Methodological foundations of strategic management in an enterprise. Prerequisites for the emergence of strategic management Stages of development of management systems and methods

Strategic planning is a specific type of planning in an enterprise, the scientific substantiation of which began quite recently. Strategic management can be represented, on the one hand, as an activity associated with the implementation of a set of actions aimed at forming one or more strategies, on the other hand, as a scientific discipline that develops methods, approaches, techniques for creating a strategy as a special type of planning documents, with the help of which the enterprise will be able to successfully carry out its business activities in the future. At the same time, the criterion for success, depending on the goals, specifics of production and the market environment of the enterprise, can be different indicators, for example, high efficiency and profitability, quick response to external changes, an acceptable level of innovation, etc.

The long-term evolution of management activities has shown not only the need, but also the possibility of strategic management of enterprise activities. It is widely believed that the main reason for the emergence of the theory of strategic management in an enterprise is the increasing level of instability external environment, which refers to the high speed and complexity of environmental factors, such as demand, technical equipment, technology, competitors, suppliers, etc. Its sharp growth in the last century led to the birth of a new concept for overcoming the difficulties and problems that were caused by increasing instability and, as a consequence, growth uncertainty, that is, the impossibility of accurately foreseeing (forecasting) future changes in environmental factors.

W. King and D. Cleland in the early 80s XX centuries have opined that “although much remains to be said about the accelerating pace of change in which modern organizations operate, the spirit of change has become an integral feature of the way of life, and this is recognized by most managers, at least in principle. Indeed, change in all areas of life has now become more rapid and commonplace, whereas in the past it was relatively slow and amazing when it was eventually realized. I. Ansoff notes that “compared to the current (post-industrial) dynamism, the problems of entrepreneurship in the industrial era may seem simple to an outside observer. The manager's attention was entirely concentrated on business affairs and the concerns of his own household. He had no shortage of people willing to work if he offered a reasonable fee and consumers were not picky. He was rarely bothered by issues such as customs tariffs, exchange rates, differences in inflation rates, cultural differences and policies taken to deny access to markets. Research and development was a managed tool for increasing production efficiency and improving product quality." Another scientist in the field of strategic management, M. Porter, emphasizes that “in recent decades, increased competition has been observed virtually all over the world. Not so long ago it was absent in many countries and industries. Markets were protected and dominant positions were clearly defined. And even where there was rivalry, it was not so fierce. The growth of competition was restrained by the direct intervention of governments and cartels."

Thus, dynamic changes have replaced the rather “comfortable” existence of industrial enterprises in the past with the problems of the post-industrial era, when outside the enterprise managers must constantly engage in intense competition, defending or increasing market share, anticipating customer requirements, ensuring high quality products, and maintaining high reputation, etc. Within the enterprise, they had to wage a tireless struggle to increase labor productivity through improved planning, more efficient organization, automation of production processes, etc. At the same time, it was necessary to simultaneously take into account the demands of workers and ensure an increase in labor productivity, maintain a competitive position in the market, pay dividends to shareholders at such a level as not to lose their confidence, and leave a sufficient amount of retained earnings to ensure production growth.

Regarding the nature of changes in the external environment of modern enterprises, the following can be noted:

an increase in the number of new management problems, many of which are fundamentally new and cannot be solved based on previously gained experience;
changes in required management skills and practices, including planning methods;
a variety of management tasks that become more complex, including due to the expansion of the geographical boundaries of economic activity;
increasing intellectual and psychological load on senior managers due to the complexity and novelty of tasks;
an increase in the likelihood of unexpected events for which management organizations must be prepared;
inconsistency of changes in the external environment, the presence of intermittent changes and, as a consequence, the unpredictability of the future.

The increasing instability of the external environment of industrial enterprises in Russia is easy to see. Essentially, the economic crisis in many industries since the early 90s of the 20th century was caused by nothing more than a sharp increase in the level of instability of the environment, while enterprise managers who worked in a planned economy were unable to adapt to working in conditions of sharply increased uncertainty and instability of the external environment. The management of the enterprises was not ready for such changes and did not even predict such a course of events. Increasing competition for managers of Russian organizations, firstly, required completely new management methods, and secondly, caused the need to change the management structure in market conditions. For neither the first nor the second, the management of former Soviet enterprises did not have a sufficient amount of knowledge, skills, and experience.

