Miss Deanna

Running header: GROUP FINAL REPORT – STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 1

GROUP FINAL REPORT – STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT 2

Team Stark

Group Final Report – Strategic Management

University of Maryland University College 

August 1, 2019

Introduction

Each member of the team is a management major but with different specializations. From the contributions made by members on the importance of strategic management and its implementation in their respective specializations, this paper will attempt to generate a report focusing on two major topics; the need for strategic management across team members’ specializations and the implications for successful implementation of strategy and strategic decision making with few subtopics in-between these two major topics.

The Need for Strategic Management across Specializations 

From the reports, strategic management is essential across specialization as each play an important role in achieving overall strategic objectives of every organization that utilizes the specialization. In human resource management, the emergence of knowledge-based economy where employees are expected to contribute their ideas and not just follow instructions. In the criminal justice system, there are stakeholders and strategic management in the agencies goals and objectives are all synchronized and resources, are harnessed and utilized to achieve the goals and objectives set to meet the expectations of the stakeholders. 

Projects are the wheels upon which organizations run to gain competitive advantage; for this reason, strategic management is important in project management to ensure their objectives are synchronized with that of the organization. The limited time of projects requires a well-defined upfront strategy that helps ensure their success and mirrors the needs of the other specializations. Supply chain is not just a segment of a business or a strategy, but a philosophy. It is about anticipating demand, creating a product that will satisfy this demand, and distributing the product to the final consumer with the primary goal of enhancing customer satisfaction (gaining and maintaining competitive advantage). An effective and efficient supply chain system is needed to gain this competitive advantage and therefore, strategic management is needed at every phase of the designing of the supply chain system. 

Key Differences Among the Specializations for Strategic Management

Key differences among the four specializations for strategic management are obvious, but the differences are specific to the specialization. In criminal justice, strategic management, or the lack thereof criminal justice, is clearly in the public view, versus the other three specialties which may have public attention, but typically are secondary. Success and failure in criminal justice strategic management is usually very visible to the public. Human resources strategic management is far more complex than just hiring people to fit the jobs but is almost entirely internal.  Hirees can alter public and business-to-business perceptions, but mostly through secondary effects. The other specialties can have more direct public roles through outside stakeholder involvement. 

Supply chain strategic management differs from the other specialties in that its strategy is mostly a business-to-business concern, unless the supply chain outbound traffic is to the consumer.  The stakeholders are more often professionals, both internal and external to the organization, while the other specialties may have larger exposure to stakeholders external to the business world. Project management strategic management are limited based on the duration of the project.  As such, the project management strategy is often more limited in scope, schedule, and often budget.  The strategic management of projects requires strict attention to getting the strategy correct up front, as there may not be much of an after period. 

I. Implications for Successful Implementation of Strategy and Strategic Decision Making

Stakeholder involvement is important to all four specializations. “This is where the real action takes place in the strategic management process”, since this is where the tactics in the strategic plan will be transformed into actions or actual performance. As such good communications skills are a requirement. The strategies and plans must reflect this and be carried out during the implementation phase. Schedule meeting milestones and accessibility to the stakeholders must occur even though it seems like their input was only needed during the design and planning phases. Changes are inevitable and require interaction with the appropriate stakeholders.