Strategic Planning in the Small Business

Unit I

HO

1-5 (continued)

Chapter

1 The Strategic Management Process

17

has four strategy-managing

levels: (I) the

president of the whole university

system

is a

strategy manager with broad

direction.setting responsibility

and strategic

decision-making

aithcrity over

all the campuses: (2) the

chancellor for each

campus customaily has strategy-making/strategy-implementing

authort. over all

academic, student.

athletic, and alumni matters

plus budgetary. programmatic

and coordinative

responsibilities for the whole

campus: (3) the academic deans

of

various colleges or schools

have lead responsibility for chartinp

future direction at

the college-level, steering

resources into some programs

and out of others, and

otherwise devising

a collegewide plan to fulfill

the college's teaching-research­

service mission;

and (4) the heads of various

academic departments %kithin

a

college or

school are strategy managers

with first-line strategy-making/strategy­

implementing

responsibility for

the department's unuergraduate

and graduate

program offerings,

faculty research efforts, and

all other activities relating

to the

department's

mission, objectives,

and future direction. In federal

and state gov­

ernment, heads of

local, district, and regional offices

function as strategy marag­

ers in their efforts to

be responsive to the specific

needs and situation, of the

geographical

area their office serves

(a district manager in Portland

rna. need a

slightly

different strategy than does

the district manager in Orlando).

In municipal

governments, hads of various

departments (police, fire,

v.ater and se" er. parks

and recreation,

health and so on) are strategy

managers because they have

line

authority

for the operations of their department

and thus can influence

departmen­

tal

objectives, the formation of a

strategy to achieve these objectives,

and how the

strategy is implemented.

Managerial

jobs with strategy-making/strategy-implementing

roles

are thus

commonplace. The ins and outs

of strategy formulation and

implementation are a

basic aspect of managing. noijust

something for top-level managers to deal with.

4

The Role and

Tasks of StrategIc Planners

If senior and

middle managers have lead

roles in strategy-making and

strategy­

implementing in their

areas of responsibility, what

do strategic planners do'? Is

there

a legitimate place in big

companies for a strategic planning

department

staffed with specialists in planning

and strategic analysis? The

answer is % es. 

But

the department's role

and tasks should consist chiefly

of helping to gather and

organize information

that strategy managers need.

establishing and administering

an annual strategy review cycle

whereby all strategy managers

reconsider and

refine their strategic

plans, and then coordinating

the process of reviewing

ar J

4 Since the scope

of a manager'% strategy-inaking/strategy-implemenling

role varies according

to the manager's position in the organ.zational

hierarch%. our use of 'he word

organt.atlon includes

whatever kind

of organizational unit the strategy manager

is in charge of-a entire company

or

not-for-profit

organization, a business unit

wiihin a diversified company. a major

geographic divi­

sion. an important

functional unit within abusiness,

or an operating depaitment or field unit

reporting to a specific

functional arca head. This way

we can avoid using the awkwa-d phrase

"the

organizatiin

or organizational ,uhunit" to indicate

the scope of a manager's strategy-making/strat­

egy-implementing

responsibilities. It should be clear

from the context of the discussion

whether the

subject applies only to the total entcrprise

or to most or all management levels.

92