The lack of complete and accurate information and, as a consequence, uncertainty ended the period of relatively calm (stable and predictable) existence of Russian industrial enterprises in a planned economy. Currently, Russia is included in global economic processes, so in the future, managers of Russian enterprises expect only drastic changes caused by various reasons, including narrowing markets, increased competition with foreign companies, problems with the supply of raw materials, etc.

To some extent, confirmation of this fact is the assessment by the Federal State Statistics Service of factors limiting the business activity of organizations (Table 1.1).

To assess the level of instability, you can use the table. 1.2. To do this, it is necessary to assess the characteristics of the external environment that determine its instability.

Table 1.1

Assessment of factors limiting the business activity of organizations (as a percentage of the total number of base organizations)

Factors
Lack of funds
Insufficient demand for the organization’s products within the country
Economic uncertainty
Lack of proper equipment
High competition from foreign manufacturers
Insufficient demand for the organization’s products abroad

Scale and factors of instability

Table 1.2

If an enterprise concludes that there is a high level of instability in its external environment, then this will require an increase in the speed of reaction to external changes, the speed of information flow, the complication of organizational structures, etc. High instability (rate of change and increasing variety of environmental factors) and uncertainty of the external environment in a significant way will influence management decision-making, since the main role of managers is to respond in a timely manner to changes in environmental factors. These changes may not always be familiar (understandable) within the existing management experience, but also new (unusual, uncertain), such as the appearance Yu

introduction of new technologies, actions of foreign competitors, government regulations, etc.

The consequences of increasing instability of the external environment for an enterprise are expressed in the following:

the need to anticipate changes in environmental factors;
reducing the forecasting and planning horizon;
reducing the time for making management decisions;
searching for new management methods;
changing requirements for management personnel;
shortening the life cycle of competitive advantages and accelerating the creation of new competitive advantages;
changing the composition of planned indicators;
changing and improving communication channels;
using more complex organizational structures.

In this regard, the strategy is designed to overcome the consequences of increasing instability in the external environment and is therefore seen as a panacea for increasing instability and, as a consequence, the inability of managers to cope with rapid changes. It is obvious that managers would like clear decision-making algorithms in certain conditions, approaches to overcoming new complex and rapidly emerging problems, and see strategy as a means of survival in an unstable market environment, containing a description of algorithms and procedures for overcoming changes in the external environment. In addition, the strategy would make it possible to overcome organizational difficulties that arise in unstable conditions of the external environment and are associated with the fact that various divisions of the enterprise will develop in different directions, and this will lead to contradictions between divisions, and, accordingly, to a decrease in efficiency. For example, marketing will try to stimulate declining demand for an existing product, manufacturing will push for investment in the production of that product, design will focus on creating new products based on old technology, etc.

Nevertheless, the reasons for the emergence of strategic management should not be reduced only to the increasing instability and uncertainty of the external environment. The emergence of strategic management is also due to other objective factors that determine common approaches to solving problems, even if they are found in enterprises of different industries. These include:

the presence of identical (standard, similar) methods of making management decisions for a certain type of problem. Moreover, many problems are common and common for most enterprises operating, for example, in the same industry;
the dependence of most enterprises on a “standard” set of environmental factors (competitors, consumers, suppliers, etc.);
the presence of a limited and known number of competitive advantages for successful activities;
the effectiveness of an organization largely depends on the correct interaction of the main elements of the management system: management structure, culture, personal characteristics of managers, etc.;
using the same methods of forecasting, planning, and accounting to form a management information base;
application of the same methods for implementing management functions (organization, control, etc.);
application of the same accounting systems.

Thus, for each level of instability, taking into account industry specifics, it is possible to select a combination of management system elements that would allow optimizing the enterprise’s activities by developing a certain “scheme” of actions, rules, procedures, algorithms, fixed in the strategy. This is the fundamental function of strategy - standardization of the elements of this scheme in the form of a kind of “instruction” for making management decisions in predictable situations, which allows reducing the time for making decisions and increasing their effectiveness. Strategy as an instruction for decision-making allows you to ensure:

the correct choice of direction for future development among many, not always accurately and consciously perceived directions of development;
organizing staff activities for effective development in the chosen direction;
adequate response to changes in the internal and external environment of the enterprise;
solving short-term and long-term problems of the enterprise;
targeted acquisition of complete and reliable information about the internal and external environment of the enterprise;
coordinated work of the enterprise personnel;
creating the necessary competitive advantages;
development of long-term performance indicators of the enterprise (strategic indicators);
determining the list of necessary managerial qualities of managers for creating and implementing a strategy;
overcoming internal resistance to change, etc.

