Strategic Management Process

Every business today has to have some sort of planning in order to be successful. Some may know it as strategic management planning and others may not. They might just see it as a plan to hold their business together and achieve better performance. Here I will discuss the different aspects or steps of the strategic management process.

"Strategic management is that set of managerial decisions and acts that determines the long-run performance of a corporation" (Hunger and Wheelen, 2007). The process of strategic management involves four steps which are environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control. Hunger and Wheelen state that management scans external environment (opportunities and threats) and internal environment (strengths and weaknesses). These are called strategic factors abbreviation of SWOT (2007).

"Environmental scanning is the monitoring, evaluating, and disseminating of information from the external and internal environments to key people within the corporation" (Hunger and Wheelen, 2007).

"Strategy formulation is the development of long-range plans for the effective management of environmental opportunities and threats, in light of corporate strengths and weaknesses" (Hunger and Wheelen, 2007).

http://www.2myprofessor.com/Common/The_SWOT_Analysis.htm

http://managementstudyguide.com/environmental-scanning.htm

"Strategy implementation is the process by which strategies and policies are put into action through the development of programs, budgets, and procedures" (Hunger and Wheelen, 2007).

"Evaluation and control is the process by which corporate activities and performance results are monitored so that actual performance can be compared with desired performance" (Hunger and Wheelen, 2007).