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NOOR AZMINAH BINTI NOORZAIN (MB1612104T)

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NOOR AZMINAH BINTI NOORZAIN (MB1612104T)

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Strategic Management is the process of formulating and implementing strategies.

Strategic Entrepreneurship can taking entrepreneurial actions using a strategic perspective, engaging in simultaneous opportunity seeking and competitive advantage seeking behaviors.It can be designing and implementing entrepreneurial strategies to create wealth.

Entrepreneurs do not use strategic planning for many reasons because: scarcity of time, lack of knowledge about how to plan, lack of expertise in the planning process and lack of trust in others.

Below are the strategies management process.

1. Where the organization is headed, so as to provide long-term direction, defining what kind of enterprise the company is trying to become and infuse the organization with a sense of purposeful action.

2. Converting the strategic vision into specific performance outcomes for the company to achieve.

3. Achieving the desired outcomes.

4. Implementing and executing efficiently and effectively.

5. Vision, long-term direction, objectives, strategy, or execution in the light of actual experience, changing conditions, new ideas, and new opportunities.

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(MB1612199T)
Entrepreneurship and strategic management are both dynamic processes concerned with

company performance. Strategic management emphasizes the need of establishment

and maintenance of competitive advantage in the frames of a certain environmental

context. Entrepreneurship promotes the search for competitive advantage through

innovation in products, processes and market.

According to  (Barringer & Ireland, 2010) there are  four phases entrepreneurship process  include identifying and evaluating and opportunity, developing a business plan, ascertaining resource needs, and managing the resulting enterprise.

1. Opportunity identification.

An opportunity by definition is a favorable set of circumstances which creates a need for a new product, business, or service .Opportunity identification is the process by which the entrepreneur comes up with a prospective idea for a new venture. Identifying the opportunity is not simple. Dhenak, 2010 sated   that identification takes research, exploration, and evaluation of current needs, demands, and trends from consumers and others.

2. Developing a business plan.

According to (Harjai, 2012)  business plan development is an integral piece for submitting a proposal for an entrepreneurial or entrepreneurial business The organization or entrepreneur develops a description of the future direction of the business. A good business plan must be in place that displays a distinct opportunity. The process in business plan formulation can be the most time-consuming stage for the individual entrepreneur or organization.

3. Determining and allocating resources.
According to (Dhenak, 2010) ascertaining resource needs is a requirement to opportunity and business plan implementation. Assessing the risks in association with insufficient or inappropriate resources must be set apart from useful one.

4. Managing the enterprise.

according to (Harjai, 2012)  once resources are secure with the entrepreneurial process business plan implementation can take place. Managing the company means examining operational issues that will occur when implementation begins and throughout the entire business plan cycle The management process involves implementing structure and business style while determining variables for success.

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Entrepreneurship can be defined as the “process of gathering the unique combination of sources with the purpose of watching an opportunity” in the multi-dimensional phenomenon of the rapidly globalizing world (Drucker, 1993). However, they need a good strategic planning to drive the entrepreneurship to be successful in the future. Times ago, strategic came from the purpose of military used, “art of planning and managing the acts and activities of armies in a war” with using the most efficiently and economically resources to gain a victory (Dagon, 2015).
History had showed strategic planning start in military, the main purpose of strategic planning nowadays use in business is to gain competitive advantage. Nevertheless, the strategy planning in entrepreneurship is “formulized, applied and evaluated with the assumption of competition by using their own strengths with the purpose of using the weakness of the opponent” (David, 2005).
According to Thomas and David (2015), there are four steps to drive the entrepreneurship become successful by using strategic planning:
1. Environmental scanning – gathering information from external environment (natural resources and climate, societal and task) and internal environment (structure, culture and resources)
2. Strategy formulation – developing long-range plans which is starting from mission, objectives, strategies and finally policies
3. Strategy implementation – putting strategy into action by organizing programs and tactics with good budgets and well procedures
4. Evaluating and control – monitoring performance through the performance that has been show out in the actual results as improvement.
Last but not least, there many types of the strategy planning in the scholar to drive the successful path for the entrepreneur. However, every actions it take must be reviewed with feedback or learning, so that the entrepreneur can make correction if needed.

References:
1. David, F. R. (2005). Strategic Management-Concepts and Cases, Pearson Education, Inc., Tenth Edition.
2. Dogan, N. (2015). The Intersection of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management: Strategic Entrepreneurship. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 1288-1294.
3. Drucker, P. F. (1993). Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Harper&Row Plublishers, Inc.
4. Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., & Bamford, C. E. (2014). Strategic management and business policy: Globalization, innovation, and sustainability. Boston: Pearson.

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(MB1612076T)

According to Fred R. David in 2011, Strategic Management is the art and science of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross functional decisions that allowed the organization to achieve its Vision and Mission.

The Strategic Management Process includes three stages, which are Formulation, Implementation and also Evaluation.