However, the implementation of strategy as instructions for making management decisions may encounter the following problems.

1. The problem of preparing initial information. At various stages of the strategic planning process and achievement of planned strategic indicators, as a rule, there are different degrees of completeness, detail and reliability of the initial information. In addition, it is not always possible to use all the information due to its inconsistency and the need to involve specialists to clarify or obtain additional information.
2. The problem of choosing the type of accounting, within the framework of which planned calculations will be carried out. The most common types of accounting with their historically different terminology and indicators are accounting, tax and economic (also operational, managerial, technical-economic and other) accounting. Terminological and conceptual differences in these accounts require choosing the most appropriate type of accounting for planning strategic indicators.
3. The problem of adequately taking into account the time factor. We are talking about the need to take into account lags of income and expenses, physical and moral wear and tear of fixed assets, features of the processes of developing input capacities, discounting payment flows, etc.
4. The problem of optimizing planned indicators. During strategic planning, individual strategic indicators need to be optimized. This makes it difficult to select optimization criteria.
5. The problem of legal substantiation of the strategy. Formally, legal issues are not relevant to assessing the economic feasibility of a strategy, including its effectiveness. However, without knowledge and understanding of the legal side of the organization’s relationship with other economic entities and government bodies, it is not possible to correctly calculate, for example, many planned cost indicators (the amount of income and expenses, market valuation of property, etc.). In particular, the assessment of efficiency is influenced by tax legislation, which makes it possible to choose a special tax regime, receive tax benefits, carry out tax optimization, etc.
6. The problem of accounting for non-standard situations. Since the future is unique, it is quite difficult to unify the organizational and economic conditions of future activities and, accordingly, the criteria for making the right decisions in the future.
7. The problem of achieving competitiveness. Competitiveness achieved through strategy implementation does not always lead to high profitability and operational efficiency. Competitiveness determines the presence of competitive advantages of an enterprise from the point of view of buyers who “vote” for this company by increasing demand, which allows increasing income. However, income growth does not always lead to profit and economic effect. In addition, competitiveness does not reduce the risk of activity, does not allow one to avoid resource shortages in the process of implementing the strategy, etc.

Solving these problems is the most important function of strategic management, but their solution is often limited by the amount of available information, so information is often used, the volume of which forces it to be called “weak signals”. For example, the amount of information about the emergence in the future of new technologies that may arise as a result of the latest fundamental scientific discoveries in the field of nanotechnology, about the development of the global crisis, etc. is extremely limited. As a rule, weak signals can be a source of new opportunities for an enterprise, therefore, at high levels of instability, it becomes necessary to prepare a solution even when weak signals are received from the external environment. The use of weak signals involves the creation of a management system that would receive information about them through constant monitoring of these signals, selecting those to which the organization should prepare a response.

In this regard, one should remember the phenomenon of bounded rationality, identified by G. Simon, who notes that both individuals and entire organizations are not able to cope with problems whose complexity exceeds a certain level. When this level is exceeded, managers are no longer able to understand what is happening around them or implement a rational strategy for the company. Lack of information (weak signal) reduces the completeness of perception of changes, which can cause ineffectiveness of strategic planning, since it does not prevent the emergence of “strategic surprises”, when a problem arises suddenly and contrary to expectations, poses new tasks that do not correspond to the past experience of the company, and, as a result, leads to a significant decrease in profits, income, etc.

Thus, both the initial data for developing a strategy and the indicators contained in the strategy (strategic indicators) cannot be determined completely correctly, which means they can be considered conditional, that is, achieving strategic indicators is possible upon the occurrence of planned conditions.

In particular, we can highlight the following factors that determine the conventionality of strategic indicators:

incompleteness or inaccuracy of information about the composition, values, mutual influence and dynamics of the most significant technical, technological or economic parameters of the internal and external environment;
errors and errors in parameter calculations caused by the forecasting and planning methods used;
excessive simplification when modeling complex technical or organizational and economic systems;
production and technological problems;
fluctuations in market conditions, prices, exchange rates, etc.;
legislative, political, social and other factors. The lack of sufficient information about the future leads to a situation of uncertainty regarding the assessment of the effectiveness and feasibility of the strategy. When some activity is planned to be carried out under conditions of uncertainty, then different options for the implementation of the future are always acceptable, more precisely, different conditions for the implementation of this activity, which are collectively called script.

