General provisions and the essence of the process of strategic management - the reasons for the emergence of strategic management. Prerequisites for the emergence of strategic management Causes and essence of the concept of strategic management

It is believed that the development of management can be divided into three stages.

End of the 19th century - 1920s. In this period market demand for most types of products was stable and predictable. This guaranteed the stability of the production of a constant range of products. The control model of management reigned supreme, requiring strict adherence to standards and rules, focusing on the current control of technological processes of marketing, supply, and preventing failures.

1920 - 1970 years. The economy began to become more unstable, but the future was still predictable on the basis of extrapolation methods, statistical and mathematical models. A planned management model has been formed, aimed at the implementation of long-term and current plans and allowing for their correction, taking into account changes in the situation.

Since the 1970s, there has been a period of instability in the market environment, due to the unpredictability of economic life. The response to this situation was the emergence strategic management(this term was introduced at the turn of the 1960s and 70s to distinguish between enterprise-level management, carried out in the old ways, and firm-level management).

The emergence of strategic management in Russia is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the environment for the activities of enterprises. This is due to the action of a number of factors.

First group of such factors is due to global trends in the development of a market economy. wide availability modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition for resources; accelerating environmental change.

Second group factors stems from those transformations in the system of economic management in Russia that took place in the process of transition to a market economy model, mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries.

Third group factors associated with the emergence of a huge number of economic structures various forms property, when a mass of unprepared for professional management activities workers, which predetermined the need for accelerated assimilation by the latter of the theory and practice of strategic management.

Fourth group factors, which is also of a purely Russian nature, is due to the general socio-economic situation that has developed in the transition period from a planned to a market economy. This situation is characterized by a decline in production, painful restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative phenomena. All this makes it very difficult to economic organizations, is accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies, etc. Naturally, what is happening in the country's economy predetermines the need for increased attention to the problems strategic management, which in turn should ensure the survival of enterprises in extreme conditions.

2. Stages of development of strategic management: budgeting and short-term planning, long-term planning, strategic planning, strategic management.

The emergence of strategic management techniques and their implementation in the practice of firms is easiest to understand in a historical context. Business historians usually distinguish four stages in the development of corporate planning: budgeting, long-term planning, strategic planning, and finally strategic management.

1. Budgeting. In the era of the formation of giant corporations before the second world war special planning services, especially long-term ones, were not created in companies. Top executives of corporations regularly discussed and outlined plans for the development of their business, however, formal planning associated with the calculation of relevant indicators, maintaining financial reporting forms, etc., was limited only to the preparation of annual financial estimates - budgets by item of expenditure for various purposes.

Budgets were drawn up, firstly, for each of the major production and economic functions (R & D, marketing, capital construction, production). Secondly, for individual structural units within the corporation: departments, factories, etc. Similar budgets in the modern economy also serve as the main tool for the distribution of intra-corporate resources and control current activities. A feature of budgetary and financial methods is their short-term nature and internal orientation, i.e. the organization in this case is considered as a closed system. When using only budgetary and financial methods, the main concern of managers is the current profit and cost structure. The choice of such priorities naturally poses a threat long term development organizations.

2.Long term planning usually covers three or five year periods. It is rather descriptive and determines the overall strategy of the company, since it is difficult to predict everything possible calculations for such a long time. The long-term plan is developed by the management of the organization and contains the main strategic goals of the enterprise for the future.
Main areas of long-term planning:
-organizational structure;
-production capacity;
-capital investments;
-needs for financial means;
-Research and development;
- market share and so on.
3. Short term planning can be calculated for a year, six months, a month, and so on. The short-term plan for the year includes the volume of production, profit planning and more. Short-term planning closely links the plans of various partners and suppliers, and therefore these plans can either be coordinated, or certain points of the plan are common to the manufacturing company and its partners.
Of particular importance for the enterprise is the short-term financial plan. It allows you to analyze and control liquidity, taking into account all other plans, and the reserves included in it provide information on the necessary liquid funds.
4.Strategic management - it activity, aimed at achieving the main goals and objectives of the organization, determined on the basis of anticipation of possible changes in the environment and organizational capacity, by coordinating and allocating resources.

Strategic management can be attributed to the philosophy or ideology of business and management, where a significant place is given to the creativity of top management and staff of the organization.