1.       Strategy Formulation

In strategy formulation, entrepreneur have to develop Vision and Mission for their company and also examine the company internal strengths and weaknesses, external threats and opportunities. Strategy-formulation help entrepreneur to specific company’s products, markets, resources, and technologies over an extended period of time. Strategies determine long-term competitive advantages.

2.       Strategy Implementation

Implementation requires a firm to establish annual objectives, devise policies, motivate employees, and allocate resources so that formulated strategies can be carry out. This include develop a strategy-supportive culture, creating an effective organizational structure, redirecting marketing efforts, preparing budgets, developing and utilizing information systems, and linking employee compensation to organizational performance.

3.       Strategy Evaluation

There are 3 fundamental activities in strategy evaluation which are reviewing external and internal factors that are constantly changing; Measure performance and lastly Taking corrective actions. Top management need to know when particular strategies are not working well as this is the only way to obtain information and next doing correction.

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(MB1612165T)

Strategic planning is an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. It is a disciplined effort that produces fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future. Effective strategic planning articulates not only where an organization is going and the actions needed to make progress, but also how it will know if it is successful.

It is very important for an organization to do strategic planning in order to ensure the flow of the business goes smooth. It can also ensure the entrepreneurs run the business on the correct platform and in the right path.

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According to the researcher (Andrews, 1987), the basis of strategic management is the notion that strategy creates an alignment between the enterprise’s internal strengths and weaknesses on the one hand and its opportunities and threats (SWOT) in its external environment on the other. It is important for an entrepreneurs to study on their business’s SWOT analysis to understand their strengths and opportunities to overcome the weaknesses and threats that exist at their business. This is to gain the competitive advantages compared to other competitors as perceived by the customers. Concerned with identifying differences among enterprises‟ performance by examining their efforts to develop sustainable competitive advantages as determinants of their ability to create value (Ireland et al., 2003).

In addition, according to other researchers, they said that Strategic management is the process and approach of specifying an organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve and attain these objectives, and allocating resources so as to implement the policies and plan (Raduan et al., 2009). Thus, based on the study, common strategic management theories noted and applicable are:

The profit-maximizing and competition-based theory - business organization main objective is to maximize long term profit and developing sustainable competitive advantage over competitive rivals in the external market place.

Resource-based theory - stems from the principle that the source of firms competitive advantage lies in their internal resources, as opposed to their positioning in the external environment. It is a view of the firm predicts that certain types of resources owned and controlled by firms have the potential and promise to generate competitive advantage and eventually superior firm performance.

Survival-based theory - concept that organization need to continuously adapt to its competitive environment in order to survive.

Human resource-based  theory - emphasizes the importance of the human element in the strategy development of organizations.

Agency theory - stresses the underlying important relationship between the shareholders or owners and the agents or managers in ensuring the success of the organizations.

Contingency theory - draws the idea that there is no one or single best way or approach to manage organizations.

In conclusion, the entrepreneurs should then develop managerial strategy based on the situation and condition they are experiencing. In short, during the process of strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation, these main strategic management theories will be applicable to management of an entrepreneurs as tools to assist them in making strategic and guided managerial decision.

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NURHAFEEZAH SALWATUL ALZAH BINTI JUNO (MB1612121T)

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NURHAFEEZAH SALWATUL ALZAH BINTI JUNO (MB1612121T)

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Strategic management deals with how enterprises develop sustainable competitive advantages resulting in the creation of value (Ramachandran et al., 2006). An underlying basis of the Austrian school in strategic management (Schumpeter, 1993 [1934]) is the temporary nature of such competitive advantages. Accordingly, strategic management can be regarded as setting the context for entrepreneurial behaviour, i.e. the exploitation of opportunities (Ireland et al., 2001).

The strategic planning is a continual process for improving organizational performance by developing strategies to produce results. It involves looking at where the agency wants to go, assessing the agency’s current situation, and developing and implementing approaches for moving forward. It comprised into four distinct stages:

1.  Prepare

Three critical steps must be accomplished prior to developing a strategic plan:

• visioning

• assessment

• the development and implementation of a planning process.

In each of these areas, they will need to review and build on what is already in place, vision and mission statements, agency, and/or state, wide assessments, and input from ongoing groups of internal and external stakeholders already engaged in planning.

2.  Plan

To develop the plan, they must establish priorities by considering the needs, strengths, and resources of your organization. Three key questions must be answered:

• What do we want to accomplish?

• What will we do to get there?

• How will we know if we are making progress?

Once they have a draft document, circulate it for input, revise and finalize.

3.  Implement

The following steps ensure that plans are used to guide the work of the organization:

• Communicating or "marketing" the plan

• Managing the implementation of the plan

• Supervising the actual work

• Monitoring and reporting progress on the plan.

