Business Strategy Skills DevelopmentCOURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to the Business Strategy & Strategic Management course. This program will equip you with the skills and knowledge to analyse strategic contexts, choose between competing strategic options, and translate strategy into coordinated action that aligns with stakeholder expectations. Throughout this course, you will learn how structured strategic processes, clear thinking, and disciplined feedback loops come together to guide

COURSE OVERVIEW:

Welcome to the Business Strategy & Strategic Management course. This program will equip you with the skills and knowledge to analyse strategic contexts, choose between competing strategic options, and translate strategy into coordinated action that aligns with stakeholder expectations. Throughout this course, you will learn how structured strategic processes, clear thinking, and disciplined feedback loops come together to guide decision making in complex and changing business environments.

This course begins by exploring the strategic business process as a framework for moving from analysis to implementation and review. This section explains the purpose and stages of strategic analysis, sets out the rules that should be followed when presenting a SWOT so that it remains rigorous and actionable, and clarifies the purposes of strategic selection and of strategic implementation and management, including what implementation typically involves in practice and why the feedback link is essential for learning and continuous adjustment.

The course then examines the foundations of strategic thinking and strategic management so that you can use the concepts with precision. This section defines what strategy is, introduces Mintzberg’s 5 Ps and the key elements of strategy, and uses Chandler’s definition to unpack the three core components of strategy, before defining strategic management and exploring how it integrates analysis, choice, implementation, and feedback in an ongoing cycle.

You then focus on the relationship between strategic thinking, leadership, and formal planning processes. This section explains how strategic thinking underpins effective leadership, clarifies the distinction and connection between strategic planning and strategic management, and introduces the debate about the sources of strategy, including whether strategy is primarily designed at the top, emerges from practice, or is shaped by capabilities and learning across the organisation.

Attention then turns to the major strands of strategy theory that have influenced modern management practice. This section explores five distinct but interrelated strands of strategy thinking—the planning approach, the competitive positioning approach, the emergent or learning approach, the core competence approach, and the learning and knowledge-based strategy approach—showing how each contributes different assumptions, tools, and insights to the way organisations analyse their environment and shape their strategic direction.

The course then looks at how strategic decisions operate at different organisational levels and how alignment is maintained. This section explains the levels of strategic decision making, introduces the concept of congruency between corporate, business, and functional strategies, and examines where strategy is actually carried out in day-to-day activities, processes, and choices across the organisation.

Finally, the course examines how strategic objectives are set and how stakeholders influence what organisations aim to achieve. This section explores how businesses set strategic objectives, compares the stockholder approach and stakeholder approach to defining organisational purpose, and analyses how stakeholders exert influence on an organisation’s objectives through their expectations, resources, and power.

By the end of this course, you will be able to describe the strategic business process, conduct and present structured strategic analysis, and explain the purpose of strategic selection, implementation, and feedback. You will understand core strategy definitions, major strands of strategy theory, the relationship between strategic thinking, leadership, and planning, and the different levels at which strategic decisions are made and executed. Most importantly, you will be equipped to connect strategic objectives with stakeholder expectations, evaluate alternative strategic approaches, and contribute more confidently and coherently to strategic discussions and actions in your organisation.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:

·       The importance of developing strategic skills

·       The acquisitions appraisal skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The Acquisitions and deal-making skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The alliances skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The competitor awareness skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The divestment skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The economic awareness (MACRO) skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The factors that makes economy vulnerable

·       The economic awareness (MICRO) skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The two useful techniques for economic awareness (micro) and takeaways

·       The pros and cons of the growth driver analysis

·       The Porter’s five competitive forces. The pros and cons of Porters five competitive forces

·       The global awareness skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The forces that determine industry profitability

·       The helicopter thinking skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The regulatory awareness skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, and useful techniques for coping with regulatory awareness and takeaways on regulatory awareness

·       The risk and uncertainty analysis skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The uncertainty/importance grid

·       The storytelling skill. The pros, the cons, when it is needed, relevant techniques and takeaways

·       The features of a cunning plan

COURSE DURATION:

The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.

ASSESSMENT:

A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.

CERTIFICATION:

Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.