5.Strategic planning is a set of actions, decisions taken by management that lead to the development of specific strategies designed to achieve goals.

Strategic planning can be represented as a set of management functions, namely:

§ *distribution of resources (in the form of reorganization of companies);

§ *adaptation to the external environment (on the example of the company "Ford Motors");

§ *internal coordination;

§ * awareness of the organizational strategy (for example, management needs to constantly learn from past experience and predict the future).

Strategy is a comprehensive, comprehensive plan designed to ensure that the organization's mission and goals are achieved.

4. Strategic management. TO 1990 Over the years, most corporations around the world have begun the transition from strategic planning to strategic management. Strategic management is defined as a set of not only strategic management decisions that determine the long-term development of an organization, but also specific actions that ensure a quick response of an enterprise to a change in the external environment, which may entail the need for a strategic maneuver, revision of goals and adjustment general direction development.

5. Types of strategic management: strategic management by choosing strategic positions, management by ranking strategic tasks, management by weak signals, management in the face of strategic surprises.

Management based on the solution of strategic tasks. Management by ranking strategic tasks focuses on tactical survival, which is based on maintaining the position of the enterprise in the basic areas of activity.

No perfect strategy can take into account all situations that arise as a result of changes in the external environment, as well as the development of the organization itself. In response to their appearance, the enterprise forms and solves strategic tasks, with the help of which the necessary adjustment of its activities (policies, plans) is carried out. An example of such tasks is the achievement of high growth rates, improvement of the internal climate in the team; attraction of new partners and clients, etc.

Management based on the solution of strategic objectives is used when the events that may occur are fully or partially predictable, but it is impossible or inappropriate to change the general line of behavior of the enterprise in order to respond to them. Solving strategic tasks, the organization has the ability to timely prevent the occurrence of an unfavorable situation, to a large extent mitigate it. Negative consequences or to use the opportunities that open up to the maximum benefit for themselves.

The management process by solving newly emerging strategic tasks provides.

Constant monitoring of all trends.

Analysis and detection of dangers and new opportunities.

An assessment of the importance and urgency of solving newly emerging tasks based on their classification: a) the most urgent and important tasks that require immediate solutions; b) important tasks of medium urgency that can be solved within the next planning cycle; c) important, but non-urgent tasks that require constant monitoring; d) tasks that are false alarms and do not deserve attention.

Preparation of decisions (it is carried out by specially created operational groups).

Decision making taking into account possible strategic and tactical consequences (leads).

Updating the list of issues and their priority.

Weak signal control. Obvious and specific problems identified as a result of observation are called strong signals. Other problems known from early and inaccurate indications are commonly referred to as weak signals. The stronger the signal, the less time the company has for a response. The order of actions of the enterprise in case of weak signals about the occurrence of a problem is shown in Figure 2.

On a strong signal, an enterprise can act decisively, for example, stop further capacity building and reorient to use them for another purpose. The response to a weak signal can be extended over time and intensify as the signal grows.

Management in conditions of strategic surprises. The system of emergency measures for strategic surprises is used in emergency situations that arose suddenly; when new tasks are set that do not correspond to past experience and the lack of solutions (for example) leads to major damage.

This system involves the following actions:

use of a switching network of communications for emergency situations;

redistribution of top management responsibilities: control and preservation of the moral climate; regular work with a minimum level of disruption; taking emergency measures;

creation of groups of flexible ranging from the most experienced specialists, endowed with the necessary powers; their duties include constant monitoring, analysis and assessment of the situation, development of the necessary operational decisions, taking into account their possible consequences; such groups have a special status and operate contrary to the hierarchy existing in the organization.

The considered systems (types) of strategic management do not replace each other. Each of them is used in certain conditions, depending on the degree of instability of the external environment.


STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Prerequisites for the emergence of strategic management. Essence, goals and objectives of strategic management.

the end of the 70s of the XX century - the emergence of a new economic science called strategic management. Founder - Michael Porter, who in 1980 published the book " Competitive strategy- technology of analysis of industries and competitors.

The following prerequisites for the emergence of strategic management are distinguished:

1. A sharp increase in labor productivity.

2. Achieving a high level of welfare of society v developed countries (satisfaction of primary processes), with outstripping growth of needs.