4.  Review/Revise

This stage starts the cycle over again, allowing the plan to be continuously updated. This will keep it current and meaningful to the organization. On an ongoing basis the organization should:

• Conduct assessments of its performance by gathering and analyzing information

• Convene the planning group to review performance and reassess goals, outcomes, strategies, and action steps and to make recommendations for changes

• Revise the plan. To the extent that the plan is updated, it will stay current and meaningful to the organization.

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According to the David et al. (2005) stated that strategic management is a process or approach of specifying an organization’s objectives, developing policies and plan to achieve and attain these objectives, and allocating resources so as to implement the policies and plans. In order words, strategic management can be seen as a combination of strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation.

There are six theories that mention by David in their strategic management theories, such as the profit-maximizing and competition-based theory. This theories mentioned about the objectives of an organization is to maximize their profit in a long term and developing sustainable competitive advantage over their competitors. Next is the resource-based theory, which stated that, for an organization to be competitive, the important thing is their internal resources rather than evaluating their environmental opportunities and threats.

Thirdly is the survival-based theory, which stated that the organization must have kept adapting to the changes in the market in order to remain competitive. Other than that, the human resource-based theory is one of the important theories as well. This theory emphasize on the importance of human behaviour in an organizations.

Next is the agency theory, stressed on the importance to maintain a good relationship between the shareholders in organizations. Last but not least is the contingency theory which mentioned about the importance of an organization to apply the main strategic management theories, which is implementation and evaluation to assist an organization in decision-making.

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LOGANANTHINY D/O KUMARAGURU (MB1612078T) 

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LOGANANTHINY D/O KUMARAGURU (MB1612078T) 

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According to Miller and Dess (1996), strategy is a set of plans or decision mad in an effort to help to achieve their objective. Whereas, strategic management defined as the continuous planning, monitoring, analysis and assessment of all that is necessary for an organization to meet its goals and objectives.Based on my opinion, strategic management  process that critical for entrepreneurs are :
1. Develop a vision  and translate it into a mission statement.
2. Define core competencies and target market and identity desired market position,
3. Assess strengths and weaknesses.
4. Scan environment for opportunities and treats.
5. Identity key success factors.
6. Analyze competition.
7. Create goals and objectives.
8. Formulate strategies.
9. Translate plans into actions.
10. Establish accurate controls.

Additionally, there are various type of strategic management's modal critical for entrepreneur. For an example, the strategic position, strategic choices and strategic into action are important for all entrepreneurs. Thus, strategic management is still involving and will continue to undergo change. Therefore, understanding and following and complete process of strategic management can be helpful to practicing entrepreneur to gain objectives.

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Strategic management is process which involves manager from all sides in the organization to form strategy implementation and strategic objective for organization. Strategic management also is process which ensures organization have strategy that suitable which benefited to the organization. (Fidler, 2002)

Strategic planning is long-term planning that focus on overall organization's profit in expectation of 3-5 years and decide way to achieving organizational goal. In other words, Strategic planning is a long term planning process which organization will determine mission and objective with resources owned to achieve mission fixed (Muhammad, 2003).

Pearce and Robinson (2000) said that strategic management contain nine critical duties as following:
1. Draft organization mission which encompasses objective statement, philosophy and purpose.

2. Analyze capacity and internal standard organization
3. Evaluate organization external environment in competitiveness context and general context

4. Analyze choice that there is adjust it with source and external environment available
5. Identify choice that is best and coordinate choice with organization mission

6. Set objective long-term and key strategy to achieve it based on choice that has been made.

7. Draft objective and annual strategy that in line with objective and long-term strategy.

8. Implementing strategic choice through control and allocation of resources that balance according to requirement of duty, personnel, structure, technology and share system that are suitable.
9. Evaluating the success strategic process and use it as input to decide in the future.

As a conclusion, strategic planning are help a lot to entrepreneurs to achieve the company objective and goal in long term and sustain the business.

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Strategic management is a guide for entrepreneur to gain the competitive edge to lead in the market. As highlighted by Rackoff, Wiseman & Ullrich (1985), in the area of information systems, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive framework such as – the theory of strategic thrusts. Instead of only focus in on the conventional organisation’s planning and control process, this theory focuses on the strategic planning, management control and operational control. The theory also focuses on competitive edge by understanding the competitive environment.

There are 5 thrusts are :

1.       Differentiation

This can be achieved by distinguishing company’s own product/services from competitors or reducing the differentiation advantage of rivals

2.       Cost

Reduce firm’s cost, supplier’s cost, or customer’s costs or by raising the costs of your competitors

3.       Innovation

Introduce a product/process change that results in a fundamental transformation in the way business is conducted in the industry

4.       Growth

Advantage is gain by volume or geographical expansion, backward or forward integration, product line or entry diversification

5.       Alliance

Forge marketing agreements, forming joint ventures or making acquisitions related to the 4 above thrusts

These strategic thrusts focuses on the three strategic targets :

1.       Supplier targets

2.       Customer targets

3.       Competitor targets l

The theory of strategic thrusts allows a framework (attaced) to be developed in identifying opportunities in organisation with information system to gain competitive edge.

