Causes of strategic Causes and essence of the concept of strategic management. Based on anticipation of change

emergence strategic management in Russia is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the environment for the activities of enterprises. This is due to the action of a number of factors. The first group of such factors is due to 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 the achievements of science and technology; the development of information networks that make it possible for lightning-fast dissemination and receipt of information; wide availability modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition for resources; accelerating change in environment. The second group of factors stems from those transformations in the system of economic management in Russia that took place in the process of transition to a market economy model, mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries. As a result, the entire higher layer of management structures, which was busy collecting information, developing a long-term strategy and directions for the development of individual industries and industries, 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 people unprepared for a professional career came to the sphere of entrepreneurship. management activities workers, which predetermined the need for accelerated assimilation by the latter of the theory and practice of strategic management.

The fourth group of factors, which is also of a purely Russian nature, is due to the general socio-economic situation that has developed during the transition period from planned to market economy. This situation is characterized by a decline in production, painful restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative phenomena. All this extremely complicates the activity of economic organizations and is accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies, and so on. Naturally, what is happening in the country's economy predetermines the need for increased attention to the problems 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.

Recourse to strategy becomes vital when, for example, there are sudden changes in the firm's external environment. Their cause may be: saturation of demand; major changes in technology inside or outside the firm; the sudden emergence of numerous new competitors. In such situations, the traditional principles and experience of the organization do not correspond to the tasks of using new opportunities and do not provide for the prevention of dangers. If an organization does not have a unified strategy, then it is possible that its various departments will develop heterogeneous, contradictory and inefficient solutions: the sales department will struggle to revive the former demand for the company's products, the production departments will make capital investments in the automation of aging industries, and the R&D department will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, slow down the reorientation of the firm and make its work irregular and inefficient. It may turn out that the reorientation started too late to guarantee the firm's survival.

The emergence of strategic management is caused by objective reasons arising from changes in the nature of the environment for the activities of enterprises. This is due to the action of a number of factors. Let's consider the main ones. First group such factors due to 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 the achievements of science and technology; the development of information networks that make it possible for lightning-fast dissemination and receipt of information; wide availability of modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition for resources; accelerating environmental change.

Second group factors stems from those transformations in the system of economic management in Russia that took place in the process of transition to a market economy model, mass privatization of enterprises in almost all industries. As a result, the entire higher layer of management structures, which was busy collecting information, developing a long-term strategy and directions for the development of individual industries and industries, was eliminated. You can have different attitudes towards the already non-existent sectoral ministries, planning bodies, but it cannot be denied that the latter, having a powerful network of sectoral and departmental institutions, carried out almost the entire amount of work on the development of promising directions for the development of enterprises, transformed them into promising current plans, which from above brought to the attention of the performers. The task of the management of enterprises was mainly to carry out operational functions to organize the fulfillment of tasks lowered from above.

As a result of the rapid elimination of this upper layer of enterprise management, combined with privatization, when the state refused to manage the vast majority of enterprises, all functions that were previously performed by higher bodies were automatically transferred to the management of associations and firms. Naturally, the mentality of leadership, all internal organization enterprises were in most cases unprepared for this kind of activity.

The third group of reasons the importance of strategic management in present stage associated with the emergence of a huge number of economic structures of various forms of ownership, when the sphere of entrepreneurship came a large number of for the most part unprepared for professional management activities of workers, which predetermined the need for accelerated assimilation of the theory and practice of strategic management by the latter.

Fourth group of factors, which is also purely Russian in nature, is due to the general socio-economic situation that has developed in the transition period from a planned to a market economy. This situation is characterized, as is well known, by a massive decline in production, a painful restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative factors. All this, regardless of the form of ownership, extremely complicates the activities of economic organizations, is accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies and other negative phenomena. Naturally, this 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 strategy.

In this regard, an important question seems to be when exactly the appeal to the strategy becomes vital. One of these conditions is the occurrence of sudden changes in the external environment of the firm. They can be caused by saturation of demand, major changes in technology inside or outside the firm, or the sudden emergence of numerous new competitors.