The possibility of different future scenarios necessitates assessment risk, which is most often interpreted as the possibility of such conditions arising that will lead to negative consequences in the future (for example, leading to a decrease in profit, economic effect, deterioration in the financial condition of the enterprise, etc.). In strategic planning, risk can be characterized from both an objective and subjective point of view. Subjective The risk side is manifested in the fact that people perceive the same amount of economic risk differently due to differences in psychological, moral, ideological, religious principles, attitudes, etc. The assessment of the probability of future events is also subjective, since, as a rule, there is no frequency of occurrence of this event in the past. Objective the existence of risk is manifested in the fact that it reflects really existing phenomena, processes, aspects of life. Therefore, the strategy being developed must take into account these aspects of risk, as well as assume the occurrence of risk events, assess the consequences and provide measures to reduce them.

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Reasons for the emergence of strategic management.

The emergence of strategic management in Russia is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the operating environment of enterprises. This is due to a number of factors.

The first group of such factors is determined by global trends in the development of a market economy. These include: internationalization and globalization of business; the emergence of new unexpected business opportunities opened up by advances in science and technology; development of information networks that make lightning-fast dissemination and receipt of information possible; wide availability of modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition for resources; accelerating changes in the environment.

The second group of factors stems from those transformations in the economic management system in Russia that occurred during the transition to a market economic model and the mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries. As a result, the entire higher layer of management structures, which was busy collecting information, developing long-term strategies and directions for the development of individual industries and productions, was eliminated.

One can have different attitudes towards the already non-existent sectoral ministries and planning bodies, but it cannot be denied that they, having a powerful network of sectoral and departmental institutions, carried out almost the entire volume of work to develop promising directions for the development of enterprises, transformed them into promising current plans, which are from above communicated to the performers. The task of enterprise management was mainly to carry out operational functions to organize the implementation of tasks issued from above.

As a result of the rapid elimination of the upper layer of enterprise management, combined with privatization, when the state refused to manage the vast majority of enterprises, the management of associations and firms were automatically transferred to all functions that had previously been performed by higher authorities. Naturally, the management and internal organization of enterprises turned out to be in most cases unprepared for such activities.

The third group of factors is associated with the emergence of a huge number of economic structures of various forms of ownership, when a mass of workers unprepared for professional management activities entered the field of entrepreneurship, which predetermined the need for the latter to accelerate the assimilation of the theory and practice of strategic management.

The fourth group of factors, which is also of a purely Russian nature, is determined by the general socio-economic situation that developed during the transition period from a planned to a market economy. This situation is characterized by a decline in production, painful structural restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative phenomena. All this extremely complicates the activities of economic organizations and is accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies, etc. Naturally, what is happening in the country’s economy predetermines the need for increased attention to the problems of strategic management, which in turn should ensure the survival of enterprises in extreme conditions. It is no coincidence that a number of authors put forward the thesis that in such a situation one should speak first of all about a survival strategy and only then about a development strategy.

In such situations, the organization's traditional principles and experience are not adequate to take advantage of new opportunities and prevent hazards. If an organization does not have a unified strategy, then it is possible that its various divisions will develop heterogeneous, contradictory and ineffective solutions: the sales service will struggle to revive the previous demand for the company's products, production divisions will make capital investments in the automation of outdated production, and the R&D service will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, slow down the reorientation of the company and make its work irregular and ineffective. It may turn out that the reorientation began too late to guarantee the firm's survival.

Faced with such difficulties, the company must solve two extremely difficult problems: choosing the right direction of development from numerous alternatives and directing the efforts of the team in the right direction.

However, it should be noted that, along with obvious advantages, strategic management has a number of disadvantages and limitations on its use, which show that this type of management, like others, does not have universal application for solving any problems in any situations.

Firstly, strategic management, by its very nature, does not provide (and cannot provide) an accurate and detailed picture of the future. The future desired state of the organization, formed in strategic management, is not a detailed description of its internal and external position, but a wish for what state the organization should be in in the future, what position to occupy in the market and in business, what organizational culture to have, what business groups to join enter, etc. Moreover, all this together should determine whether the organization will survive or not survive competition in the future.

Secondly, strategic management cannot be reduced to a set of routine procedures and schemes. He does not have a descriptive theory that justifies what and how to do when solving certain problems or in specific situations. Strategic management is a specific philosophy or ideology of business and management, and each manager understands and implements it largely in his own way.