Reference :
Rackoff,N., Wiseman, C., and Ullrich, W. (1985), Information Systems for Competitive Advantage : Implementation of a Planning Process , MIS Quarterly, Vol 9(4), pp 285-294. retrieved from : http://www.jstor.org/stable/249229?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

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Considering increasing competition in the market it is crucial for an entrepreneur to stay competitive and sustain, before they can grow. For that, from my view, an example of strategic management theory that can be considered as critical for entrepreneur is the resource-based view (RBV). RBV stipulates that firm's competitiveness and superior performance is depending on the attributes of their resources and capabilities that are unique. This uniqueness are predicted to add competitive advantage for a firm and eventually promotes superior firm performance.

In short, by refering to RBV theory, an entrepreneur can;
1. Asses and identify the uniquness posses by their internal resources, capabilities and system
2. Create a value creating strategy that is costly-to-copy (unique) by others which set them apart from their competitors
3. Have competitive advantage as well as enhance their performance over their competitors.

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According to (Michael G, 2010), the entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities. A strategic plan should not be confused with a business plan. A business plan is about setting short- or mid-term goals and defining the steps necessary to achieve them. A strategic plan is typically focused on a business' mid- to long-term goals and explains the basic strategies for achieving them. This guide sets out the basics of the strategic planning process. It explains how to go about drawing up a strategic plan, it highlights some important issues to bear in mind and it shows how to turn from planning to implementation. It is easy for a firm to get discouraged when a long term strategy does not net immediate results.

Firms often do not realize that setting a long term goal, and making strategic choices for that goal, will not give immediate positive results. Being able to execute short term plans while aligning with long term goals may be difficult, but is necessary to give the firm a vision which allows focus and unity amongst the employees. A firm which only chases short term returns may be able to make profit for a while, but will have a difficult time attempting to grow. Being able to set frequent milestones and to guide actions towards a long term goal can be an effective way to manage short term tasks. This allows short term goals to be put in the context of the larger picture, while allowing for the tackling of each individual instance to be molded for specific circumstances. It is a good idea for a company and its employees to know their 1 - 5 year plans to unify the goals and allow transparency on how the company is reaching its milestones.

Besides that, strategic planning is about positioning your business as effectively as possible in the marketplace. So you need to make sure that you conduct as thorough as possible an analysis of both your business and your market. Analysis that can be conducted are SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats) and STEEPLE (social, technology, economic, environmental, political, legal and ethics). Once entrepreneurs had set their ideas, plans, and all their relevant analysis, they have to make sure to be implemented and this implementation process requires planning.The key to implementation of the objectives identified in the strategic plan is to assign goals and responsibilities with budgets and deadlines to responsible owners - key employees or department heads, for example.

Monitoring implementation is the key. Using key performance indicators (KPIs) and setting targets and deadlines is a good way of controlling the process of introducing strategic change. Your business plan is another important tool in the implementation process. The business plan is typically a short-term and more concrete document than the strategic plan and it tends to focus more closely on operational considerations such as sales and cash flow trends. If you can ensure that your strategic plan informs your business plan, you will go a long way to ensuring its implementation. Remember that strategic planning can involve making both organizational and cultural changes to the way your business operates.

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ANNE D/O SAVARIMOOTHU GEORGE (MB1612017T)

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ANNE D/O SAVARIMOOTHU GEORGE (MB1612017T)

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Omalaja, 2011 state that, Strategic management is the process and approach of specifying an organization's objectives, developing policies, programmes, paradigms and plans to achieve these objectives and allocating resources so as to implement the policies, programmes, paradigms and plans.In other words, strategic management can be sen as management of combined components of the three stages of the strategy process that is strategy development, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation. Based on Omalaja, (2011) Strategic management theories actually stem mainly from the systems perspective , contingency approach and information technology approach to corporate management. Among the common strategic management theories noted and applicable to modern industrial and governmental organizations are:
1. Profit maximizing and and competition-based theory (Porter, 1981), is based on the notion that a business organization's main objective to maximize long term profit and developing sustainable competitive advantage over competitive rival in the external market.
2. Resource-based philosophy (Ainuddin et al., 2007) of the firm predicts that certain types of resources owned and controlled by firms have the potential and promise to generate competitive advantage and eventually superior firm performance .
3. Survival-based theory centres on the theory on the concept the organization need to continuously adapt to its competitive environment in order to survive.
4. Human resource based theory which emphasizes the importance of human element in the process of strategic development of organization.
5. Agency theory stresses the underlying important relationship between the shareholders and the agent in ensuring the success of the organization.
6. Contingency theory draws the idea that there is no one or single best way or approach to manage organizations.
In short, during the process of strategy development, implementation and evaluation, these main strategic management theories will be applicable to management of organization as tools to assist in making strategic and guided managerial decision.