In such situations, the traditional principles and experience of the organization do not correspond to the tasks of using new opportunities and do not provide for the prevention of hazards. 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 department will fight to revive the old demand for the company's products, the production departments will make capital investments in the automation of aging industries, and the R&D department will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, delay the firm's reorientation, and make it unrhythmic and inefficient. It may turn out that the reorientation started too late to guarantee the firm's survival.

Faced with such complexities, the firm must solve two extremely difficult problems: to choose the right growth planning from numerous alternatives and to direct the efforts of the team in the right direction.

Along with obvious advantages, strategic management has a number of disadvantages and limitations on its use, which indicate that this type of management, like all others, does not have the universality of application in all situations to solve any problems.

First, strategic management, by its very nature, does not, and indeed cannot, give an accurate and detailed picture of the future. The future desired state of the organization formed in strategic management is not detailed description its internal and external position, but rather a qualitative wish for the state in which the organization should be in the future, what position to take in the market and in business, what organizational culture to have, which business groups etc. At the same time, all this together should be what will determine whether the organization will survive or not in the future in the competitive struggle.

Secondly, strategic 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 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 logic diagrams for analyzing problems and choosing a strategy, as well as implementing strategic planning and practical implementation of the strategy. However, in general strategic management is a symbiosis of intuition and the art of top management to lead the organization to strategic goals, high professionalism and creativity of employees, ensuring the connection of the organization with the environment, updating the organization and its products, as well as the implementation current plans and, finally, the active involvement of all employees in the implementation of the tasks of the organization, in the search for the best ways to achieve its goals.

Thirdly, huge efforts and large investments of time and resources are required in order for the organization to begin the process of strategic management. It is necessary to create and implement strategic planning, which is fundamentally different from the development of long-term plans that are binding under 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 a lot of money. It is also necessary to create services that monitor the environment and include the organization in the environment. Marketing, public relations services, etc. acquire exceptional significance and require significant additional costs.

Fourth, there is a sharp increase Negative consequences errors of strategic foresight. In an environment where completely new products are being created in a short time, when unexpected new opportunities Opportunities that have existed for many years are disappearing before our eyes, the price of retribution for incorrect foresight and, accordingly, for mistakes in strategic choice often becomes fatal for the organization. Especially tragic are the consequences of an incorrect forecast for organizations that carry out an uncontested way of functioning or that implement a strategy that cannot be fundamentally corrected.

Fifth, in the implementation of 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. And this implies, first of all, the creation organizational culture, allowing to implement a strategy, systems of motivation and organization of work, a certain flexibility in the organization, etc. At the same time, strategic management execution process has an active feedback effect on planning, which further enhances the significance of the execution phase. Therefore, an organization, in principle, will not be able to move to strategic management if it has a strategic planning subsystem, even if it is very good, and 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 a growing level of instability (uncertainty) external environment. Since the beginning of the century, two types of enterprise management systems have been developed: management based on control over execution (post factum) and management based on extrapolation of the past. To date, two types of control systems have developed:

The first, based on positioning (management based on 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 choice of strategic positions;

The second is related to timely response, giving 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.

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

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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 environment for the activities of enterprises. This is due to the action of a number of factors.

The first group of such factors is due to 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 the achievements of science and technology; the development of information networks that make it possible for lightning-fast dissemination and receipt of information; wide availability of modern technologies; changing role of human resources; increased competition for resources; accelerating environmental change.

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

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

As a result of the rapid liquidation of the top layer of enterprise management, combined with privatization, when the state refused to manage the vast majority of enterprises, all functions that were previously performed by higher bodies were automatically transferred to the management of associations and firms. 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 came into the business sphere, which predetermined the need for accelerated assimilation by the latter of the theory and practice of strategic management.

The fourth group of factors, which is also of a purely Russian nature, is due to the general socio-economic situation that has developed in the transition period from a planned to a market economy. This situation is characterized by a decline in production, painful restructuring of the economy, massive non-payments, inflation, growing unemployment and other negative phenomena. All this extremely complicates the activity of economic organizations and is accompanied by a growing wave of bankruptcies, and so on. 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.

Recourse to strategy becomes vital when, for example, there are sudden changes in the firm's external environment. Their cause may be: saturation of demand; major changes in technology inside or outside the firm; the sudden emergence of numerous new competitors.

