Strategic Management For Your Business

As a small business owner, the things you want to achieve with your business are not always written down. Advisors will say "you need a business plan", bank managers will insist on one before approving that vital loan you need to fund your expansion. 

Strategic management in business boils down to 3 simple questions:

1. Where are we now? 

2. Where do we want to be? 

3. How are we going to get there? 

Whether or not you codify what you want for your business, you should have an understanding of what strategic management is all about so you can drive your business forward, ensuring you can achieve/maintain sustainable competitive advantage.

Where are we now? 

The first question looks at the situation the business is in, this situational analysis can take many forms but as a general guide think about doing SWOT and PEST analyses of your current position. Don't be frightened by these acronyms, they are really easy to grasp and can provide surprising insights into your business and develop your thinking. You could brainstrom these with other members of your team, or your family/friends if you are a lone wolf. 

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal aspects of your business: What are you good at? What makes you better than your competitors? What don't you do so well? Where could you improve? Opportunities and threats are generally external, so what opportunities are there in the marketplace? Threats could be from new competitors entering your market.

Next, it is vital that you look to the wider external environment, there are many acronyms for this type of analysis (STEP, PEST, STEEPLE, STEEPLED to name a few) but they all amount to pretty much the same thing: Political/Legal, Economic, Social and Technological factors. I won't go into great detail about these as they are self explanatory, for example, the advent of the internet (Technological) has and continues to impact massively on how businesses operate. Analysis of the wider environment can help you to spot opportunities for growth or highlight the need for change. 

Where do we want to be? 

In a large organisation there will be corporate objectives that underpin the overall direction of the business, these then cascade down throughout the different departments who will each have there own set of objectives, ensuring a coordinated and synchronous approach to getting the business where it wants to be. In a small business you may just have a handful of goals but try to think outside the box here, as the saying goes, "turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is reality". Don't chase turnover increases just for the sake of it, your underlying profitability is what really matters, and your objectives need to be realistic and achievable (more about that next). 

So you've analysed where you are now, the process in itself will usually throw up some interesting suggestions, next you need to think about where you would like to be. The answer to this question forms the basis of your strategic business objectives, they can be wide ranging and don't necessarily just have to be turnover focused. 

When setting your objectives it is not enough to simply state: 'To increase sales' or some other vague statement, your objectives need to be SMART, another acronym, sorry, but a useful one nonetheless. Check that your objectives meet this criteria, they should be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-related. An example of the above vague objective made SMART could be: 'To increase sales by 10% within the next 6 months'. These SMART objectives ensure you can measure the effectiveness of your strategy and tactics. 

How do we get there? 

You now know where you are now and where you want your business to be, but how are you going to get there? How will you achieve your objectives? This is where strategy and tactics come in, your strategy is the broad overall plan, whilst the tactics are the nuts and bolts of what you will actually do to achieve your objectives. 

So there you have it, ask yourself: Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? These questions are the fundamentals of strategic management. Finally, don't forget the feed forward loop too, this is the whole point of creating SMART objectives so you can measure if they have been achieved. Once you have carried out your plan you need to check how effective your chosen strategy and tactics have been by asking: Have we arrived? Have we achieved our objectives? If not why not? These answers then feed forward into your next cycle of planning and the process starts over again, rinse and repeat...

 With some years experience lecturing in Strategic Marketing Communications on the Chartered Institute of Marketing's Postgraduate programme under his belt and over 20 years proven commercial experience building a multi-million pound online retail business. 

With a first honors degree in Business Management and IT from the University of Manchester, a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing and a Masters degree in Marketing (specialising in Internet Marketing), Colin is excellently placed to appraise and advise on the very latest in business and marketing best practice and theory.

With a first honors degree in Business Management and IT from the University of Manchester, a Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing and a Masters degree in Marketing (specialising in Internet Marketing), Colin is excellently placed to appraise and advise on the very latest in business and marketing best practice and theory. With some years experience lecturing in Strategic Marketing Communications on the Chartered Institute of Marketing's Postgraduate programme under his belt and over 20 years proven commercial experience building a multi-million pound online retail business.

Wuhan Kinglong Protective Products Co.,Ltd

Saudi Arabia's business

Saudi Arabia or  Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , Now a days has a very good economy and people  are very much interested in investing in its business.  Saudi Business visa is easily available for those who are actually interested in  doing business there.  People are earning good in their business in Saudi Arab. The kingdom was founded by Abdul-Ariz bin Saudi.

Doing business in Saudi Arabia can be a highly-lucrative venture for Western business people if they can handle the culture differences. Saudi Arabia business is booming due to oil exports. The weekend in Saudi Arabia is Thursday and Friday. Saudi business people prey five times a day. Saudi culture is different from western culture.

During the month of Ramadan the business in Saudi Arabia slow downs, and that make the western people uncomfortable in business. Saudi businessmen do not discuss hard details of business deals immediately in a meeting; instead, they first chitchat and inquire about the each others welfare.
At present,  Saudi Arabia's statehood stands on oil alone. But oil prices are falling, so  this is an issue to worry about for the rulers as well as the investors. The  overall situation in the entire state is deteriorating. But "The World Bank"  rates  Saudi Arabia as the easiest place to do business in the entire MENA region. Among  Arab countries, the Kingdom is the easiest place to register property, get credit,  and start a business.  

Trust is very important while doing business with a Saudi man.  This is very important for a comfortable business dealings. Saudi culture has a less rigid concept of time and schedule compared to the West. Meetings are often loosely scheduled around set prayer times. It is common for them to be interrupted; sometimes, there may be multiple people in the same office discussing multiple business matters.
When you are done with the amount of knowledge you want to know about to do a business in Saudi Arabia, You should deal with the people of Saudi Arabia for sometime. This will help you to know about their nature. While doing business you will be families with the nature of people and doing business will become easier as compared to do a business without knowing the nature. As all the businesses can continue on  trust only, So trust is must in any business.

So all over we can say that doing business in that state is good and profitable but you should maintain trust as well as study their culture before starting any business in Saudi Arabia.

Constitution if Saudi Arab is totally based on their major religion that is Islam. The king of Saudi Arabia is the Head of state as well as head of government.  the king must comply with Sharia (that is, Islamic law) and the Qur'an. The Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions of Muhammad) are declared to be the country's constitution.  the government of Saudi Arabia is led by the monarch. People are very concerned about doing prayers even in their business.

Saudi Arabia has become one of the fastest growing IT markets in the Middle East region. Saudi Arabia is the Arab world's largest telecommunications market.  As per our study, the communications sector continues to be the largest investor in the IT industry.   IT is playing a major role in improving the Business culture and there are a number of foreign companies who are interested in investing in IT sector of Saudi Arabia.  

Tourism is also playing a major role in business in Saudi Arabia. So the government is trying to increase tourism in their area. The economic conditions can be improved with increase in tourism. So tourism is also a part of business. There are many places in Saudi Arabia which are the centre of attraction for the tourists.        

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