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Strategic management is a continuous process that evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which an organization is involved, evaluates its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors, and then reevaluates strategies on a regular basis to determine how it has been implemented and whether it was successful or does it needs replacement.

There are many steps in Strategic Management Process :

1: Develop a vision and translate it into a mission statement. Vision is an expression of what an entrepreneur stands for and believes in. A clearly defined vision is provides direction, determines decisions and motivates people. Addresses question “What business are we in?”. The mission is a written expression of how the company will reflect the owner’s values, beliefs, and vision. The company’s mission depicts its character, identity, and scope of operation in enough detail to distinguish the company in the marketplace.

2: Define core competencies and target market and identify desired market position. Company must define its set of core competencies that enable it to serve customers better than rivals. Core Competencies is a unique set of capabilities a company develops in key operational areas that allow it to vault past competitors.

3: Assess strengths and weaknesses. Strengths is the positive internal factors that contribute to accomplishing the mission, goals, and objectives. Weaknesses are the negative internal factors that inhibit the accomplishment of the mission, goals, and objectives.

4: Scan environment for opportunities and threats. An opportunity is the positive external factors the company can employ to accomplish its mission, goals, and objectives. Threats are the negative external factors that inhibit the firm’s ability to accomplish its mission, goals, and objectives.

5: Identify key success factors. Key success factors are the relationships between a controllable variable and a critical factor that influence a company’s ability to compete in the market. The keys to unlocking the secrets of competing successfully in a particular market segment.

6: Analyze competition. Analyzing key competitors allows an entrepreneur to avoid surprises from existing competitors’ new strategies and tactics. Identify potential new competitors and the threats they pose.  Improve reaction time to competitors’ actions. Anticipate rivals’ next strategic moves.

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KAPT NAGESWARAR PILLAI A/L VEERA VIJAYAN (MB1612212T)

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KAPT NAGESWARAR PILLAI A/L VEERA VIJAYAN (MB1612212T)

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In today’s world of rapid Globalization in the economies, communication and technologies entrepreneurs are increasingly being cited as the key players in recent hard-line business climate. Entrepreneurs or individuals who are able to concoct and support brilliant ideas with the correct blend of planning and research in addition to being outstanding team players equipped with crucial workplace knowledge and skills can be hard to come by. Being a successful entrepreneur requires a whole host of skills and business shrewdness. Running a business is difficult. Starting a business from scratch is even harder. The entrepreneurial journey is a rollercoaster, and in the beginning entrepreneur probably face more downs than ups.

Therefore, taking a risk can be essential to those key developments and achievements in the business world as its part of successful entrepreneurial traits. In such situations, there are about 15 entrepreneurial traits that are needed to become a successful entrepreneur based on the articles I retrieved from the online sites. However I would like to focus only on three which are the initiatives, persistency and commitment to work which I strongly believe enough to become a successful business entrepreneur.

First and foremost, I am sure to become an effective entrepreneur initiatives is essential. An entrepreneur needs to take initiative to begin something new. Innovative should be the key in moving forward the development of business. An entrepreneur should also be able to not wait until someone tells do whatever possible to achieve great success.

Next is the persistence. Persistency is another vital trait that is needed to become a great entrepreneur. Inevitably, any entrepreneur will encounter bumps in the road. For example, chances of losing big customers, good employees will leave company, and some may become competitors, the government will change regulations, usually making things more complex. However to succeed, an entrepreneur will have to be willing to persist through difficult times. Nothing can take the place of persistence and entrepreneurs can’t succeed without it.

Lastly, entrepreneurs must always be committed to work. Running a business is filled with challenges, and positive entrepreneurs are always prepared to make all sacrifices for honoring the commitments they have made. However, if entrepreneurs have the initiatives, willingness to persist, and work very hard, they will greatly improve their odds of success. Initiatives, persistence and hard work, these are the keys to success in business, but they are three important attributes no matter what the future endeavour is.

Retrieved from  http://www.publishyourarticles.net/knowledge-hub/entrepreneurship/15-important-entrepreneurial-traits-or-competencies/4459/

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Strategic Management is all about identification and description of the strategies that entrepreneurs can carry in order to achieve better performance and a competitive advantage for their organization. An organization is said to have competitive advantage if its profitability is higher than the average profitability for all companies in its industry.

Strategic planning process is a systematic or emerged way of performing strategic planning in the organization through initial assessment, thorough analysis, strategy formulation, its implementation and evaluation

There are many components of the process which are spread throughout strategic planning stages.

Initial Assessment

The starting point of the process is initial assessment of an organization. At this phase entrepreneur must clearly identify the organization’s vision and mission statements.