3. A noticeable increase in the share of services in the gross product.

4. Strengthening the intensity of competition and the complication of its structure, including due to the development of transport, communications and communications, as well as technology for preserving the commodity value of the product.

5. Globalization of markets.

6. The growing influence of innovations on the competitiveness of products (especially radical ones). Thus, the formation of strategic management as an independent area

research and management practice went through four stages:

1.Budgeting and control - an idea of ​​a stable environment for the organization, both internal and external: the existing conditions of the company's activity (for example, technology, competition, the degree of availability of resources, the level of personnel qualification, etc.) will not change significantly in the future.

2. Long term planning. This method was developed in the 1950s. It is based on the identification of current changes in certain economic indicators activities of the organization and extrapolation of identified trends (or trends) into the future.

3. Strategic planning, the end of the 1960s - the beginning of the 1970s. - the approach is based on identifying trends not only in the economic development of the corporation, but also in the environment for its existence.

4. Strategic management. As an independent discipline - the middle of the 1970s. Based on the study of changes in the external environment of the organization, involves the establishment of clearly defined goals and the development of ways to achieve them based on the use of strengths organization and enabling environment, as well as compensation weaknesses and methods of avoiding threats.

Strategic management- this is the kind of management that relies on human potential as the basis of the organization, "orients production activities to the needs of consumers, responds flexibly and carries out timely changes in the organization that meet the challenge from the environment and allow achieving competitive advantage, which together makes it possible for the organization to survive in the long term, while achieving its goals (Vikhansky O.)

The objects of strategic management are organizations, strategic business units (SHP) and functional areas of the organization (FZH).

The subject of strategic management are:

1. Problems that are directly related to the general goals of the organization.

2. Problems and solutions associated with any element of the organization, if this element is necessary to achieve the goals, but is not currently available or is not available in sufficient quantity.

3. Problems associated with external factors that are uncontrollable. The basis of strategic management is a system of strategies that includes a number of

interrelated specific entrepreneurial, organizational and labor strategies.

WITH strategic management - The theory and practice of ensuring the competitiveness and effectiveness of decisions by developing an organization's strategy while placing responsibility for this work on its leaders. Strategies can be justified only if scientific approaches, methods of system analysis, forecasting and optimization (Parakhin) are applied to their development.

the essence of SM lies in the answer to three most important questions (V. D. Markov, S. A. Kuznetsov):

1) what is the current state of the enterprise;

2) in what position it would like to be in three, five, ten years;

3) how to achieve the desired position? (Fig. 1.2).

The main goal of strategic management is the development of standards for the competitiveness of goods and the organization as a whole, not inferior to the achievements of the main competitors during the period of entering the market with a new product.

Prerequisites for the emergence of strategic management

First time methods strategic management were developed in the USA in the early 1970s. consulting firm McKincey and put into practice in 1972 in companies General Electric, IBM, Coca- Cola and others. In the early 1980s. they were already used by almost half of the major corporations.

The theoretical foundations of strategic management were the following concepts:

1) "a future-oriented corporation"; It gained popularity in the mid-1960s. and considered the internal structure of the firm and its surrounding socio-economic and technological environment as a whole. Initially, the emphasis was on the company's flexible adaptation to the environment, then on its active change;

2) "goal management"; it was assumed that the goals (for example, units) are adjusted based on real circumstances and the ability of staff to implement them;

3) "situational approach"; in accordance with it, management is a reaction to the influence of circumstances. It involves solving emerging problems, taking into account the interaction of the internal and external environment (which was emphasized), existing restrictions, the qualifications of managers, the accepted leadership style;

4) "ecological school", which raised the question of the organic relationship between the firm and the environment and ensuring the company's survival within its framework as the main task of managerial activity;

5) " organizations serving the environment"; in the center there was a provision on the need for the company to adapt to the environment when it changes by restructuring goals;

6) "marketing", who said that the company should not impose its products on the market, but proceed in its activities from the needs of customers, rebuild the entire production system in accordance with them;

7) "strategic planning" it is aimed at identifying and analyzing strategic problems, setting goals, determining long-term development guidelines, a course of action, and redistributing resources in accordance with this.

As an academic discipline, strategic management began to take shape after the publication of R. Rumelt's books "Strategy, Structure and Result" (1974) and "Competitive Strategy" by M. Porter (1980).