Of course, there are a number of recommendations, rules and logical schemes for analyzing problems and choosing a strategy, as well as strategic planning and practical implementation of strategy. However, in general, strategic management is a symbiosis of intuition and the art of top management to lead the organization towards strategic goals, high professionalism and creativity of employees, ensuring the connection of the organization with the environment, renewal of the organization and its products, as well as the implementation of current plans and, finally, the active inclusion of all employees in the implementation of the organization’s objectives, in the search for the best ways to achieve its goals.

Thirdly, enormous efforts and large expenditures of time and resources are required for the process of strategic management to begin in an organization. It is necessary to create and implement strategic planning, which is fundamentally different from the development of long-term plans that are binding in any conditions. The strategic plan must be flexible and responsive to changes within and outside the organization, which requires great effort and expense. It is also necessary to create services that study the external environment. Marketing services in modern conditions are acquiring exceptional importance and require significant additional costs.

Fourthly, the negative consequences of errors in strategic foresight are sharply increasing. In a situation where completely new products are created in a short time, new business opportunities suddenly arise and opportunities that have existed for many years disappear before our eyes. The price of retribution for incorrect foresight and, accordingly, for errors in strategic choice often becomes fatal for the organization. The consequences of an incorrect forecast are especially tragic for organizations that have no alternative way of functioning or implement a strategy that cannot be fundamentally adjusted.

Fifthly, when implementing strategic management, the main emphasis is often placed on strategic planning, while the most important component of strategic management is the implementation of the strategic plan. This involves, first of all, the creation of an organizational culture that allows the implementation of the strategy, systems of motivation and work organization, as well as a certain flexibility in the organization.

In strategic management, the execution process actively feeds back into planning, which further enhances the importance of the execution phase. Therefore, an organization, in principle, will not be able to move to strategic management, even if it has created a very good strategic planning subsystem, but there are no prerequisites or opportunities for creating a strategic execution subsystem.

The evolution of intra-company management systems makes it possible to understand that successive systems correspond to the growing level of instability (uncertainty) of the external environment. Since the beginning of the 20th century, two types of enterprise management systems have been developed: management based on control over execution (after the fact) and management based on extrapolation of the past. To date, two types of control systems have emerged:

The first is based on determining the position (management based on anticipating changes, when unexpected phenomena began to arise and the pace of change accelerated, but not so much that it was impossible to determine the reaction to them in time). This type includes: long-term and strategic planning; management through the choice of strategic positions;

The second is associated with a timely reaction, providing a response to rapid and unexpected changes in the environment (management based on flexible emergency solutions). This type includes: management based on the ranking of strategic objectives; control by strong and weak signals; management in the face of strategic surprises.

The choice of combinations of different systems for a particular enterprise depends on the environmental conditions in which it operates. The choice of a system for determining positions is determined by the novelty and complexity of the tasks. The choice of a timely response system depends on the pace of change and predictability of tasks. The synthesis and integration of these management systems make it possible to form a method of strategic management that most fully meets the conditions of flexibility and uncertainty of the external environment.

The emergence of strategic management in Russia is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the operating environment of enterprises. This is due to a number of factors. The first group of such factors is determined by global trends in the development of a market economy. These include: internationalization and globalization of business; the emergence of new unexpected business opportunities opened up by advances in science and technology; development of information networks that make lightning-fast dissemination and receipt of information possible; wide availability of modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition for resources; accelerating changes in the environment. The second group of factors stems from those transformations in the economic management system in Russia that occurred during the transition to a market economic model and the mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries. As a result, the entire higher layer of management structures, which was busy collecting information, developing long-term strategies and directions for the development of individual industries and productions, was eliminated. The third group of factors is associated with the emergence of a huge number of economic structures of various forms of ownership, when a mass of workers unprepared for professional management activities entered the field of entrepreneurship, which predetermined the need for the latter to accelerate the assimilation of the theory and practice of strategic management.

Recourse to strategy becomes vital when, for example, sudden changes occur in the firm's external environment. Their cause may be: saturation of demand; major changes in technology within or outside the firm; the unexpected emergence of numerous new competitors. In such situations, the organization's traditional principles and experience are not adequate to take advantage of new opportunities and prevent hazards. If an organization does not have a unified strategy, then it is possible that its various divisions will develop heterogeneous, contradictory and ineffective solutions: the sales service will struggle to revive the previous demand for the company's products, production divisions will make capital investments in the automation of outdated production, and the R&D service will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, slow down the reorientation of the company and make its work irregular and ineffective. It may turn out that the reorientation began too late to guarantee the firm's survival.