Situation Analysis

When the organization identifies its vision and mission it must assess its current situation in the market. This includes evaluating an organization’s external and internal environments and analyzing its competitors.

Strategy Formulation

Successful situation analysis is followed by creation of long-term objectives. Long-term objectives indicate goals that could improve the company’s competitive position in the long run.

Strategy Implementation

Even the best strategic plans must be implemented and only well executed strategies create competitive advantage for the organization.

Strategy Monitoring

Implementation must be monitored to be successful. Due to constantly changing external and internal conditions entrepreneurs must continuously review both environments as new strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats may arise. If new circumstances affect the company, entrepreneurs must take corrective actions as soon as possible.

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According to Barringer and Bluedorn (1999) , strategic planning is positively related to a firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO), a performance-influencing firm-level behavior that manifests across all of a firm's hierarchies and units (Wales et al., 2011). While empirical evidence largely confirms a positive association between strategic planning and Entrepreneur orientation.  Entrepreneurship  is a firm-level construct and as strategic planning sets the stage for subsequent action by influencing workplace conditions across all of a firm's hierarchies and units, the degree to which strategic planning influences EO is likely to depend on the degree to which employees accept strategic planning and their resulting behavior.  Apart from that,  firm-level construct that encompasses the dimensions of proactiveness, innovativeness, and risk-taking (Miller, 1983). Furthermore, it shows that Entrepreneurial Orientation improves firm performance largely by ensuring that the firm introduces ahead of its competition new products or services with the potential for substantial returns, thereby giving the firm first-mover advantage in targeting premium segments (Stam and Elfring, 2008).  Strategic planning consists of three dimension  which includes scanning the environment, setting goals, and analyzing the information gained .  Environmental scanning refers to top managers' systematically observing the environment to learn about new trends and other market participants' behaviors (e.g., product introductions from competitors) (Sleptsov and Anand, 2008), enabling firms to make decisions faster and more proactively than they could otherwise. The information stock obtained by environmental scanning strengthens a firm's Entrepreneurial orientation since it allows the firm to innovate in an informed and flexible manner ahead of its competition (Barringer and Bluedorn, 1999; Eisenhardt, 1989). By providing information on external conditions and making this information accessible to all employees, top management scanning also reduces uncertainty. This benefit is especially important to a firm's EO since developing and implementing entrepreneurial ideas require risk-taking and a firm-wide commitment (Wales et al., 2011), both of which are more likely when anxiety about new situations is reduced by means of useful information.For setting goals, entrepreneurial initiatives are unleashed when there is clear information about the direction in which top management is heading, so goal-setting provides a frame in which employees can be innovative, fostering the degree of firm-level EO . Last but not least,  the thoughtful analysis of information gained is the third element of top management's strategic planning. Firms with strong strategic planning skills tend to have written plans that are disseminated quickly and systematically, allowing for a structured discussion of issues that can lead to innovative ideas and new entrepreneurial efforts (De Clercq et al., 2010) Finally, by absorbing uncertainty and making the possible outcomes of actions more transparent by means of calculations, business modeling, or similar techniques, information provided by top management's strategic planning lowers the risk associated with entrepreneurial action.

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Strategic management is a process which determine whether an organization excels, survives, or dies. All organizations engage in the strategic management process either formally or informally.

According to Digman (1986), strategic management is a continuous process that involves attempts to match or fit the organization with its changing environment in the most advantageous way possible. The basic steps of the strategic management can be examined through the use of strategic management model.

Based on strategic planning model developed by Peter Wright, Charles Pringle and Mark Kroll (1994), strategic planning consists of few stages:

1. Analyse the environmental opportunities and threats.

2. Analyse the organization's internal strengths and weaknesses.

3. Establish the organizational direction: mission and goals.

4. Strategy formulation.

5. Strategy Implementation.

6. Strategic Control.

The model begins with an analysis of environmental opportunities and threats. The organization is affected by environmental forces; but the organization can also have an impact upon its environment. The organization's mission and goals are linked to the environment by a dual arrow. This means that the mission and goals are set in the context of environmental opportunities and threats. The next arrow depicts the idea that strategy formulation sets strategy implementation in motion. Specifically, strategy is implemented through the organization's structure, its leadership, and its culture. Then, the final downward arrow indicates that the actual strategic performance of the organization is evaluated. The control stage is demonstrated by the feedback line that connects strategic control to the other parts of the model.