Stages of development of corporate planning

The emergence of strategic management techniques and their use in practice is most easily understood in a historical context. Business historians generally distinguish four stages in the development of corporate planning: budgeting, long-range planning, strategic planning, and strategic management.

Budgeting. Until the Second World War, special planning services, especially long-term ones, were not created in companies. Top executives of corporations regularly discussed and outlined plans for the development of their business, but formal planning was limited only to the preparation of annual financial estimates - budgets by item of expenditure for various purposes. A feature of budgetary and financial methods is their short-term nature and internal orientation, i.e. the organization in this case is considered as a closed system. When using only budgetary and financial methods, the main concern of managers is the current profit and cost structure. The choice of such priorities creates a threat to the long-term development of the organization.

Long term planning. In the 1950s - early 1960s. The characteristic conditions for the management of American companies were high growth rates of commodity markets, relatively high predictability of trends in the development of the national economy. These factors necessitated the expansion of the planning horizon and created the conditions for the development of long-term planning. The main idea of ​​the method is to make a sales forecast for the company for several years ahead. At the same time, due to the slow increase in the characteristics of the variability of the external environment, long-term planning was based on the extrapolation of past trends in the development of the company. The main indicator - sales forecast - was based on extrapolation of sales in previous years. the main task managers was to identify financial problems that limit the growth of the company.

Strategic planning. In the late 1960s, the economic environment in many industrialized countries changed significantly. As the crisis escalated and international competition intensified, extrapolation forecasts began to diverge more and more from the real figures. Thus, it turned out that long-term planning does not work in a dynamically changing external environment and fierce competition. In the system of strategic planning, there is no assumption that the future must necessarily be better than the past, and the premise that it is possible to study the future by extrapolation is rejected. The difference between managers' understanding of the role of external factors is the main difference between long-term planning and strategic planning. At the forefront of strategic planning is the analysis of both the internal capabilities of the organization and external competitive forces and the search for ways to use external opportunities, taking into account the specifics of the organization. Thus, it can be said that the purpose of strategic planning is to improve the response of the enterprise to the dynamics and behavior of competitors.

Strategic management. By the 1990s, most corporations around the world had begun the transition from strategic planning to strategic management. Strategic management is defined as a complex of not only strategic management decisions that determine the long-term development of an organization, but also specific actions ensuring a quick response of the enterprise to a change in the external environment, which may entail the need for a strategic maneuver, revision of goals and adjustment of the general direction of development.

In this way, strategic management is an an action-oriented system that includes the process of implementing the strategy, as well as evaluation and control. Moreover, the implementation of the strategy is a key part of strategic management, since in the absence of implementation mechanisms, the strategic plan remains only a fantasy.

Essence, subject and tasks of strategic management

Strategic management is an activity that consists in choosing the scope and system of actions to achieve the long-term goals of the organization in a constantly changing environment.

This is the area of ​​activity of the top management of the company, whose main responsibility is to determine the preferred directions for the development of the organization, setting fundamental goals, optimal allocation of resources, using everything that gives the organization a competitive advantage.

Strategic management acts as a process through which an organization interacts with its environment. At the same time, strategic management is a field of knowledge about techniques, tools, methodology for making strategic decisions and methods for their practical implementation. Strategic management activities are associated with setting the goals and objectives of the organization, as well as maintaining relationships between the organization and the environment, which help it achieve its goals, correspond to its internal capabilities and allow it to remain susceptible to changes in the external environment.

Strategic management solves the following tasks:

Overcoming the crisis state of the company, caused by the discrepancy between its capabilities and the requirements of the environment for occupying a leading position in the market (in the industry) in the future;

Ensuring viability in any most unexpected situation;

Creation of conditions for long-term development, taking into account external and internal opportunities.

The main principles of strategic management are:

1) The assumption of the unity of the company and the environment, used in setting the main goals and objectives, creating a program for their implementation.

2) Focus on the implementation of the vision of the future, the mission of the company, its global quality goals, achieving competitiveness.

3) Accounting for the formation and choice of strategies of the characteristics of the markets in which it operates, its strategic potential.

To date, it has emerged two approaches to strategic management.

Traditional approach assumes that firms use their strengths for a strategic breakthrough in the existing competitive environment, the opportunities that open up before them.

