Strategic Management Training Kit

Our goal in this package is to explain in a clear, comprehensive, but concise way why strategic management is important to people, the companies they work for, and the societies in which they live. Often people are unaware of how the strategy-making process affects them. We are all used to going to work and visiting companies such as restaurants, stores, and banks to buy the goods and services we need to satisfy our many needs. However, the actual strategic management activities and processes that are required to make these goods and services available to us commonly go unappreciated. Similarly, we know that companies exist to make a “profit,” but what is profit, how is it created, and what is it used for? Moreover, what are the actual strategic management activities involved in the creation of goods and services, and why is it that some companies seem to be more effective and more “profitable” than others? Our goal is to provide the “big picture” of what strategic management is, what strategic managers do, and how the strategy-making process affects company performance. The course provides a focused, integrated approach that gives trainees a solid understanding of the nature, functions, and main building blocks of strategic management.

Why do some firms succeed while others fail?

In the fast-evolving world of the Internet, for example, how is it that companies like Yahoo!, Amazon.com, eBay, and Google have managed to attract millions of customers, while others fail. A central objective of strategic management is to learn why this happens. In this package, we are going to answer this question.

In this package, we are going to identify and describe the strategies that managers can pursue to achieve superior performance. A central aim of this course is to give you a thorough understanding of the analytical techniques and skills necessary to identify and implement strategies successfully. The first step toward achieving this objective is to describe in more detail what strategy, superior performance, and competitive advantage mean.