The emergence of strategic management is caused by objective reasons related to the increasing share of uncertainty and unpredictability of business conditions and the complexity of the external environment. The need for the survival and development of the organization in rapidly changing sociocultural and economic conditions required improvement and modification of management systems and methods.

Having analyzed the modification of management systems depending on the conditions of business activity in countries with market economies, the largest specialist in the field of strategic management I. Ansoff identified three main characteristics of environmental instability that influence these changes: the degree of familiarity of events, the pace of change and the predictability of the future. Each level of instability of the external environment corresponds to its own stage in the development of organizational management systems. Table 1 shows the main stages in the development of systems and methods of managing an organization.

Table 1

Stages of development of management systems and methods

Options	Control systems
Options	Based on control	Based on extrapolation	Based on anticipating change	Based on flexible emergency solutions
Organization management methods	Financial planning (budgeting)	Long-term planning	Strategic planning	Strategic management
Development period	Late 1950s			Early 1980s
Objectives of management methods	Execution of budget and production programs	Forecasting the future	Strategic Thinking	Using change to create opportunity
Management tasks	Cost management	Extrapolation of past trends and patterns	Anticipating changes in the environment	Timely response to external changes
Familiarity of events	Habitual	Within the limits of experience	Unexpected	Brand new
Predictability of the future	Repeating the past	Predictable by extrapolation	Partially predictable	Unpredictable
Pace of change	Slower than organizational response	Comparable to organizational response		Faster than the organization's response
	Cyclical			Real time
Management system efficiency
Characteristics of the external environment

1. Management based on control (budgeting). A feature of budgetary and financial methods is their short-term nature and internal focus. With this approach, the organization is considered as a closed system, and its goals and objectives are considered given and remain, like other operating conditions, quite stable for a long period of time. The management system under consideration is based on control over execution, which includes: labor management (standards and standards of labor processes), financial control, drawing up current budgets, profit planning, management by objectives, project planning. Since norms and standards are based on past experience, control actions are related more to the past than to the future of the company.

The first stage of development of management systems is associated with the preparation of financial plans (“development of budgets” - budgeting), which were limited only to annual financial estimates for items of expenditure for various purposes and current planning of production and economic activities. Budgets were compiled:

1) for each of the major production and economic functions (R&D, marketing, production, capital construction, etc.);

2) for individual structural units within the corporation (branches, factories, etc.).

Their main task was to manage costs. Similar plans and their modifications still serve today as the main tool for resource allocation, as well as intra-company control over current financial, production and economic activities.

2. Management based on extrapolation (long-term planning) can be considered as a reaction of firms to the accelerating pace of environmental change, when the firm's sales forecast can be predicted by analogy with established trends in the past.

The main mechanism for implementing this management system is long-term planning , which assumes that the future can be predicted by extrapolating historical development trends. Based on sales target figures, functional plans for production, marketing, and supply were determined. All plans were then aggregated into a single financial plan for the corporation.

In our country, this approach was known as the method of “planning from what has been achieved,” when production volumes were set from above, and not sales volumes. Just like in a market economy.

3. Management based on anticipating changes (strategic planning). A classic of management science, A. Fayol, noted: “to manage is to foresee, and to foresee is almost to act.” As the crisis grew and international competition intensified, forecasts based on extrapolation began to diverge more and more from real figures. In conditions of high levels of instability in the external environment and fierce competition, the only way to formally predict future problems and opportunities is strategic planning, the fundamental principle of which is to ensure the organization's adaptability to environmental changes.

The main difference between long-term and strategic planning is the interpretation of the future. In strategic planning there is no assumption that the future must necessarily be a repeat of the past. The initial principle of planning is changing - to go from the future to the present, and not from the past to the future.

In the strategic planning system, extrapolation is replaced by a detailed strategic analysis, which connects the development prospects and goals of the organization with each other to develop a strategy. In strategic analysis, special attention is paid to factors of macroeconomic development, socio-demographic factors, and the latest technological developments.

