Strategic Thinking

PESTLE stands for - Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, Environmental. The term PESTLE has been used regularly in the last 10 years and its true history is difficult to establish. Various other similar acronyms have been used including ETPS, STEP, PEST, and STEEPLE. The term PESTLE is particularly popular on HR and introductory marketing courses in the UK.

PESTLE analysis is in effect an audit of an organisation's environmental influences with the purpose of using this information to guide strategic decision-making. The assumption is that if the organisation is able to audit its current environment and assess potential changes, it will be better placed than its competitors to respond to changes.

To help make decisions and to plan for future events, organisations need to understand the wider ‘meso-economic’ and ‘macro-economic’ environments in which they operate. (The meso-economic environment is the one in which we operate and have limited influence or impact,…

What are the most important fundamentals of the management profession? Or, what should a manager concern himself or herself with when managing an organisation? This question is not that easy to answer and, moreover, heavily dependent on the type of organisation that is involved. And yet there are six areas that require attention that are of interest everywhere and under every condition. These are: 


Strategy, Structure, Culture, People, ResourcesResults. 

These areas that require special attention or management building blocks are also sometimes referred to as the management or design variables of an organisation. Further study shows that most building blocks appear in the most important management reference models, to a lesser or a greater degree, that are used on a global scale. 


Strategy


The strategy area deals with the objectives of the organisation (mission and vision) and with the method used by the organisation to attain these (strategy and policy). Basically, finding the balance be…

The GE/McKinsey Matrix was developed jointly by McKinsey and General Electric in the early 1970s as a derivation of the BCG Matrix. GE, by that time, had approximately 150 different business units and was disappointed with the profits derived from its investments. This raised internal concerns about the approach the organization had to investment decision making. While exploring new models to implement, GE started to be interested in visual strategic frameworks like the Growth-Share Matrix created by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) a few years before. However, the BCG Matrix showed to have some limitations. It was considered not flexible enough to include all the broader issues that a company was facing while operating in a fast changing global environment. The GE/McKinsey Matrix solves most of the issues of the BCG model and proposes a more sophisticated and comprehensive approach to investment decision making.



The GE/McKinsey Matrix is a nine-cell (3 by 3) matrix and it is primary …

The BCG Matrix (Growth-Share Matrix) was created in the late 1960s by the founder of the Boston Consulting Group, Bruce Henderson, as a tool to help his clients with efficient allocation of resources among different business units. It has since been used as a portfolio planning and analysis tool for marketing, brand management and strategy development. In order to ensure successful long-term operation, every business organization should have a portfolio of products/services rather than just one product or service. This portfolio should contain both high-growth and low-growth products/services. High-growth products have the potential to generate lots of cash but also require substantial amounts of investment. Low-growth products with high market share, on the other hand, generate lots of cash while needing minimal investment.





The BCG Matrix helps a company with multiple business units/products by determining the strengths of each business unit/product and the course of action for each bu…

Bowman’s Strategy ClockMaking Sense of Eight Competitive Positions
In many open markets, most goods and services can be purchased from any number of companies, and customers have a tremendous amount of choice. It's the job of companies in the market to find their competitive edge and meet customers needs better than the next company. So, how, given the high degree of competitiveness among companies in a marketplace, does one company gain competitive advantage over the others? When there are only a finite number of unique products and services out there, how do different organizations sell basically the same things at different prices and with different degrees of success? This is a classic question that has been asked for generations of business professionals. In 1980, Michael Porter published his seminal book, "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors", where he reduced competition down to three classic strategies: Cost leadership.Product d…

Function of a Strategy
The primary purpose of a strategy is to provide the product manager with the direction to follow in managing business over the planning period. A successful strategy should satisfy three requirements.
Strategy must help to achieve coordination among various functional areas of the organization.Strategy must clearly define how resources are to be allocated.Strategy must show hot it can lead to a superior market positionA marketing strategy can be competitively sensible in 4 ways. When competitor cannot do it.When competitor will choose not to do.When competitor would be at a disadvantage if they chose to do it.Would cause gain if competitor chose to do it. Elements of a product strategy 
A complete statement of a marketing strategy for a product consist of 7 parts.
A statement of objective(s) the product should attain.Selection of strategic alternative(s).Selection of customer targets.Choice of competitor targets.Statement of core strategyDescription of the supporting…

Customer Value Map






Customer Loyalty Map