In such situations, the traditional principles and experience of the organization do not correspond to the tasks of using new opportunities and do not provide for the prevention of dangers. If an organization does not have a unified strategy, then it is possible that its various departments will develop heterogeneous, contradictory and inefficient solutions: the sales department will struggle to revive the previous demand for the company's products, the production departments will make capital investments in the automation of aging industries, and the R&D department will develop new products based on old technology. This will lead to conflicts, slow down the reorientation of the firm and make its work irregular and inefficient. It may turn out that the reorientation started too late to guarantee the firm's survival.

Faced with such difficulties, the firm must solve two extremely difficult problems: to choose the right direction of development from numerous alternatives and to direct 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.

First, strategic management, by its very nature, does not (and cannot) give 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 of 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, in which business groups go in etc. . And all this together should determine whether the organization will survive or not in the future in the competitive struggle.

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 certain philosophy or ideology of business and management, and each manager understands and implements it to a large extent in his own way.

Of course, there are a number of guidelines, rules and logics for problem analysis and strategy selection, as well as strategic planning and strategy implementation. However, in general, strategic management is a symbiosis of intuition and the art of top management to lead the organization to strategic goals, high professionalism and creativity of employees, ensuring the connection of the organization with the environment, updating 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 tasks of the organization, in the search for the best ways to achieve its goals.

Thirdly, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of time and resources to start the process of strategic management 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 mandatory for execution in any conditions. The strategic plan must be flexible, responsive to changes within and outside the organization, which requires great effort and high costs. It is also necessary to create services that study the external environment. Marketing Services in modern conditions acquire exceptional significance and require significant additional costs.

Fourth, the negative consequences of mistakes in strategic foresight are sharply increasing. In a situation where completely new products are being created in a short time, new business opportunities suddenly appear and opportunities that have existed for many years disappear before our eyes. The price of retribution for incorrect foresight and, accordingly, for mistakes in strategic choice becomes often fatal for the organization. Especially tragic are the consequences of an incorrect forecast for organizations that carry out an uncontested way of functioning or implement a strategy that cannot be fundamentally corrected.

Fifth, in the implementation of 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 implies, first of all, the creation of an organizational culture that allows the implementation of a strategy, systems of motivation and work organization, as well as a certain flexibility in the organization.

In strategic management, the execution process has an active feedback on planning, which further enhances the significance of the execution phase. Therefore, an organization, in principle, will not be able to move to strategic management, even if it has 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 a 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 (post factum) and management based on extrapolation of the past. To date, two types of control systems have developed:

The first is based on positioning (management based on 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 choice of strategic positions;

The second one is connected with a timely reaction, giving 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 conditions of the environment in which it operates. The choice of a system for determining positions is due to the novelty and complexity of the tasks. The choice of a timely response system depends on the pace of change and the predictability of tasks. The synthesis and integration of these management systems make it possible to form a strategic management method that most fully meets the conditions of flexibility and uncertainty of the external environment.

Strategic management - the process of development, adoption and implementation strategic decisions, the central link of which is a strategic choice based on a comparison of the enterprise's own resource potential with the opportunities and threats of the external environment.
The core of strategic management is a system of strategies that includes a number of interrelated specific business, organizational and labor strategies. A strategy is a pre-planned response of an organization to a change in the external environment, a line of its behavior chosen to achieve the desired result.

The emergence and practical use of strategic management as an organization management system is caused by objective reasons arising from the nature of changes in the conditions for the activities of organizations.

There are four stages in the development of organization management systems associated with a certain level of instability of the external environment.

1. Management based on control - this rather simple system was an important step in the development of the formalized aspect of the management of the organization. It allows for a slow reaction of the firm, which is justified with a gradual change in the external environment.

The management system under consideration is based on performance control, which includes: labor management (norms and standards of labor processes), financial control, current budgeting, profit planning, goal management, project planning. Since norms and standards are based on past experience, control actions are more related to the past than to the future of the firm.

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

The first stage in the formation of management systems in our country falls on the relatively stable development of the socialist economy, which was typical until about the beginning of the 1960s. XX century.

2. Management based on extrapolation can be seen as the response of firms to the acceleration of the pace of environmental change, when the future can still be predicted by analogy with past trends.

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.