This approach involves the integration of financial and long-term plans into a strategic planning system, which sets two groups of tasks. Firstly, short-term, designed for the current implementation of programs and budgets, guiding the operational divisions of the organization in their daily work. Another group of tasks are strategic ones, which lay the foundations for future profitability. Such tasks do not fit well into the system of current operations and require a separate execution system built on project management. The strategic execution system also requires a separate, special control system.

4. Management based on flexible emergency solutions (strategic management). According to the President IVM F. Carey, this is a system “oriented towards the market of tomorrow.”

Management systems based on long-term and strategic planning have proven unsuitable for responding to events that are partly predictable, but develop too quickly to allow the necessary strategic decisions to be prepared in advance and made in a timely manner. In situations of instability, “anything can happen at any time.”

To cope with rapidly changing tasks, it is necessary to use a control system associated not so much with determining the position (long-term and strategic planning), how many with timely response in real time to rapid and unexpected changes in the organization's environment. Essentially, we are talking about strategic management as the most advanced stage of strategic planning, which, in turn, constitutes its essential basis. “Strategic planning is management according to plans, and strategic management is management according to results” (I. Ansoff).

Strategic management is a set of strategic management decisions that determine the long-term development of the organization, and specific actions that ensure the organization’s rapid response to changes in external factors, which may entail the need to revise goals and adjust the general direction of development.

Thus, strategic management is characterized by the following factors:

quick dual reaction to changes in the external environment - long-term and operational at the same time (long-term is included in strategic plans, operational is implemented outside the planning cycle in real time);

strategic management considers not only ways to adapt to the external environment, but also ways to change it (the management process must be proactive);

strategic management includes elements of all previous management systems.

Management

The emergence of strategic management is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the operating environment of enterprises. Let us consider the main groups of factors that changed this environment.

The first group of factors is determined by global trends in the development of a market economy. These include: internationalization and globalization of business; the emergence of new unexpected business opportunities opened up by advances in science and technology; the development of information networks makes it possible to disseminate and receive information at lightning speed; wide availability of modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition;sa resources; accelerating changes in the environment.

The second group of factors is a consequence of the transformations in the Russian economic management system that occurred during the transition to a market economic model and the mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries. As a result, the upper layer of management structures, which was busy collecting information, developing a long-term strategy and determining directions for the development of individual industries and productions, was eliminated. One can have different attitudes towards the already non-existent sectoral ministries and planning bodies, but 1 it cannot be denied that the latter, having a powerful network of sectoral and departmental institutions, carried out almost the entire volume of work on developing promising directions for the development of enterprises, transformed them into promising current plans, which were communicated from above to the performers. The task of enterprise management was to carry out operational functions to organize the implementation of these tasks.

As a result of the rapid elimination of this upper layer of management, combined with privatization, when the state refused to manage the vast majority of enterprises, the management of associations and firms were automatically transferred to all functions that had previously been performed by higher authorities. Naturally, the mentality of managers and the entire internal organization of enterprises turned out to be, in most cases, unprepared for this type of activity.

The third group of factors changing the operating environment of enterprises is associated with the emergence of a huge number of economic entities of various forms of ownership. A large number of workers entered the field of entrepreneurship, mostly unprepared for professional management activities. This necessitated their accelerated mastery of the theory and practice of strategic management.

The fourth group of factors, which is also of a purely Russian nature, is determined by the general socio-economic situation of the period of transition from a planned economy to a market one. A landslide decline in production, a radical structural restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative factors - all this extremely complicates the activities of economic organizations, regardless of their form of ownership, and is accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies and other negative phenomena.

From all this it follows that increased attention to the problems of strategic management can and should ensure the functioning of enterprises in extreme conditions. It is no coincidence that some experts put forward the thesis that in such a situation one should speak first of all about a survival strategy, and only then about strategy.

That is why the question is important: when exactly does turning to strategy become vital? One of these conditions is the occurrence of sudden changes in the external environment of the company. Their cause may be: saturation of demand, major changes in technology inside or outside the company, the unexpected emergence of numerous new competitors, etc.

In such situations, the organization's traditional principles and experience do not contribute to solving the problems of taking advantage of new opportunities and do not ensure the prevention of dangers. If an organization does not have a unified strategy, then it is possible that different departments will develop heterogeneous, contradictory and ineffective solutions. The sales service will fight to revive the previous demand for the company's products, the production departments will make capital investments in the automation of outdated production, and the R&D service will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, delay the reorientation of the company and make its work irregular and ineffective. It may turn out that the reorientation began too late to guarantee the survival of the enterprise.