Modern approach is that companies, by manipulating their resources, form for themselves such an external environment, the demands of which they can satisfy with the greatest benefit for themselves. For example, monopolies, by reducing the supply of their products and creating artificial shortages, are able to raise prices and extract excess profits.

In other words, the emphasis is gradually shifting from actions related to preparing for the future to actions aimed at its purposeful formation. At the same time, reliance is placed on personnel as the most valuable resource of the company, information systems, and constant structural adjustments.

The subject of strategic management is strategic process which includes the following steps:

1) a study of the internal and external environment of the company, within which it operates (strategic analysis);

2) definition of the mission, setting goals, formulating strategies and considering alternatives and final selection and preparation of appropriate plans (strategic planning);

3) development of a new organizational structure and management system, practical activities to achieve the set goals, including in unforeseen situations, transform the company into a new state, evaluate its results, adjust further steps (management of the implementation of strategies and plans, or strategic management in the narrow sense ).

Strategic Decisions

Strategic decisions are at the heart of strategic management.

Strategic Decisions - it management decisions, which:

    are future-oriented and lay the foundation for making operational management decisions;

    are associated with significant uncertainty, since they take into account uncontrollable external factors affecting the enterprise;

    are associated with the involvement of significant resources and can have extremely serious, long-term consequences for the enterprise.

The main features of strategic decisions:

    innovation;

    focus on the long-term goals of the enterprise, on the future, and not on the present;

    uncertainty;

    many alternatives;

    there are no strict time frames for implementation;

    long term consequences.

    subjectivity.

The need for the formation of strategic management in Russia

Currently, in the economic practice of Russia, the mechanism of strategic management is undergoing a period of formation. At the same time, domestic and international analysts believe that the Russian market has entered the stage when the lack of a developed strategy prevents enterprises from operating and developing sustainably. The momentary strategic decisions that made some companies successful immediately after 1991 no longer work. Therefore, company leaders are gradually coming to an understanding of the need to develop a development strategy. This is facilitated by the identification of the enterprise as an integral isolated system, the formation of new targets and interests of the enterprise and its employees.

Rapid changes in the external environment also stimulate the emergence of new methods, systems and approaches to management in domestic enterprises. If the external environment is stable, then there is no particular need to engage in strategic management. However, at present, most Russian enterprises operate in a rapidly changing and difficult to predict environment, and, therefore, are in dire need of strategic management methods.

The need for the formation of a strategic management system in domestic practice is also determined by the ongoing integration processes. In Russian business, financial and industrial groups are emerging that unite technologically related enterprises. Even small enterprises for the purpose of successful functioning are combined into corporations, which are called small diversified.

The next important prerequisite for the development of strategic management is the process of business globalization, which inevitably affected our country as well. Large companies view the world as a single market space, where national differences and preferences are erased, and consumption is standardized. Products from companies such as Mars, Siemens, Sony, Procter& Gamble, LOreal and many others are sold in all countries of the world and are an important competitive factor in national markets. It is possible to resist the onslaught of the goods of large companies only by acting by similar methods, i.e. developing a strategy for working in a competitive environment.

The first stage, 1900-1950, is management based on budgetary and financial control (post factum), which is characterized by:

internal orientation of reporting and planned information;

lack of systematic information about the external conditions of the enterprise.

Budget control is carried out by amending the volume and structure of income/expenses of production and sales as the current market situation changes, provided that the main activities of the enterprise remain unchanged. Such a reaction to changes is the most natural for an enterprise, but it takes a lot of time to realize the inevitability of changes, develop new strategy and adaptation of the system.

In the context of increasing rates of change, this type of management is unacceptable.

The second stage, 1950-1960s, is management based on extrapolation. Budgetary and financial control is complemented by extrapolative forecast estimates of sales for several years ahead. Based on the target figures specified in the sales forecast, all functional plans for production, marketing, supply, etc. are determined, which are then aggregated into a single financial plan. The main task of the manager is to identify economic problems that limit the growth of the organization.

The third stage, 1960-1980, is management based on anticipation of change and determining the response to them by developing an appropriate strategy. This control system is characterized by:

move away from extrapolating estimates;

accounting for the variability of activity factors;

analysis of the internal capabilities of the enterprise and external factors;

search for ways to make the best use of internal capabilities, taking into account external restrictions and the compliance of existing reserves with the requirements of the external environment;

alternative solutions.

