Strategy

The Strategic Approach

Dr Brian Monger

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Dr. Brian Monger

• Brian Monger is the CEO of MAANZ International and a Professional marketer and consultant with over 40 years

experience.• He is highly active on social media – including Linked In, where he owns, manages and moderates groups with about

1 million members

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The strategic approach consists of four main elements:

First, the strategic approach is oriented toward the future

• It recognises that the environment will change. It is generally a long range orientation (but it may be a strategy for a shorter period –

like a specific campaign).

• It will try to anticipate events rather than simply react as they occur.

The strategic approach is oriented toward the future

• The approach leads the manager to ask where his/her organisation wants to be after a

certain period, what it will need (resources) to get to where it wants, and how to develop strategies and the means to get there, and finally, how to manage those strategies to

achieve the organisation’s goals and objectives.

The strategic approach is oriented toward the future

• It is recognised that the future cannot be controlled, but the argument can be made

that by anticipating the future, organisations can help to shape and modify the impact of

environmental change.

Second, the strategic approach has an external emphasis

• It takes into account several components of the external environment, including

technology, politics, economics and the social dimension.

• Strategic thinking recognises that each of these can either constrain or facilitate an

organisation as it seeks to implement policy.

The strategic approach has an external emphasis

• Politics will determine the policies that are to be implemented, economics will determine

the organisation’s level of resources, and social factors might well determine who the

organisation’s beneficiaries will be.

• In particular, strategic thinking recognises and emphatically takes into account politics and

the exercise of political authority.

Managers are not free to do anything they decide

• Managers must be sensitive to the needs and respond to demands of constituents over whom they have little or no control.

• Among those constituents, political actors are perhaps the most important.

Third, the strategic approach concentrates on assuring a good fit between the environment and the

organisation

• (including its mission and objectives, strategies, structures, and resources) and

attempts to anticipate what will be required to assure continued fit.

A good fit between the environment and the organisation

• Under conditions of rapid political, economic and social change, strategies can quickly

become outmoded or no longer serve useful purposes; or the resources traditionally

required by the organisation to produce its goods and services may suddenly become

unavailable.

A good fit between the environment and the organisation

• The strategic approach recognises that to maintain a close fit with the environment, the

different elements of the organisation will need to be continuously re-assessed and

modified as the environment evolves.

Finally, the strategic approach is a process – Not a single activity

• It is continuous and recognises the need to be open to changing goals and activities in light

of shifting circumstances within the environment. It is a process that requires

monitoring and review mechanisms capable of feeding information to managers

continuously. Strategic management or planning are not one-shot approaches, they

are ongoing.

• For more information about MAANZ International and articles about Marketing, visit:

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• Email: [email protected]

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