MGMT09025 2022 Strategy and Practice

Strategy and Practice deals with the challenges leaders face in seeking to achieve their organisation’s mission by aligning and deploying their internal assets, capabilities, and people to best effect in the face of changing, uncertain and ambiguous environmental and competitive conditions. This complex task requires a sophisticated blend of analytical, behavioural and political skills. This module is designed to introduce students to the comprehensive nature of strategy in business and provides an insight into the main tools of analysis available to the strategist.

Now nearing its sixtieth printing in English and translated into nineteen languages, Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy throughout the world. Electrifying in its simplicitylike all great breakthroughsPorters analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategieslowest cost, differentiation, and focuswhich bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. In the almost two decades since publication, Porter's framework for predicting competitor behavior has transformed the way in which companies look at their rivals and has given rise to the new discipline of competitor assessment. More than a million managers in both large and small companies, investment analysts, consultants, students, and scholars throughout the world have internalized Porter's ideas and applied them to assess industries, understand competitors, and choose competitive positions. The ideas in the book address the underlying fundamentals of competition in a way that is independent of the specifics of the ways companies go about competing. Competitive Strategy has filled a void in management thinking. It provides an enduring foundation and grounding point on which all subsequent work can be built. By bringing a disciplined structure to the question of how firms achieve superior profitability, Porters rich frameworks and deep insights comprise a sophisticated view of competition unsurpassed in the last quarter-century.

The updated new edition of the market-leading strategic analysis textbook, addressing the emerging challenges that businesses face in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment In Contemporary Strategy Analysis, expert strategist and lecturer Robert M. Grant equips management students and working professionals with the concepts, frameworks, and techniques needed to make better strategic decisions. Designed to be accessible to readers from different backgrounds and with varying levels of experience, this classic textbook combines a rigorous approach to business strategy with real-world examples of current practice and highly relevant case studies personally written by the author. Contemporary Strategy Analysis focuses on the essential tasks of strategy, showing readers how to use the tools of strategy analysis to identify, analyze, and exploit the sources of superior business performance to secure competitive advantage. The eleventh edition examines the role of strategy in a world reshaped by the Covid-19 pandemic and discusses a wide range of trending topics such as the corporate social responsibility movement and environmental, social, and governance innovation presented alongside fully integrated business models and up-to-date examples of business model innovation. Perfect for undergraduate and MBA students of business, Contemporary Strategy Analysis has also proven influential with consultants, executives, and others engaged in the strategic direction of a modern enterprise.

With over one million copies sold worldwide, Exploring Strategy has long been the essential strategy text for managers of today and tomorrow. From entrepreneurial start-ups to multinationals, charities to government agencies, this book raises the big questions about organisations- how they grow, how they innovate and how they change. Texts and Cases also provides a wealth of extra case studies written by experts in the subject to aid and enrich your understanding. Examples are taken from events and organisations as diverse as Glastonbury, Mondelez and Formula 1 racing.

When Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy/Bad Strategy was published in 2011, it immediately struck a chord, calling out as bad strategy the mish-mash of pop culture, motivational slogans and business buzz speak so often and misleadingly masquerading as the real thing.Since then, his original and pragmatic ideas have won fans around the world and continue to help readers to recognise and avoid the elements of bad strategy and adopt good, action-oriented strategies that honestly acknowledge the challenges being faced and offer straightforward approaches to overcoming them. Strategy should not be equated with ambition, leadership, vision or planning; rather, it is coherent action backed by an argument.For Rumelt, the heart of good strategy is insight into the hidden power in any situation, and into an appropriate response - whether launching a new product, fighting a war or putting a man on the moon. Drawing on examples of the good and the bad from across all sectors and all ages, he shows how this insight can be cultivated with a wide variety of tools that lead to better thinking and better strategy, strategy that cuts through the hype and gets results.

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

Importantly, this stimulating text:

The Wall Street Journal bestseller with more than 500,000 copies sold, The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Revised and Updated will radically change your business. This fully revised edition teaches leaders how to create lasting organisational change. Do you remember the last major initiative you watched die in your organisation? Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared, it's quite likely noone even noticed. Almost every company struggles with making change happen. The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Revised and Updated is meant to help you reach the goals you've always dreamed of with a simple, repeatable, and proven formula. In this updated edition of the business bestseller that 'every leader should read' (Clayton Christensen, Professor at Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator's Dilemma), you'll learn the 4 Disciplines of Execution and how to make them work for your organisation. This proven set of practices have been tested and refined by hundreds of organisations and thousands of teams over many years. When a company or an individual adheres to these principles, they achieve superb results, regardless of the goal. These 4 Disciplines of Execution represent a new way to work and think that is essential to creating lasting organisational change and thriving in today's competitive climate. It's the one book that no leader can afford to miss.

Journal articles will be recommended to students for background reading associated with each topic 

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