Strategic Management Tools

Process Benchmarking – Definition and Steps Involved

Benchmarking involves comparison of one firm’s processes with that of other firm while reengineering is concerned with redesign of operational processes. Benchmarking involves thorough research into the best practices followed by other organisations in the industry where the company operates and it helps in breaking down the organisations’ activities down to process operations and modifies them to the best-in-class for a particular operation.

The word benchmarking has been derived from the set of activities used by cobblers to mark the size of the foot of their customers. For measuring the size of the foot they used to ask the customer to put their foot on the “bench” so that they can “mark” the foot using a pen.… Read the rest

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Business Process Reengineering for Competitive Advantage

In business processes reengineering all the outdated processes of the business are redesigned along with the connected systems and entity’s structures with an aim to reach at a remarkable performance level along with business improvements. The corporate basis for creating these changes possibly will comprise deprived performance in terms of competition, financial aspects and reduction of market share of emerging market opportunities. Business process reengineering just not mean to introduction of new technology, automation, reorganization, and downsizing of business process etc but also involve change assessment various business components such as culture, entity, technology, processes and strategies.

The relationship between a company and its customers is not limited to just the buying and selling of a product or service.… Read the rest

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Fitzgerald and Moon’s Building Block Model

Fitzgerald and Moon’s Building Block Model  suggests  the solution of performance measurement problems in service industries. But it can be applied to other manufacturing and retail businesses to evaluate business performance.

Fitzgerald and Moon has provided  a framework for performance management in service organization using three criteria, called as  building blocks, they include, standards of performance (against these dimensions are measured to review performance), rewards for performance (rewards are necessary for achieving standards of performance) and  dimensions of performance (these are measures of performance).

1. Standards:  You can think of standards as rules that employees of a company must follow in order to achieve the long term objective of the organization.… Read the rest

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Bowman’s Strategy Clock

In many open markets, most goods and services can be purchased from any number of companies, and customers have a tremendous amount of choice. It’s the job of companies in the market to find their competitive edge and meet customers needs better than the next company. So, how, given the high degree of competitiveness among companies in a marketplace, does one company gain competitive advantage over the others? When there are only a finite number of unique products and services out there, how do different organizations sell basically the same things at different prices and with different degrees of success?

This is a classic question that has been asked for generations of business professionals.

… Read the rest
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Ashridge Portfolio Matrix

Corporate Parenting is a strategy employed by highly centralized and diversified firms  with large resource pools. It views the corporation in terms of resources and capabilities  that can be used to build business units value as well as generate synergies across  business units.  Corporate parenting generates corporate strategy by focusing on the core competencies of  the parent corporation and on the value create from the relationship between the parent  and its businesses.

There are basically three styles of corporate parenting as follows; financial control,  strategic planning and strategic control.

  1. Financial Control:  Under this style the role of the corporate parent is to monitor and  evaluate the financial performance of investment portfolio of the respective business  units.
… Read the rest
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Strategic Lenses

Organisations strategic issues are commonly analysed from different strategy lenses. Strategic lenses are a concept of strategic management. The lenses are different ways of viewing strategy development. It examines the flow of tasks and information, or how you get things done. Each lens reveals many different traits and qualities. Using the strategic lens, one looks to optimize workflow to meet the goals and objectives of the company. This article  a  will cover four angles from which strategy can be viewed and implemented on a corporate level; they are strategy as design, strategy as experience, strategy as ideas and strategy as discourse.… Read the rest

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