Functional strategies

Examples of Functional strategies in the following topics:

• Strategic Business Units

  • Functional strategies include marketing strategies, new product development strategies, human resource strategies, financial strategies, legal strategies, supply-chain strategies, and information technology management strategies.
  • The emphasis is on short-term and medium-term plans and is limited to the domain of each department's functional responsibility.
  • Each functional department attempts to do its part in meeting overall corporate objectives, so to some extent their strategies are derived from broader corporate strategies.
  • The degree to which an SBU shares functional programs and facilities with other SBUs
  • Diagram the role and functionality of a strategic business unit (SBU)

• Overview of Inputs to Strategic Planning

  • Under the broad corporate strategy are business-level competitive strategies and functional unit strategies.
  • Corporate strategy refers to the overarching strategy of the diversified firm.
  • Functional strategies include marketing strategies, new-product development strategies, human resource strategies, financial strategies, legal strategies, supply-chain strategies, and information-technology management strategies.
  • The emphasis is on short-term and medium-term plans and is limited to the domain of each department's functional responsibility.
  • Each functional department attempts to do its part to meet overall corporate objectives, so to some extent their strategies are derived from broader corporate strategies.

• Functional vs. General Management

  • Functional managers are most common in larger organizations with many moving parts, where different business functions are led by managers within those respective fields (i.e. marketing, finance, etc.).
  • Besides the heads of a firm's product and/or geographic units, the company's top management team typically consists of several functional heads (such as the chief financial officer, the chief operating officer, and the chief strategy officer).
  • Functional managers have ongoing responsibilities and are not usually directly affiliated with project teams, other than ensuring that goals and objectives are aligned with the organization's overall strategy and vision.
  • McDonald's has functional managers at the corporate level who discuss advertising strategies, assess financials, discuss expansion, and so forth.
  • Each functional manager is in control of a particular area of expertise—e.g., operations or policy and planning—and the general manager supervises all the functional managers.

• Differences Between Strategic Planning at Small Versus Large Firms

  • The effectiveness of a strategy is heavily dependent upon the size of the organization.
  • Large firms such as McDonald's often achieve better scale economies and thus can pursue low-cost strategies.
  • This requires enormous managerial competency with meticulously crafted strategies at various levels in the organization (including corporate, functional, and regional).
  • In most cases, low-cost strategies require substantial economies of scale.
  • This image is an example of a strategy map that organizes a firm's stakeholder interests.

• The Importance of Strategy

  • The company strategy must constantly be edited and improved to move in conjunction with the demands of the external environment.
  • The implications of the selected strategy are also highly important.
  • Strategic management is the art, science, and craft of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives.
  • Strategic management seeks to coordinate and integrate the activities of a company's various functional areas in order to achieve long-term organizational objectives.
  • This strategy map illustrates an example of how product improvements are designed and implemented.

• One of three strategic functions

  • Operations is one of the three strategic functions of any organization.
  • The operations strategy should support the overall organization strategy.
  • Given JetBlue's organization strategy, JetBlue features an operations strategy that focuses on low costs, competent and service-oriented employees, and reliable aircraft.
  • JetBlue's operations strategy is driven by its organization strategy.
  • In addition to an operations strategy, JetBlue also has financial and marketing strategies that support its organization strategy.

• Advertising Strategy v. Creative Strategy

• Teaching for Conceptual Change

  • Because learners have relied on these existing notions to understand and function in their world, they may not easily discard their ideas and adopt a new way of thinking.
  • Cognitive conflict strategies, derived from a Piagetian constructivist view of learning, are effective tools in teaching for conceptual change (Duit, 1999).
  • These strategies involve creating situations where learners' existing conceptions about particular phenomena or topics are made explicit and then directly challenged in order to create a state of cognitive conflict or disequilibrium.
  • Cognitive conflict strategies are aligned with Posner et al.' s theory of conceptual change in that their common goal is to create the four conditions necessary for conceptual change.

• Forecasting

  • While both are managerial functions, forecasting is rife with external uncertainty while planning is hindered by internal uncertainty.
  • Forecasting plays a role in the implementation of policies and strategies.
  • As the management team implements the broader strategy, it must continuously monitor the current environment for deviations and use forecasting to adapt both the primary strategy and contingency plans for potential shifts.
  • To summarize, forecasts enable businesses to prepare new strategies or reinforce the existing strategy, based upon the projections made.
  • Demonstrate the value and role of effective forecasting in the development of successful strategies

• Self-Regulation and Volition

  • Teacher leads students through a 20-item quiz requiring identification and classification of more effective strategies.
  • Using written scenarios, small groups of students role play more effective strategies for handling distractions.Peer audience evaluates actors' strategies.
  • Self-regulation is not a fixed characteristic of learners.Employing appropriate strategies can help learners to develop self-regulation and volition to learn.Zimmerman (1998) designed a table to compare experts' methods of self-regulation across different disciplines.Familiarity with these self-regulated methods is not only useful in learning, but once mastered, the techniques can be useful throughout life to function effectively in informal contexts.
  • v=bwyFmGdktmM) for a short video that clarifies the different strategies.
  • The strategies are prefaced with a brief definition of the strategies being used and followed by Janice verbalizing her thoughts.