Strategic Management Tools

Strategic Information Systems

A Strategic Information System (SIS) is a system to manage information and assist in strategic decision making. A strategic information system has been defined as, “The information system to support or change enterprise’s strategy.” Simply says, a Strategic Information System is a type of Information System that is aligned with business strategy and structure.

The alignment increases the capability to respond faster to environmental changes and thus creates a competitive advantage. An early example was the favorable position afforded American and United Airlines by their reservation systems, Sabre and Apollo. (American Airlines worked with IBM to develop an improved booking/reservation system, and the Airline Reservation Systems (ARS) and the Semi-Automatic Business Research System (SABRE) launched thereafter in 1960.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Tesco’s Steering Wheel: A Tool for Strategic Value Creation and Business Transformation

In early 90’s Tesco faced a stiff competition from various other retailers in the industry and thus its revenues showed a downfall. At that point Tesco could not differentiate itself from the other competitors. Later under the leadership of then CEO Ian Mac Laurin it went through an image makeover, and acquired other retailing outlets like William Low; with which it reached just up to the sustenance mark. Later Terry took over as the CEO of the Company and aimed to make the company value driven.

Tesco in early 70’s had acquired a lot of other retailer companies but faced a problem of integrating them, more over Tesco stores were small and ill equipped.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Case Study of Lenovo: Project Management Improves Strategy Execution and Core Competitiveness

I. Background

In recent years, the personal computer (PC) industry has been developing by leaps and bounds. Global sales of PCs totaled 230 million units in 2006, representing a 9 percent increase over the previous year. Lenovo has a product line that includes everything from servers and storage devices to printers, printer supplies, projectors, digital products, computing accessories, computing services and mobile handsets, all in addition to its primary PC business, which made up 96 percent of the company’s turnover as of the second quarter of 2007.

Since its acquisition of IBM’s Personal Computing Division in May 2005, Lenovo has been accelerating its business expansion into overseas markets.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Scenario Planning as a Strategic Management Tool

Formal  scenario planning  emerged during the Second World War, when it was used as a part of military strategy as countries prepared themselves for different contingencies. Since then, the use of scenario planning has become increasingly popular.

Scenarios are tools for ordering one’s perception about alternative future environment in which today’s decision might be framed. In practice, scenarios resemble a set of stories, written or spoken, built around carefully constructed plots. These stories can express multiple perspectives on complex events, scenarios give meaning to these events. Scenarios are powerful planning tools precisely because the future is unpredictable. Unlike traditional forecasting or market research, scenarios present alternative images instead of extrapolating current trends from the present.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Mckinsey’s 7S Framework

The Mckinsey’s 7S Framework  suggests that there is a multiplicity of factors that influence an organization’s ability to change and its proper mode of change. Because of the interconnections of the variables, it would be difficult to make significant progress in one area without making progress in the others as well. There is no starting point or implied hierarchy in the shape of the diagram, and it is not obvious which of the seven factors would be the driving force in changing a particular organization at a certain point of time. The critical variables would be different across organizations and in the same organizations at different points of time.… Read the rest

Abey Francis

Corporate Entrepreneurship

Corporate entrepreneurship (also called intrapreneurship) is defined by Guth and Ginsburg as “the birth of new business within existing organizations, that is, internal innovation or venturing; and the transformation of organizations through renewal of the key ideas on which they are built, that is, strategic renewal.

A large corporation that wants to encourage innovation and creativity within its firm must choose a structure that will give the new business unit an appropriate amount of freedom while maintaining some degree of control at headquarters.

Burgelman proposes that the use of particular organizational design should be determined by (1) the strategic importance of the new business to the corporation and (2) the relatedness of the unit’s operations to those of the corporation.  … Read the rest

Abey Francis