In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning.
In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors.
A core competency is a concept in management theory introduced by C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel. It can be defined as "a harmonized combination of multiple resources and skills that distinguish a firm in the marketplace" and therefore are the foundation of companies' competitiveness.
A business process, business method, or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks performed by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product for a particular customer or customers. Business processes occur at all organizational levels and may or may not be visible to the customers. A business process may often be visualized (modeled) as a flowchart of a sequence of activities with interleaving decision points or as a process matrix of a sequence of activities with relevance rules based on data in the process. The benefits of using business processes include improved customer satisfaction and improved agility for reacting to rapid market change. Process-oriented organizations break down the barriers of structural departments and try to avoid functional silos.
Information management (IM) is the appropriate and optimized capture, storage, retrieval, and use of information. It may be personal information management or organizational. Information management for organizations concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal through archiving or deletion and extraction.
Information technology (IT)governance is a subset discipline of corporate governance, focused on information technology (IT) and its performance and risk management. The interest in IT governance is due to the ongoing need within organizations to focus value creation efforts on an organization's strategic objectives and to better manage the performance of those responsible for creating this value in the best interest of all stakeholders. It has evolved from The Principles of Scientific Management, Total Quality Management and ISO 9001 Quality Management System.
Soft systems methodology (SSM) is an organised way of thinking applicable to problematic social situations and in the management of change by using action. It was developed in England by academics at the Lancaster Systems Department on the basis of a ten-year action research programme.
A business analyst (BA) is a person who processes, interprets and documents business processes, products, services and software through analysis of data. The role of a business analyst is to ensure business efficiency increases through their knowledge of both IT and business function.
Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions as intended. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control, and quality improvement. Customers recognize that quality is an important attribute when choosing and purchasing products and services. Suppliers can recognize that quality is an important differentiator between their own offerings and those of competitors and endeavour to compete on the quality of their products and the service they offer: thus quality management is focused both on product and service quality and the means to achieve them both.
Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aims to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors.
Business analysis is a professional discipline focused on identifying business needs and determining solutions to business problems. Solutions may include a software-systems development component, process improvements, or organizational changes, and may involve extensive analysis, strategic planning and policy development. A person dedicated to carrying out these tasks within an organization is called a business analyst or BA.
Enterprise data management (EDM) is the ability of an organization to precisely define, easily integrate and effectively retrieve data for both internal applications and external communication. EDM focuses on the creation of accurate, consistent, and transparent content. EDM emphasizes data precision, granularity, and meaning and is concerned with how the content is integrated into business applications as well as how it is passed along from one business process to another.
Intelligent enterprise is an organizational management concept that leverages knowledge and technology in an attempt to improve business performance. The concept, as articulated in James Brian Quinn's book Intelligent Enterprise, posits that intellect is the core resource in producing and delivering services. It goes on to say that managers are expected to provide a rewarding work environment through lower friction and an energetic conduct, and auxiliary functions should be outsourced to vendors, so that firms may focus on their core components.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to business management:
Business–IT alignment is a process in which an organization integrates and utilizes information technology (IT) to achieve business objectives. It is the ability of IT to produce business value which means the process of establishing an environment where both IT and business professionals are capable of working together in order to achieve common goals in any specific area of work.
Change management (CM) is a discipline that focuses on managing changes within an organization. Change management involves implementing approaches to prepare and support individuals, teams, and leaders in making organizational change. Change management is useful when organizations are considering major changes such as restructure, redirecting or redefining resources, updating or refining business process and systems, or introducing or updating digital technology.
Strategy implementation is the activities within a workplace or organisation designed to manage the activities associated with the delivery of a strategic plan.
Business process management (BPM) is the discipline in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business processes is BPM. Processes can be structured and repeatable or unstructured and variable. Though not required, enabling technologies are often used with BPM.
Capability management is the approach to the management of an organization, typically a business organization or firm, based on the "theory of the firm" as a collection of capabilities that may be exercised to earn revenues in the marketplace and compete with other firms in the industry. Capability management seeks to manage the stock of capabilities within the firm to ensure its position in the industry and its ongoing profitability and survival.
Media management is a business administration discipline that identifies and describes strategic and operational phenomena and problems in the leadership of media enterprises. Media management contains the functions strategic management, procurement management, production management, organizational management and marketing of media enterprises.