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Strategic Management is the continuous planning, monitoring, analysis and assessment of all that is necessary for an organization to meet its goals and objectives.  An entrepreneur often desire to expand their business as one of their objectives.  The business dictionary define growth strategy as a strategy aimed at winning larger market share even at the expense of short-term earnings.  Four (4) broad growth strategies are Diversification, Product Development, Market Penetration and Market Development.  Why do entrepreneur need strategic growth? Growth is the only vehicle that will deliver returns to the investors like entrepreneurs.  Most companies have plan to grow their business and increase sales and profits.  The method an entrepreneur uses to expand its business is largely influenced by their financial situation, competition and even government regulations.  There are certain models or theories of strategic planning or growth planning process that can be consider as strategic growth method, giving entrepreneur path to achieve their goals thus strive for success.  SWOT analysis for example are often used during strategic planning.  Strengths and weaknesses often internal to an organization, while opportunities and threats generally relate to external factors.  SWOT Analysis is a simple but useful framework for analysing organization’s strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats that entrepreneurs may face.  It helps entrepreneur to focus on their strengths, minimize threats and take greatest possible advantage of opportunities available.  It can be used as a ‘kick off’ strategy formulation whenever entrepreneur intend to diversify their business.   By using the SWOT framework, entrepreneur can start to craft a strategy that helps them to distinguish themselves from their competitors, so that they can compete successfully in the market.

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To create an enterprise is not easy, it may take a long time to evolve and go different growth path depending on the strategic planning.

The purpose of strategic planning is to set overall goals and develop a plan to achieve them. According to Heizer and Render (2014), the first thing that entrepreneurs need to do is understand all the goals that they want to achieve. From the goals that have been listed, entrepreneurs must doing some analyses by using SWOT analysis; then organization positions themselves, through their strategy, so it has competitive advantage than the competitors.  A SWOT especially will provide an excellent model for evaluating strategy, that determining internal strengths and weakness and external opportunities and threats. For example in finding good suppliers, how to manage transportation with the low cost. Mission then reevaluated to ensure they are consistent with the SWOT analysis. Stating the reasons for the firm existence and identify the value it wishes to create. It called as determining the company mission. Then form a strategy with build a competitive advantage such as low price, design or volume flexibility, quality, and quick delivery or brand product lines.  The plan also needs to be implemented and this implementation requires planning, which monitoring the progress of the implementation plan and reviewing the strategic plan.

In conclusion, strategic planning help entrepreneurs to envision their business future over next three to five years and reduce the risk of doing business and also achieve company potential.

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Not only for business, but for a basic life, planning has been a fundamental part all the time. Therefore, having a strategic planning for a business startup will be crucial for it to become successful.

Strategic planning is defined as the helps that determines the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, matching its resources to its changing environment and, in particular, its markets, customers and clients, so as to meet stakeholder expectations.
(Johnson and Scholes, 1993)

Based on the theories which developed by Price Waterhouse back in 1980s, an Entrepreneur should always has his strategic management planning with a few steps, which are as below:
1) Situation Analysis - At the basic stage, the SWOT analysis can be utilized at this part
2) Future Direction - An entrepreneur has to have his own vision, set up the mission statement, thus move to the aim and objectives as the total planned actions guideline
3) Strategy Development - When developing the strategy, assessments of related field have to be done then proceed with the analysis like force-field analysis
4) Monitoring and Evaluation - After planning and action, review has become the most important part in order to keep everything right on the path. For example, a KPI can serve as measures when we assess the whole picture.

In conclusion, a strategic management planning can benefit the organization and the entrepreneur to make them be alert, "prepared" and attuned to the market and other external situations changed, thus react on time in order to achieve a greater height.

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According to Raduan, Jegak, Haslinda & Alimin (2009), strategic management is the process and approach of defining organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve it and allocating resources so as to implement the policies and plans.  In other words, strategic management can be seen as a combination of strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation (David, 2005; Haim Hilman Abdullah, 2005; Mohd Khairuddin Hashim, 2005; Zainal Abidin Mohamed, 2005).

The following is the theories of strategic management that are critical for entrepreneurs:-

1.   The profit-maximizing and competition-based theory
-  It was based on the notion that business organization main objective is to maximize long term profit and developing sustainable competitive advantage over competitive rivals in the external
market place
-  The basis of this theory views the organization external market positioning as the critical factor for attaining and sustaining competitive advantage
2.  The resource-based theory
-  This is done by evaluating the environmental opportunities and threats in conducting business, competitive advantage depends on the unique resources and capabilities that a firm possesses which then lead to superior firm performance
3.   The survival-based theory
-  the concept focus on that organization need to continuously adapt to its competitive environment in order to survive

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MB1612027T

According to Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson in 2001, Meyer, Neck, and Meeks in 2002, enterprises are forced to come out more entrepreneurial strategies in order to compete and survive due to increasing environmental dynamics and intensifying global competition.

Business portfolio models, such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix, McKinsey matrix can be useful strategic instruments. The ideal distribution of products within the portfolio can especially be interpreted as the optimal structure of the product line, as it shows opportunities and threats of each single product in relation to both the market share and the maturity of the market. Such analyses can reveal when a new product should be introduced into the market in order to rejuvenate the product line, and furthermore when measures need to be taken to boost a product into a market dominating position.