When faced with such a situation, a firm must solve two extremely difficult problems:

Select the desired growth planning from several options;

Direct the team's efforts in the right direction.

Along with obvious advantages, strategic management has a number of disadvantages and limitations on its use. Thus, this type of control, like all others, does not have universality for use in all situations when solving any problems.

Strategic management, by its very nature, does not, and cannot, provide an accurate and detailed picture. The picture of the future desired state of the organization formed in strategic management is not a detailed description of its internal and external position, but rather a qualitative wish for anyone, what the organization should become after some time, what position it should occupy in the market and in business, what organizational culture it should have. , which business groups belong to, etc. Together, this should determine whether the organization will survive or not survive competition in the future.

This type of management cannot be reduced to a set of routine procedures and schemes. He does not have a descriptive theory that prescribes what and how to do when solving certain problems or in specific situations.

Strategic management- it is rather a certain philosophy or business ideology and management. And each individual manager understands and implements it largely in his own way. Of course, there are a number of recommendations, rules and logical schemes for analyzing problems and choosing a strategy, as well as for carrying out strategic planning and practical implementation of the strategy. However, in general, strategic management is a symbiosis of intuition and art with which management must lead the organization towards strategic goals; this is the high professionalism and creativity of employees, ensuring the connection of the organization with the environment, updating the organization and its products, implementing current plans and, finally, the active inclusion of all employees in the process of finding the best ways to achieve the goals of the organization or company.

It takes enormous effort, a lot of time and resources to introduce strategic management into an organization. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to organize strategic planning, which in itself is fundamentally different from the development of long-term plans that are binding in any conditions. The strategic plan must be flexible, it must respond to changes inside and outside the organization, and this requires a lot of effort and great expense. It is also necessary to create services that monitor the environment and the organization's inclusion in the environment. Marketing, public relations services, etc. acquire exceptional importance and require significant additional costs.

The negative consequences of errors in strategic foresight are sharply increasing. In conditions when completely new products are created in a short time, when new business opportunities unexpectedly arise and opportunities that have existed for many years disappear before our eyes, the very existence of the organization often becomes the price for incorrect foresight and, accordingly, errors in strategic choice. The consequences of an incorrect forecast are especially tragic for organizations pursuing a non-alternative path of development or implementing a strategy that cannot be fundamentally adjusted.

When implementing strategic management, the main emphasis is often placed on strategic planning. In fact, the most important component of strategic management is the implementation of the strategic plan. It is especially important here to create an organizational culture that allows you to implement! strategy, build a system of motivation and work organization, I have a certain flexibility in the organization, etc. In this case, with strategic management, the execution process has an active feedback influence on planning, which only enhances the importance of the execution phase. Therefore, the organization that has let! even a very good strategic planning subsystem, but one that does not have the prerequisites or capabilities for creating a strategic execution subsystem, in principle will not be able to move on to strategic management.

The evolution of intra-company management systems makes it possible to understand that successive systems correspond to the current level of instability (uncertainty) of the external Environment. Since the beginning of the century, two types of enterprise management systems have been developed: management based on control over execution (after the fact) and management based on extrapolation of the past.

To date, two types of control systems have emerged.

The first type is based on position definition. Management based on the anticipation of change, when unexpected phenomena began to arise and the pace of change accelerated, but not so much that it was impossible to determine the reaction to them in time. This type includes long-term and strategic planning, management through the selection of strategic positions.

The second type is associated with a timely reaction that responds to rapid and unexpected changes in the environment; management is based on flexible emergency solutions. This type includes management based on the ranking of strategic objectives, management based on strong and weak signals, and management in the face of strategic surprises.

The choice of a combination of different systems for a particular enterprise depends on the environmental conditions in which it operates. The choice of a system for determining positions is determined by the novelty and complexity of the tasks. The choice of a timely response system depends on the pace of change and predictability of tasks. The synthesis of these management systems allows us to formulate a strategic management method that most fully meets the conditions of flexibility and uncertainty of the external environment.

Control questions

1. Name the main reasons and factors that determined the increasing role of strategic management.

2. Formulate the basic definitions of the concepts “strategy” and “strategic management”.

3. What are the differences between operational and strategic management?

4. What are the main difficulties in implementing strategic management?

5. Name the main levels of strategic management.

6. Give a general description of the strategy.

7. What are the features of the strategy of individual business units?

8. Name the main types of functional strategies.