Strategic Management in the P-O-L-C Framework

After reading this section on the best practices for conducting a SWOT analysis, note the model's applicability to an organizational setting. Take the opportunity and try to answer the exercises at the end of the section.

5.2 Strategic Management in the P-O-L-C Framework

What Is Strategic Management?

As you already know, the P-O-L-C framework starts with "planning". You might also know that planning is related to, but not synonymous with, strategic management. Strategic management reflects what a firm is doing to achieve its mission and vision, as seen by its achievement of specific goals and objectives.

A more formal definition tells us that the strategic management process "is the process by which a firm manages the formulation and implementation of its strategy". The strategic management process is "the coordinated means by which an organization achieves its goals and objectives". Others have described strategy as the pattern of resource allocation choices and organizational arrangements that result from managerial decision making. Planning and strategy formulation sometimes called business planning, or strategic planning, have much in common, since formulation helps determine what the firm should do. Strategy implementation tells managers how they should go about putting the desired strategy into action.

The concept of strategy is relevant to all types of organizations, from large, public companies like GE, to religious organizations, to political parties.