MGMT Chapter 6: Strategic Management

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering corporate, business, and functional strategy, environmental analysis frameworks, and strategic execution principles from Chapter 6.

Strategic Positioning

The attempt to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by preserving what is distinctive about a company, based on unique position, trade-offs, and activity fit.

Corporate-Level Strategy

A level of strategy that focuses on the organization as a whole and addresses what business or businesses the company should be in.

Business-Level Strategy

A level of strategy that focuses on individual business units or product/service lines, addressing how the firm should compete in a specific industry.

Functional-Level Strategy

A plan of action executed by each functional area of an organization to support business-level and higher-level corporate strategies.

Mission Statement

An organizational statement that expresses the firm's core purpose or fundamental reason for being.

Vision Statement

An organizational statement that articulates what the company wants to become and where it wants to go strategically.

Values Statement

A statement describing what an organization stands for, its core priorities, the values its employees embody, and the positive contributions its products make to the world.

Current Reality Assessment

An assessment (also called an organizational assessment) that examines where an organization currently stands to identify what is working and what can be adjusted to optimize efficiency and effectiveness.

Strategy Formulation

The process of choosing among different strategies and altering them to best fit the organization's needs.

Strategy Implementation

The process of translating strategic choices into lower-level plans and putting strategic plans into effect throughout the organization.

Strategic Control

The process of monitoring the execution of a strategy and taking corrective actions through a feedback loop when performance diverges from plans.

SWOT Analysis

A situational analysis framework used to assess an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses alongside its external opportunities and threats.

Organizational Strengths

Internal skills, capabilities, and resources that give an organization special competencies and competitive advantages in pursuing its strategic vision.

Organizational Weaknesses

Internal drawbacks, limitations, or vulnerabilities that hinder an organization from executing strategies to achieve its strategic vision.

Organizational Opportunities

External environmental factors in the task or general environment that an organization can exploit for competitive advantage.

Organizational Threats

External environmental factors that place obstacles in the way of an organization achieving or maintaining a competitive advantage.

PESTEL Analysis

A strategic planning tool used to scan and assess macro external opportunities and threats across six societal forces: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal.

VRIO Analysis

A framework used to determine the competitive strategic potential of a resource or capability by assessing its Value, Rarity, Imitability, and Organization.

Trend Analysis

A forecasting technique that creates a hypothetical extension of a past series of events into the future.

Scenario Analysis

A forecasting technique involving the creation of alternative, hypothetical, but equally likely future conditions to aid contingency planning.

Benchmarking

The process by which an organization compares its performance against that of high-performing organizations to identify and adopt superior practices.

Growth Strategy

A corporate-level grand strategy focused on expanding organization operations, such as sales revenues, market share, employee count, or client base.

Innovation Strategy

A specific corporate growth approach aimed at expanding market share or profitability by improving existing offerings or introducing new products and services.

Stability Strategy

A corporate-level grand strategy that involves little or no significant change in organizational operations or market approach.

Defensive Strategy

A corporate-level grand strategy (also known as a retrenchment strategy) focused on reducing organizational efforts, scaling down units, or cutting operations.

BCG Matrix

A strategic portfolio management framework that evaluates strategic business units based on market growth rate and market share, designating them as Stars, Question Marks, Cash Cows, or Dogs.

Diversification

The corporate strategy of moving into entirely new lines of business to drive expansion or manage market risk.

Related Diversification

A corporate diversification strategy where a company acquires or starts a business that is related to its existing business portfolio.

Unrelated Diversification

A corporate diversification strategy where an organization acquires a company in a completely unrelated industry to spread financial risk across markets.

Vertical Integration

A corporate strategy where a firm expands into businesses that supply its inputs or into businesses that distribute and sell its end products.

Cost-Leadership Strategy

A business-level generic competitive strategy aimed at keeping costs and prices below those of competitors while targeting a wide market.

Differentiation Strategy

A business-level generic competitive strategy that targets a wide market with products or services possessing unique and superior value compared to competitors.

Cost-Focus Strategy

A business-level generic competitive strategy that targets a narrow, niche market while keeping production costs and prices lower than competitors.

Focused-Differentiation Strategy

A business-level generic competitive strategy that offers unique and premium products or services targeted specifically at a narrow or niche market segment.

Execution

A central part of any company's strategy consisting of the discipline and processes used to execute plans and get things done through people, strategy, and operations.

Strategic Thinking

The mental process of envisioning what might happen in the future and applying those forward-looking insights to current organizational circumstances.

Career Readiness Model

A comprehensive framework detailing the essential Core skills, Knowledge domains, Soft skills, Attitudes, and Other characteristics that employers seek in prospective professionals.