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MB 1612222T

According to Ennis, 1988, normally firms are owned by the entrepreneur who makes strategic decisions based on the pragmatic intuition than academic principles. But those who lack of planning within in a firm is recognized, the strategic awareness and personal commitment is viewed as having the potential to serve as a balancing.

STRATEGIC THINKING NOT JUST STRATEGIC PLANNING

Strategic management is a process within the entrepreneurial venture and its liked to triangle and comes with the key elements:

-          strategy

-          structure

-          resources

This strategic triangle mentioned in the strategic theories that suggest the need to maintain a good relationship between strategic direction and the organization’s structure (Chandler, 1962). Strategy do need to think about the position of the firm and the company product within the targeted marketing that required to use the creative to innovate the competitive advantage through differentiation (Porter, 1980). For resources to be a source of competitive advantage they should be of commercial value, not available to competitors, not easily substituted by customers and difficult for competitors to easily copy (Barney, 1986).

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Slide: Business Plan Preparation for New Ventures

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Slide: Business Plan Preparation for New Ventures

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Slide: Initiating and Creating Entrepreneurial Venture

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Slide: Initiating and Creating Entrepreneurial Venture

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According to Swayne, Duncan, and Ginter (2006), “strategic planning defines where the organization is going, and sometimes where it is not going, and provides focus”.

Whitcomb (2016) sees strategic planning as the process by which the guiding members of an organization envision its future and develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future.

Much of the literature on strategic planning focuses on the idea of a system or a process for planning. Authors commonly agree that this is as a very deliberate process that culminates in an explicit plan.

Drucker, one of the key proponents of this idea, suggests that the strategic planning should start with the mission of the organization. Kate Hinton agrees that while mission statement is technically not a part of the strategic plan, it provides a foundation for the strategic plan as everything contained in it must be aligned with the mission. (Hinton 2012).

Traditional strategic planning process components commonly cited in strategic planning literature e.g. Vinzant and Vinzant (1996), are:

Ø  goal setting

Ø  environmental scanning

Ø  employee participation

Ø  strategy formulation

Ø  allocation of resources and

Ø  implementation tactics.

According to Nadler (1994), for many organizations the true value of strategic planning lies in the process, not the plan. “Most plans have a tremendously fast rate of depreciation. By the time they’re printed and bound they’ve become obsolete. The value of planning is largely in the shared learning, the shared frame of reference, the shared context for those small decisions that get made over time.” Indeed, changes that influence a strategic plan may occur daily, and new ideas may surface once the plan is complete. A successful strategic plan enables providers to establish a consistent, articulated direction for the future. But it is also a living document that must be monitored and revised to meet anticipated and unanticipated needs of the organization and the market, whether changes occur in managed care, integrated delivery, healthcare reform, systems development, technological advances, or other arenas.

It is commonly agreed that strategic planning attempts to match an organization’s strengths with the opportunities that exist in the changing environment. Similarly, matching of the organization’s weaknesses with external threats can help organizations to anticipate future challenges and to develop strategies to protect against these challenges.

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There are a few models of strategic management developed by Thompson and Strickland. According to Thompson and Strickland, strategic management is an ongoing process and all decisions made are subject to future modification. Thompson and Strickland Model focuses on the relationships between the mission of the organization, its long-range and short-range objectives, and its strategy. Strategy of the firm is interconnected with how the objectives can be achieved. Strategic management process suggested by Thompson and Strickland consists of five major tasks:

1.      Developing a business concept and forming a vision of where the organization needs to be headed

2.      Converting the company’s mission into specific performance objectives

3.      Crafting a strategy to achieve the target performance

4.      Implementing the strategy efficiently and effectively

5.      Evaluating performance and reviewing the situation

Korey’s Model has proposed an integrated model of strategic management as well. This model incorporates planning and control functions, and describes short-range, medium, long-range planning. Interestingly, this model consists some aspects which are different from other models. For instances, development of education philosophy, planning studies, and feasibility studies. It consists of three phases:

1.      Preliminary analysis phase

2.      Strategic planning phase

3.      Strategic management phase

Sources: Ryszard Barnat, 2006

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Strategic management planning process involves developing a useful plan to guide entrepreneurs as their strive to accomplish their mission, goals, objectives, and to keep them on their desired course.

One example of a good strategic management planning process is the Balanced Scorecard. It is a strategy management framework that created by Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton. It takes into account the entrepreneur's objectives, measures, and initiatives.

This framework allows the entrepreneur answer the following question: Where we going? Solve this by creating a mission statement, change agenda, and strategy map. Are we there yet? Successfully examine targets and measures. How do we react? By managing initiatives, review, and revise as necessary.

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As acknowledged by previous studies of the entrepreneurial development process, creating an enterprise is not an event which occurs suddenly, but a process which may take years to evolve  and may go different growth path depending on the owner strategic planning.

Based on your readings, give examples of models or theories of strategic management/growth planning process that critical for entrepreneurs.