Long-range planning (long-range planning) was the original function of corporate planning for the development of the company in the external environment. This approach became possible due to the emergence of economic and mathematical methods in planning.
and management.

Management based on extrapolation has played a positive role at a certain historical stage in the development of the economy, both market and planned.

3. Management based on the foresight of change is the organization's response to the emergence of new sources of change and unexpected phenomena that have the nature of their origin in the external environment, when the pace of change has accelerated, but not so much that it was impossible to foresee future trends in time and determine the reaction to them by developing an appropriate strategy. Here, when building a management system for an organization, the tasks of predicting possible situations come to the fore.

In conditions of a high level of instability in the external environment, the only way to formally predict future problems and opportunities is strategic planning, fundamental principle which - ensuring the adaptability of the organization to environmental changes.

4. Management based on flexible emergency solutions is a management system that is currently being developed in an environment where many important tasks, characterized by novelty and complexity, arise so rapidly that it is impossible to foresee them in time. According to IBM President F. Carey, this is a system "focused on the market of tomorrow."

To cope with rapidly changing tasks, it is necessary to apply a management system related not so much to positioning (long-term and strategic planning), but to timely response in real time to rapid and unexpected changes in the environment of the organization. In fact, we are talking about strategic management as the most advanced stage of strategic planning, which, in turn, forms its essential basis.

Thus, it can be considered that the strategic management system consists of two complementary subsystems: planning and analysis of the organization's strategy, as well as managing strategic problems in real time.

Ensuring the progressive development of society is impossible without effective management of the socio-economic processes and phenomena taking place in it.

Management in social systems is always ambivalent. On the one hand, it is a function of the production process itself and consists in coordinating the activities of people in time and space in a specific economic, social, legal, political and technological environment. it organizational and technical control side. On the other hand, management is a function of ownership of the means of production, since the organization of a joint labor activity is carried out by the owner of these funds or, on his behalf, by professional managers - managers. And this socio-economic the side of management, which consists in a conscious, planned and purposeful impact on the part of subjects, management bodies on people and economic objects in order to direct their actions and obtain the desired results in changing environmental conditions.

Being the core of social development, a modern enterprise is a socio-economic system with a rather complex production, technological and organizational structure. This system is characterized by a set of relationships with the external environment. Obviously, with such an approach to the enterprise, for its successful existence, constant interaction with the external environment is necessary, which is expressed in the consistent receipt of economic resources, production of products and its transfer back to the external environment, i.e. consumers. Violation or termination of at least one of these processes can lead to bankruptcy and death of the enterprise, and the balance between them is the main thing for its effective functioning. This requires constant planning, coordination and monitoring of the implementation economic relations enterprises with the environment. This circumstance was one of the reasons for the emergence of strategic management, which was mainly caused as a response to the increased dynamism of the external environment.

In addition, the modern external business environment, in addition to high speed changes, is characterized by instability, which increases the likelihood of sudden strategic changes and their unpredictability. This required the top management of enterprises to quickly master adequate management methods and procedures that ensure their effective achievement of long-term goals based on maintaining competitive advantages and responding appropriately to the uncertainty of the environment. Consequently, the second reason for the emergence of strategic management was the need to distinguish between current (operational) management production activities organization and management carried out at the highest level, which was caused by the increased uncertainty of the external environment and required a transition to a new development management model business structures in a constantly changing market environment.

Finally, internal and external changes in the environment gave rise to the emergence of new, more challenging tasks, many of which were difficult to solve based on the experience gained in the first half of the 20th century. The multiplicity of tasks, along with the expansion of the geographical scope of the activities of national economies, led to a further complication of management problems. This was another reason that determines the relevance of the emergence of strategic management.

Thus, the synthesis of various approaches to management made it possible to form in the second half of the 20th century. a new direction in the management of the organization - strategic management (hereinafter, "strategic management" and "strategic management" are used as synonyms).

It should be said that if in the Western economy the mobility of the environment is determined by the constantly changing consumer demand for goods and services, which dictates shifts in other environmental factors: technologies, means of communication, social relations etc., then in Russia its mobility is explained by the transition to the market of the domestic economy and, as a result, the instability of the socio-political sphere.