The fourth stage, from the beginning of the 80s. to the present, - management based on flexible emergency decisions (strategic management), when many important tasks arise so rapidly that they cannot be foreseen in time. Distinctive features such control system are as follows:

emphasis on the implementation of strategic decisions and the integration of management actions;

decentralization and democratization of management;

the growth of the importance of intuition and the strengthening of the qualitative approach in assessments;

consideration of the enterprise as a subject of active influence on the environment;

the use of strategy as the main tool for managing the development of the enterprise.

Comparative characteristics of the considered systems corporate governance presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Comparative characteristics control systems

Parameters

Control

based

control

Extrapolation based control

Foresight-Based Management

Strategic management

Assumptions

The past repeats itself

Trends persist

New phenomena/trends are predictable

Partial predictability for weak signals

Change type

Slower firm response

Comparable to firm response

Faster company response

Basis of management

Deviation control, integrated management

Target Management

Strategic Analysis

Accounting for the development of the market and the external environment

Management Emphasis

Stability / reactivity

foresight

Study

Creation

Since the 1950s

Since the 1980s

From Table. Figure 1 shows that successive control systems are oriented towards the growing level of environmental instability and the ever-less predictability of the future.

Thus, the emergence and practical use of strategic management techniques can be considered as a reaction to the complication of managerial tasks.

Management

The emergence of strategic management is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the environment for the activities of enterprises. Let us consider the main groups of factors that have changed this environment.

The first group of factors is due to global trends in the development of a market economy. These include: internationalization and globalization of business; the emergence of new unexpected business opportunities opened up by the achievements of science and technology; the development of information networks makes it possible to disseminate and receive information at lightning speed; wide availability of modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition;sa resources; accelerating environmental change.

The second group of factors is a consequence of those transformations in the Russian economic management system that occurred during the transition to a market economy model, mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries. As a result, the top layer of management structures, which was busy collecting information, developing a long-term strategy and determining the directions for the development of individual industries and industries, was eliminated. It is possible to have different attitudes towards the already non-existent sectoral ministries and planning bodies, however 1 it cannot be denied that the latter, having a powerful network of sectoral and departmental institutions, carried out almost the entire amount of work on the development of promising directions for the development of enterprises, transformed them into long-term current plans, which were brought from above to the performers. The task of the management of enterprises was to carry out operational functions to organize the implementation of these tasks.

As a result of the rapid elimination of this upper layer of management, combined with privatization, when the state refused to manage the vast majority of enterprises, the management of associations and firms were automatically transferred to all functions that were previously performed by higher bodies. Naturally, the mentality of managers, the entire internal organization of enterprises turned out, in most cases, to be unprepared for this type of activity.

The third group of factors that change the environment for the activities of enterprises is associated with the emergence of a huge number of economic entities of various forms of ownership. A large number of workers, for the most part unprepared for professional managerial activities, have come to the sphere of entrepreneurship. This necessitated the accelerated development of the theory and practice of strategic management by them.

The fourth group of factors, which is also of a purely Russian nature, is due to the general socio-economic situation during the transition from a planned economy to a market economy. A landslide decline in production, a radical restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative factors - all this greatly complicates the activities of economic organizations, regardless of ownership, accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies and other negative phenomena.

From all this it follows that increased attention to the problems of strategic management can and should ensure the functioning of enterprises in extreme conditions. It is no coincidence that some experts put forward the thesis that in such a situation one should speak first of all about a survival strategy, and only then about a strategy.

That is why the question is important: when exactly does recourse to strategy become vital? One of these conditions is the occurrence of sudden changes in the external environment of the firm. They can be caused by saturation of demand, major changes in technology inside or outside the firm, the sudden emergence of numerous new competitors, and so on.

In such situations, the traditional principles and experience of the organization do not contribute to solving the problems of exploiting new opportunities and do not ensure the prevention of dangers. If an organization does not have a unified strategy, then it is possible that different departments will develop heterogeneous, contradictory and ineffective solutions. The sales department will fight to revive the old demand for the company's products, the production departments will make capital investments in the automation of aging industries, and the R&D department will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, delay the firm's reorientation, and make it unrhythmic and inefficient. It may turn out that the reorientation started too late to guarantee the survival of the enterprise.

In this situation, the firm must solve two extremely difficult problems:

Select proper planning growth from several options;

Direct the efforts of the team in the right direction.

