Strategic Management

The art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. It focuses on integrating an organization's individual operating areas (marketing, finance and accounting, human resources, operations, research and development, and information systems) to achieve success. The purpose of strategic management is to ensure that the organization finds and maintains competitive advantage, and knows the opportunities it can exploit in the future. Ultimately, Strategic Management is all about gaining and maintaining Competitive Advantage which can be defined as: - any activity a firm does better than its rival firms, OR - any resource a firm possesses that rival firms desire The discipline and process of strategic management is critical in achieving this for an organization.