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.
Porter's Five Forces Framework is a method of analysing the competitive environment of a business. It draws from industrial organization (IO) economics to derive five forces that determine the competitive intensity and, therefore, the attractiveness of an industry in terms of its profitability. An "unattractive" industry is one in which the effect of these five forces reduces overall profitability. The most unattractive industry would be one approaching "pure competition", in which available profits for all firms are driven to normal profit levels. The five-forces perspective is associated with its originator, Michael E. Porter of Harvard University. This framework was first published in Harvard Business Review in 1979.
Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.
Chris Argyris was an American business theorist and professor at Yale School of Management and Harvard Business School. Argyris, like Richard Beckhard, Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis, is known as a co-founder of organization development, and known for seminal work on learning organizations.
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, commonly referred to as Deloitte, is a British multinational professional services network based in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of employees in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with EY, KPMG, and PwC.
Michael Eugene Porter is an American businessman and professor at Harvard Business School. He was one of the founders of the consulting firm The Monitor Group and FSG, a social impact consultancy. He is credited with creating Porter's five forces analysis, which is instrumental in business strategy development at present. He is generally regarded as the father of the modern strategy field. He is also regarded as one of the world's most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness as well as one of the most influential business strategists. His work has been recognized by governments, non-governmental organizations and universities.
A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range of domains, for example, management, engineering, and so on.
A business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and globally. Accounting is a part of the business cluster. In urban studies, the term agglomeration is used. Clusters are also important aspects of strategic management.
A value shop is an organization designed to solve customer or client problems, rather than creating value by producing output from an input of raw materials. The principles of value shops were first conceptualized by Thompson in 1967, and properly defined by Charles B. Stabell and Øystein D. Fjeldstad of the Norwegian School of Management in 1998, who also created the name.
Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (BCG) is an American global management consulting firm founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the "Big Three" along with McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company. Since 2021, BCG has been led by the German executive Christoph Schweizer.
George Yip is Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Strategy at Imperial College Business School, London. Former professor and co-director of the Centre on China Innovation at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Other academic positions at Harvard, Georgetown, UCLA, Cambridge, London Business School. Now living in Boston and Maine, USA, and London. Former Dean of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. His book, Total Global Strategy: Managing for Worldwide Competitive Advantage was selected as one of the 30 best business books of 1992 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries. Also, author or co-author of Pioneers, Hidden Champions, Change Makers, and Underdogs: Lessons from China's Innovators (2019), China's Next Strategic Advantage: From Imitation to Innovation (2016), Strategic Transformation (2013), Asian Advantage: Key Strategies for Winning in the Asia-Pacific Region (1998), and Total Global Strategy. Over 10,000 citations on Google Scholar. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of California Management Review, LRP and MIT Sloan Management Review. Boards of Hewnoaks Artist Colony (Maine) and MassOpera and Board of Advisors of Boston Lyric Opera. Chair of Research Advisory Committee, SKEMA Business School, France. Former board member of IDM, Glunz AG, Arlington Capital Management and Data Instruments, Inc., former advisory board member of Sonae SGPS and American University of Cairo Business School
Creating shared value (CSV) is a business concept first introduced in a 2006 Harvard Business Review article, Strategy & Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. The concept was further expanded in the January 2011 follow-up piece entitled Creating Shared Value: Redefining Capitalism and the Role of the Corporation in Society. Written by Michael E. Porter, a leading authority on competitive strategy and head of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, and Mark R. Kramer, of the Kennedy School at Harvard University and co-founder of FSG, the article provides insights and relevant examples of companies that have developed deep links between their business strategies and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Porter and Kramer define shared value as "the policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing social and economic conditions in the communities in which it operates", while a review published in 2021 defines the concept as "a strategic process through which corporations can turn social problems into business opportunities".
The Design Futures Council is an interdisciplinary network of design, product, and construction leaders exploring global trends, challenges, and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of the industry and environment. Members include architecture and design firms, building product manufacturers, service providers, and forward-thinking AEC firms of all sizes that take an active interest in their future.
The Big Three or MBB is the name colloquially given to the three large strategy consulting firms. They are considered to be the most prestigious firms in the management consulting industry. In terms of employees, McKinsey & Company is the largest and leads by revenue. McKinsey is followed by Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company, respectively.
The LSE–Gaddafi affair was a scandal in the United Kingdom that occurred as a result of relationship that existed between the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Libyan government and its leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.
The Libya lobby in the United States is a collection of lawyers, public relation firms and professional lobbyists paid directly by the government of Libya to lobby the public and government of the United States on behalf of the interests of the government of Libya.
Joseph B. Fuller is an American academic and management consultant. He is the co-founder of the Monitor Group, now known as Monitor Deloitte. He is a professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School, Faculty Co-Director at the Project on Workforce at Harvard, and serves as chair of the Board of Trustees of Western Governors University. He has authored business cases about many companies, including Saudi Aramco and DaVita Inc. He has published research about dividend policy, income inequality in the United States and the skills gap.
Mark Benton Fuller is an American businessman and academic. He is the co-founder of the Monitor Group, now known as Monitor Deloitte. He served as its chairman and chief executive officer. He is also a former assistant professor at the Harvard Business School.
EY-Parthenon is Ernst & Young's global strategy consulting arm. The firm was established as The Parthenon Group LLC in 1991 by former Bain & Company directors William "Bill" Achtmeyer and John C. Rutherford. In 2014 The Parthenon Group merged with professional services firm EY forming the new entity EY-Parthenon. The move was viewed as part of the continued efforts by the Big Four to move up the value chain from their traditional audit services into more lucrative areas of business, as well as to provide new points of entry to clients.