Along with clear advantages, strategic management has a number of disadvantages and limitations in its use. Thus, this type of control, like all others, does not have universality for application in any situations when solving any problems.

Strategic management, by virtue of its essence, does not, and indeed cannot, give an accurate and detailed picture. The picture of the future desired state of the organization formed in strategic management is not a detailed description of its internal and external position, but rather a qualitative wish to anyone, what the organization should become after some time, what position to take in the market and in business, what organizational culture to have , which business groups to join, etc. All this together should determine whether the organization will survive or not in the future in the competitive struggle.

This type of management cannot be reduced to a set of routine procedures and schemes. He does not have a descriptive theory that prescribes what and how to do when solving certain tasks or in specific situations.

Strategic management is rather a certain philosophy or business ideology and management. And each individual manager understands and implements it largely in his own way. Of course, there are a number of recommendations, rules and logic diagrams for problem analysis and strategy selection, as well as the implementation of strategic planning and practical implementation of the strategy. However, in general, strategic management is a symbiosis of intuition and art, with which management must lead the organization to strategic goals; this is the high professionalism and creativity of employees, ensuring the connection of the organization with the environment, updating the organization and its products, the implementation of current plans and, finally, the active inclusion of all employees in the process of finding the best ways to achieve the goals of the organization or firm.

It takes a lot of effort, a lot of time and resources to introduce strategic management into an organization. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to organize strategic planning, which in itself is fundamentally different from the development of long-term plans that are mandatory for execution in any conditions. The strategic plan must be flexible, it must respond to changes inside and outside the organization, and this requires a lot of effort and a lot of money. It is also necessary to create services that monitor the environment and include the organization in the environment. marketing services, public relations etc. acquire exceptional significance and require significant additional costs.

The negative consequences of errors in strategic foresight are sharply increasing. In an environment where completely new products are being created in a short time, when new business opportunities suddenly appear and opportunities that have existed for many years disappear before our eyes, the price for incorrect foresight and, accordingly, mistakes in strategic choice often becomes the very existence of the organization. Especially tragic are the consequences of an incorrect forecast for organizations that pursue an uncontested path of development or implement a strategy that cannot be fundamentally corrected.

In the implementation of strategic management, the main emphasis is often placed on strategic planning. In fact, the most important component of strategic management is the implementation strategic plan. It is especially important here to create organizational culture, allowing to implement! strategy, build a system of motivation and work organization, I have a certain flexibility in the organization, etc. In this case, in strategic management, the execution process has an active feedback effect on planning, which only enhances the significance of the execution phase. Therefore, an organization that has let! even a very good subsystem of strategic planning, but not having the prerequisites or opportunities for creating a subsystem of strategic execution, in principle, will not be able to move on to strategic management.

The evolution of intra-company management systems makes it possible to understand that successive systems correspond to (a sweeping level of instability (uncertainty) of the external environment. Since the beginning of the century, two types of enterprise management systems have been developed: management based on performance control (post factum) and management based on extrapolation of the past.

To date, two types of control systems have developed.

The first type is based on position definition. Management based on anticipation of change, when unexpected phenomena began to appear and the pace of change accelerated, but not so much that it was impossible to determine the reaction to them in time. This type includes long-term and strategic planning, management through the selection of strategic positions.

The second type is associated with a timely response that responds to rapid and unexpected changes in the environment - management based on flexible emergency solutions. This type includes management based on the ranking of strategic objectives, management by strong and weak signals, management in the face of strategic surprises.

The choice of a combination of different systems for a particular enterprise depends on the conditions of the environment in which it operates. The choice of a system for determining positions is due to the novelty and complexity of the tasks. The choice of a timely response system depends on the pace of change and the predictability of tasks. The synthesis of these control systems allows us to form a method of strategic management that most fully meets the conditions of flexibility and uncertainty of the external environment.

Control questions

1. What are the main reasons and factors that led to the increase in the role of strategic management.

2. Formulate the basic definitions of the concepts "strategy" and "strategic management".

3. What are the differences between operational and strategic management?

4. What are the main difficulties in implementing strategic management?

5. Name the main levels of strategic management.

6. Give general characteristics strategies.

7. What are the features of the strategy of individual business units?

8. Name the main types of functional strategies.