Business Strategy (Byte Size Skills Course).

Business Strategy (Byte Size Skills Course)

Every year thousands of new businesses are created. A few will grow to become global companies employing thousands of people, others will never make the world stage; in fact, the majority will cease trading within two or three years.

To survive, managers need a good understanding of the business environment, the opportunities and threats it offers, a realistic appreciation of the abilities and limitations of the business, knowledge of what they want to achieve, and a fairly clear idea of the direction in which the business should go. The route the business takes to achieve its objectives is often known as the corporate or business strategy. In this course, we look at some of the tools that we can use to decide on the strategy. As you will see, the tools we describe are those which link the various functions of the business and are to do with operating the business as a complete organisation rather than as a collection of functions or departments. The business strategy concerns the overall direction of the organisation. Here, we consider the operational or functional strategies that contribute to the business strategy.

After participating in this course, you should be able to:

• explain how businesses need to align their objectives and capabilities with the needs of their customers and with the environment
• give examples of business objectives, mission and value statements
• understand how the business environment provides opportunities for the business but also limit its freedom of action
• explain how the resources and behaviour of the organisation constrain the choice of strategy
• describe a range of business strategies and explain the circumstances in which they might be appropriate for a business
• describe how an organisation copes with an uncertain future and responds to complex environmental change.