The methods and forms of long-term and current planning that existed in the Soviet era, based on economic forecasting, which determines the trends in the development of production, were not able to ensure the sustainable development of the enterprise in modern conditions. These methods were quite effective in a period of relatively constant economic goals, consisting mainly in increasing production volumes and saturating the market with goods and services, in a stable external environment.

So, for example, in the administrative-command economy of Russia, the essence of planned work was reduced to the search for effective ways to fulfill strictly regulated tasks in conditions of fairly accurately predicted changes in the external environment. This task remains even now with the development of market relations. However, at present, in many industries, supply has begun to prevail over consumer demand, which, by its nature, is also changing. Increasing attention is paid to the social needs of the population, the protection of consumer rights, and the problems of education and ecological balance are also becoming relevant. This radically changed the economic situation in the country, increasing its diversity and complexity, which made it necessary to reform the Soviet system of planning and management.

As is known, in the administrative-command economy of Russia, management was reduced to finding effective ways to fulfill regulated tasks in conditions of fairly accurate predictable changes in the external environment. In the Soviet era, long-term (five-year) and long-term (up to 20 years) planning was essential tool management national economy both at the macro and micro levels.

In the course of the transformation of the Russian economic management system, which occurred during the transition from a planned economic model to a market one, as well as as a result of the privatization of enterprises, the highest management structures were eliminated. The management of planning bodies at all levels, which were essentially engaged in the development of a long-term strategy for the country's economic development, caused the emergence of new, more complex management tasks due to the dynamism and uncertainty of the external environment. In addition, a radical change in the rules of the game in Russian economy, i.e. the very nature of the environment in which domestic enterprises had to operate, both domestically and in the foreign market, required the development of original, non-traditional methods of planning and management in the long term.

Thus, strategic management is essentially a method of management used in the face of the emergence of new, more complex tasks due to the dynamism and uncertainty of the economic environment. Many of these problems are original, and therefore the available experience cannot be used to solve them. Even now, according to some reports, specific gravity such tasks make up more than half of the total number of management tasks solved at the enterprise, and their number will increase. These problems are dominated by qualitative (non-formalizable) characteristics, so they can be solved using additional information received directly from a person and based on his professional knowledge and intuition. This required an unconventional approach to enterprise management.

11. The concept and content of strategic management

Creating conditions for efficient operation enterprises in the market, ensuring the continuity of its economic development, is one of the main problems. Its solution is based on a large analytical work on the creation, implementation and maintenance competitive advantage, which implies that the enterprise has the potential to be better (in some aspects of economic activity) of its competitors. M.Poter identifies two main sources of competitive advantages - cost leadership and differentiation, i.e. the release of a product or service by an enterprise unique properties. In fact, their sources can be a much larger number of factors: the high reputation of the enterprise, the availability of qualified personnel, long-term relationships with customers, development marketing activities etc.

One of the factors that allows an enterprise to maintain a leading position is the development of R&D. The innovation process allows him to move on to the realization of competitive advantages of a higher rank, which persist for a long time and provide a high level of profit. As for the advantages of a low rank associated with cheap labor, the availability of sources of raw materials, etc., they are not so stable, since they can be easily copied by competitors. In other words, if there are clear competitive advantages (cheap raw materials, certain technology, specific suppliers), it is likely that competitors will try to deprive the enterprise of these advantages.

It follows that competitive advantages are not something once and for all given: they are formed and preserved only with the constant improvement of all areas of activity, which is a laborious and, as a rule, expensive process. It is extremely important for an enterprise to understand and correctly evaluate its competitive advantages. It was this moment that determined the ever-increasing role of the strategic approach to management. Then one can say with strategic management is the area of ​​activity of the external management of the enterprise, main duty which consists in determining the preferred directions and trajectories of its development, setting goals, allocating resources and everything that gives the company a competitive advantage.

It should be noted that at present there is no single definition of the concept strategic management. There are a number of definitions of strategic management that emphasize its various aspects and features: either as a field of activity, or as a process, or as a field of scientific knowledge. For example, strategic management is a type, a field of management activity, consisting in the implementation of selected long-term goals through the implementation of changes in the organization; or these two definitions: 1) strategic management is a process through which an enterprise interacts with its environment; 2) strategic management is a field of scientific knowledge that studies techniques and tools, methodology for making strategic decisions and ways of practical implementation of this knowledge. I. Ansoff in his work "Strategic Management" defines the content this concept as an activity related to "setting the goals and objectives of the organization and maintaining a set of relationships between the organization and the environment that allow it to achieve its goals, correspond to its internal capabilities and allow it to remain susceptible to external requirements."

