Introduction

"Your success is determined by your daily agenda." – John Maxwell

This conference focuses on the importance of self-management in achieving personal and professional success. Participants will learn to set goals, monitor progress, and reward achievements. The program encourages individuals to take responsibility for their tasks, prioritize life goals, and balance work and family commitments. Develop strategies to manage stress, create positive deadlines, and improve overall performance through effective self-management.

Objectives

• To ensure that participants understand the concepts of strategy and strategic management

• To understand the main frameworks within which robust strategies can be created

• To understand the linkage between strategy building and implementation

• To understand the meaning of the concept of competitive advantage

• To ensure that strategy is changed and developed to create a sustained level of high performance

• To enable participants to understand how their specialist parts of the organization contribute to strategy building and achieving sustainable competitive advantage

Methodology

The training process is based on a carefully planned mix of highly focused input from the course leader - with a practical illustration of tools and concepts; group work on small-scale case studies; interaction and group discussion; and group work on a major case study. The course manual will serve as a toolkit for subsequent everyday use. There will also be presentations on DVD given by acknowledged world-leading authorities on the subject. The principles and approaches to strategy and strategic management will be illustrated by real-life cases in which the course leader has been personally involved

Organizational Impact

• Much better decision-making and time and resource allocation - leading to better organizational and individual performance

• Introduction of strategic thinking into new levels of the organization

• Top management having more confidence in the ability and judgement of its operating managers

• Operational managers will have a better appreciation of the need and content of organizational change

• Managers will understand how and why change is necessary to achieve sustainable competitive advantage

• Managers will implement strategic programs and projects more effectively

Personal Impact

• Increasing career flexibility (vertically and horizontally)

• Accelerated thinking speed and problem resolution for all difficult dilemmas

• Improved understanding of the impact of operational specialization on corporate strategy

• Improved teamworking capabilities in analyzing and solving strategic problems

• Improved skills in ensuring the most effective impact of individual specializations

• Greater motivation and proactivity

Outlines 

Day 1: Business Strategy, Strategic Management, and Strategic Choice

• Generic Competitive Strategies

• Structural Analysis of Industries and Companies

• “Competitive Positioning” versus “Blue Ocean” approaches

• How value migrates over Time

• Customer Selection and the Principle of Differentiated Customer Engagement

• The Integrated Supply-Demand Chain as the Basis of 21st Century Strategic Thinking

• Choice and Complexity – The Fundamental Problem in Strategic Thinking and Planning

• Mini-Case on Strategic Choice

Day 2: How to Build a Robust Strategy

• The Interface of External and Internal Analysis: Trade-Offs and Balance

• The Concept of Shareholder Value and its Relationship to Strategic Planning

• Financial and Non-Financial Aspects of Strategy, Objectives, and Mechanisms

• Advanced Application of the “Balanced Scorecard” Principles

• Diagnosing Strategic Problems and Opportunities

• Strategic Choice – Offensive versus Defensive Strategic Programmes

• How to Build and Use the “5-page Strategy Framework”

• Mini-Case on Strategic Choice

Day 3: The Concept of Competitive Advantage and the Ways of Securing Competitive Advantage

• Review of the tools used so far

• Competitive Advantage through Cost Leadership

• Competitive Advantage through Product/Service Differentiation

• Competitive Advantage through Differentiation of the Business Model

• Combining Cost Leadership with Differentiation: Singapore Airlines Mini-Case

• Balancing Cost Leadership and Differentiation in Delivering Value to Customers

• Introduction and Briefing for the main Case Study

• First-phase group work on the main Case Study

Day 4: Strategic Risk and Global Strategic Management

• Identifying and Assessing Risk and Uncertainty

• Tools and Techniques in Managing Risk and Uncertainty

• The Essence of Globalization and Global Business Strategy

• Globalization – Managing the Strategic shift from between National/International/Global phases

• Globalization – Managing Organizational Change and the Human Resource dimension

• How to Build and Manage a Strategic Planning team

• Managing the Interface of Strategy and Global Operations

• Second-phase work on the main Case Study

Day 5: building tomorrow’s organization out of today’s organization

• Final-phase work on the main Case Study

• Group Presentations of the main Case Study

• Strategic Renewal: The Life-Cycle Principle Applied to Business Strategy

• The Importance of Vision and Values in Driving Strategic Development and Organizational Change

• The Senior Executive as Strategic Leader and Communicator

• The Senior Executive as Coach and Mentor - Getting Strategic Thinking into all Levels of Management

• Conclusions (1) - Building Tomorrow’s Organisation out of Today’s organization

• Conclusions (2) - The Corporate and Individual Value of Strategic Thinking