Essentials of Strategic Management

Overview

Your managerial decisions may enable your organization to function better,but do they add strategic value? What will you need to do differently to manage effectively at the next level?

The Essentials of Strategic Management program will help you move beyond functional thinking and help you develop a "big picture" perspective of firm strategy. You will accelerate your leadership potential by understanding how each functional area fits into the overall strategy of the firm, how to introduce strategic considerations into organizational decision making throughout the functional areas and business units, how to formulate and communicate strategy throughout the organization, and how to achieve success through implementation.

Who Should Attend

If you are a technical or functional manager who is highly regarded for your expertise and for achieving results, and you aspire to a senior management position, this program is for you.

Key Benefits

During the Essentials of Strategic Management program, you:

• Challenge your assumptions about strategy and develop a framework to critically evaluate your organization’s overall strategy
• Understand how organizational effectiveness (i.e. optimization) can aid in and sometimes detract from strategy
• Gain a better understanding of how strategy results from internal and external analyses
• Develop a facility with tools for analyzing your markets, industry and competitors and for identifying sources of internal competitive advantage, disadvantage and parity
• Understand and internalize frameworks for cross-business unit strategy at the corporate level and how to coordinate strategy across distinct businesses
• Develop action plans for communicating strategy throughout your current functional area and implementation plans
• Apply these concepts in a risk-free environment with real-world business cases

As aresult of your participation in the Essentials of Strategic Management program,your company will:

• Stimulate, develop and retain high-potential individuals who show promise to advance into senior management
• Develop tools for strategic thinking and a cross-functional perspective in their managers that can immediately be used in strategy formulation, communication and implementation
• Benefit from participants’ ability to immediately and confidently apply what they have learned

Design

Learning will be accomplished through a dynamic discussion and case study oriented approach designed to improve problem solving skills and judgment. Team projects, role playing and short presentations also enable you to improve your teamwork and personal communication effectiveness.

• Day 1 will focus on understanding strategy, how it differs from organizational effectiveness, and how it helps guide the organization to avoid growth traps and achieve competitive advantage.
• Day 2 will focus on how to analyze the external environment, from the general socio-cultural, economic, technological and political, to the industry and to specific competitors. In addition, tools for analyzing internal firm resources and identifying those with potential to be sources of competitive advantage will be of central importance.
• Day 3 will focus on how to achieve corporate advantage through strategic synergies across business units and how to implement strategy throughout the organization.

Faculty

Amy Hillman is the Jerry and Mary Ann Chapman Professor of Business and chair of the department of management. She received her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in strategic management and business and public policy. Her areas of interest include corporate political strategies, corporate governance and firm performance and resource dependence linkages.

Hillman is an associate editor of the Academy of Management Journal and her research has been published in leading journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, and Business & Society. She also serves or has served on the editorial review Boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management and Journal of International Business Studies. Prior to joining academia, Hillman was general manager of are tailing and manufacturing organization in the Southwestern United States.

S. Trevis Certo is an associate professor and a Dean’s Council of 100 Distinguished Scholar in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.Certo holds a Ph.D. in strategic management from the Kelley School of Businessat Indiana University. His research focuses on corporate governance, top management teams, initial public offerings (IPOs) and research methodology.Prior to joining the faculty at ASU, he taught undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, and Ph.D.courses in strategic management, research methodology and international business at Indiana University, Texas A&M University, Tulane University and Wuhan University (China).

Topics

• How strategy differs from organizational effectiveness
• Growth traps and purposeful strategic direction
• Tools for internal and external strategic analyses
• Market opportunities and internal sources of competitive advantage
• Synergies across business units
• Communicating strategy throughout the organization
• Strategy implementation

Fees

At the time of registration, you can pay the program fee of $2,400 by credit card or request that an invoice be sent to you or your company for payment. The program fee includes all instructional material, lunches and breaks.Classes are held on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. Please refer to the list of local hotels for lodging options.