get to them. The vision and mission are then just the top layers of the visual model. Many people mistake the vision statement for the mission statement, and sometimes one is simply used as a longer term version of the other. However they are distinct; with the vision being a descriptive picture of a desired future state; and the mission being a statement of a rationale, applicable now as well as in the future. The mission is therefore the means of successfully achieving the vision. This may be in the business world or the military.
Lesson 2: Competitive Analysis
Competition in biology, ecology, and sociology, is a contest between organisms, animals, individuals, groups, etc., for territory, a niche, or a location of resources, for resources and goods, mates, for prestige, recognition, awards, or group or social status, for leadership. Competition is the opposite of cooperationIt arises whenever at least two parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared or which is desired individually but not in sharing and cooperation. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other biological resources. Humans compete usually for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and fame. Competition is also a major tenet in market economy and business is often associated with competition as most companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers, and also competition inside a company is usually stimulated for meeting and reaching higher quality of services or products that the company produces or develop.
Lesson 3: Development of Strategic Planning
The initial task in strategic management is typically the compilation and dissemination of the vision and the mission statement. This outlines, in essence, the raison d’etre of an organization. Additionally, it specifies the organization’s scope of activities and the markets a firm wishes to serve.
Follow-on strategy formation is a combination of three main processes which are as follows:Performing a situation analysis, self-evaluation and competitor analysis: both internal and external; both micro-environmental and macro-environmental.
Lesson 4: Strategy and Competitive Advantage
The goal of Cost Leadership Strategy is to offer products or services at the lowest cost in the industry. The challenge of this strategy is to earn a suitable profit for the company, rather than operating at a loss and draining profitability from all market players. Companies such as Wal-Mart succeed with this strategy by featuring low prices on key items on which customers are price-aware, while selling other merchandise at less aggressive discounts. Products are to be created at the lowest cost in the industry. An example is to use space in stores for sales and not for storing excess product.
Lesson 5: Design and Planning Strategy
Design strategy is a discipline which helps firms determine what to make and do, why do it and how to innovate contextually, both immediately and over the long term. This process involves the interplay between design and business strategy.
While not always required, design strategy often uses social research methods to help ground the results and mitigate the risk of any course of action. The approach has proved useful for companies in a variety of strategic scenarios.
Lesson 6: INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Information management (IM) is the harnessing of the information resources and information capabilities of the organization in order to add and create value both for itself and for its clients or customers. Information management is the management of organizational processes and systems that acquire, create, organize, distribute, and use information. We adopt a process view of information management.
Lesson 7: Interventions in the Field of Organizational Development
It is a vivid picture of the desirable future ambitions and that connects to the client and is much better than the current state somehow important.
An ideal vision is clear, participatory , memorable, aligned with the values of the company, linked to customer needs , and that is seen as difficult, but not impossible.
Your vision must meet two vital functions : a source of inspiration and guide decision making , aligning all parts of your business to work together for a common goal .
A business challenges herself constantly trying to understand the needs and expectations of its customers and calculating how well is meeting those needs and expectations. But it goes even deeper.
You have to determine how your competitors are meeting those same needs and , from there , create a plan that can go beyond the minimum that will satisfy your customers and find a way to satisfy them fully
Lesson 8: Process Monitoring and Measurement
Process management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems to define, visualize, measure, control, report and improve processes with the goal to meet customer requirements profitably. It can be differentiated from program management in that program management is concerned with managing a group of inter-dependent projects. But from another viewpoint, process management includes program management. In project management, process management is the use of a repeatable process to improve the outcome of the project. ISO 9001 promotes the process approach to managing an organization. …promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements. Source: clause 0.2 of ISO 9001:2000.
Lesson 9: Competence (human resources)
Competence (or competency) is the ability of an individual to do a job properly. A competency is a set of defined behaviors that provide a structured guide enabling the identification, evaluation and development of the behaviors in individual employees. The term “competence” first appeared in an article authored by R.W. White in 1959 as a concept for performance motivation. Later, in 1970, Craig C. Lundberg defined the concept in “Planning the Executive Development Program”. The term gained traction when in 1973, David McClelland, Ph.D. wrote a seminal paper entitled, “Testing for Competence Rather than for Intelligence”. It has since been popularized by one-time fellow McBer & Company (Currently the “Hay Group”) colleague Richard Boyatzis and many others, such as T.F. Gilbert (1978) who used the concept in relationship to performance improvement. Its use varies widely, which leads to considerable misunderstanding.
Lesson 10: Business administration
The administration of a business includes the performance or management of business operations and decision making as well as the efficient organization of people and other resources to direct activities toward common goals and objectives.
The word is derived from the Middle English word administracioun, which came from the French administration, itself derived from the Latin administratio — a compounding of ad (“to”) and ministrare (“give service”).
Administrator is occasionally the title of the general manager or company secretary who reports to a corporate board of directors. This usage is archaic [citation needed]. In general, administration refers to the broader management function, including the associated finance, personnel and MIS services.
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