21. Modeling options for the strategic state of the enterprise

The strategic sustainability and efficiency of the enterprise is determined by the development of three main components that characterize its work. The three cornerstones of the organization's activities - economic, organizational and political components - form the foundation on which enterprise management is built.

These three aspects of the strategic state of the enterprise are complementary, and to conclude about its stability, a good position in only one or two positions is not enough: a balanced development of all aspects is necessary.

The model of the strategic state of the enterprise can be graphically displayed as a cube, the vertices of which are some limit values and in its pure form practically cannot be an assessment of the strategic state of the enterprise. Therefore, the point with coordinates (x, y, z), which determines the strategic state of the enterprise, lies inside the cube (Fig. 5.1).

Figure 5.1. strategy cube

Figure 5.1 shows that the vertices cube A,B,C,D,G,H and F characterize various (limiting) strategic states of the enterprise. Their descriptions are as follows:

1. Strategy A when the enterprise is dominated by the organizational aspect to the detriment of the other two. As a result, the organization will come to a state that can be called "snarling bureaucracy", while all its activities are strictly regulated, priority is given to the current work to the detriment of the final result.

2. Strategy C when the political aspect dominates and the enterprise is faced with what can be called "unforeseen coalitions", which are characterized by the search and formation of interest groups based on market requests.

3. Strategy G when the economic aspect dominates and the organization is looking for a path leading to rational decisions and goals. This case can be called "rational system".

4. Strategy B when the political aspect in combination with the organizational one characterizes a state called "authoritarian organization". At the same time, the personal goals of individuals are put in the first place and all the efforts of the enterprise are directed towards their achievement.

5. Strategy D when preference is given to political and economic aspects. This state can be called "constant movement", which is characterized by significant instability due to the lack of an organizational component necessary to summarize the results achieved and carry out purposeful activities.

6. Strategy H when the organizational aspect appears in combination with the economic one, then we are faced with the so-called "blind machine". This name reflects the absence of any human, social and political factors in the process of formulating a strategy. We are talking about a well-regulated rational mechanism that uses full information about the consequences of any action, about the external environment of the enterprise and about the internal characteristics of this environment. Here, the emphasis is only on the goals and the economic aspect of the strategy, which are based on a system of rules and procedures that help their implementation.

7. O strategy when the absence of political, economic and organizational aspects leads to the emergence of "inorganic system", completely devoid of life and unable to act or even respond to the influence of the external environment. We are talking about an enterprise that has neither the means nor the desire to perform any tasks.

8. Strategy F when the economic, political and organizational aspects are simultaneously taken into account, which leads to a state called "strategic balance". This combination is very desirable, since the harmony of these three aspects is achieved. However, this equilibrium is only relatively stable, since a change in the general situation can cause changes in the economic, political and organizational aspects of the strategic state of the enterprise.

Thus, the strategic cube and finding the coordinates of the point corresponding to the state of the enterprise makes it possible to understand the real state of affairs in the organization, to identify bottlenecks and problems, the solution of which will ensure its progressive development.

22. The mechanism for assessing the strategic state of the enterprise

To assess the qualitative state of the organization, the mechanism of its self-diagnosis is used, which can be presented in tabular form (Table 5.1).

Table 5.1 shows that by evaluating the economic, political and organizational aspects with the qualitative values ​​“Important” and “Weak”, it is possible to determine the state in which the company is currently located, which is the first step towards the development and implementation of a corrective strategy that can correct errors the past and change things for the better.

Mechanism quantification the strategic state of the enterprise is also quite simple. Its essence lies in the fact that the analyst who carries out the study forms an exact list, for example, of ten questions for each of the three aspects considered. Evaluating the answers of experts to these questions in points (yes - 1, no - 0), he finds their sum. If the sum of points received for answers to questions related to one of the aspects is equal to or greater than 5, then this aspect is given paramount importance in the formation of an enterprise strategy; if the sum of points is less than 5, then the value is weak.

Table 5.1.

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