Strategy Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage

Introduction:

Why do some companies appear to have little difficulty in growing and changing whilst other companies decline and even collapse? Why do companies fail in markets that are showing considerable growth? Why is it that in many businesses 80% of the total available profits are earned by just the top 3 or 4 companies?

The answer is simple and straightforward - but it is not easy. Companies that grow and change are companies that know how to build robust strategies that secure and sustain competitive advantage. The concepts of strategy and competitive advantage are at the very heart of business success. This has always been the case. The big challenge in the 21st century is that almost all businesses are becoming more complex, more competitive and more international

This training focuses on these two central and vital concepts – strategy and competitive advantage. The training is relevant to managers in every part of the organization because increasingly managers need to understand how their part of the business contributes to these two important issues – building a robust strategy and sustaining competitive advantage

Targeted Groups:

• Experienced Operations, Marketing, and Human Resource Managers  
• Managers from the Public Sector tasked with Development, Regeneration, Boosting Inward Investment, Tourism and Employment Growth
• Bankers, Corporate Strategists, Investment Analysts
• Program Managers
• Project Directors and Newly Appointed Directors seeking to gain greater / more modern perspective on Strategy and Competitive Advantage

Conference Objectives:

At the end of this conference the participants will be able to:

• Understand the concepts of strategy and strategic management
• Understand the main frameworks within which robust strategies people s can be created
• Understand the linkage between strategy building and implementation
• Understand the meaning of the concept of competitive advantage
• Ensure that strategy is changed and developed to create a sustained level of high performance
• Understand how their specialist parts of the organization contribute to strategy building and achieving sustainable competitive advantage
• Accelerate thinking speed and problem resolution for all dilemmas
• Improve understanding of the impact of operational specialization on corporate strategy
• Improve team working capabilities in analyzing and solving strategic problems
• Improve skills in ensuring the most effective impact of individual specializations
• Greater motivation and proactivity

Targeted Competencies:

• Strategic thinking
• Strategic management
• Risk management
• Building strategies
• People skills

Conference Content:
Unit 1: Business Strategy, Strategic Management, and Strategic Choice:

• Generic Competitive Strategies
• Structural Analysis of Industries and Companies
• “Competitive Positioning” VS “Blue Ocean” approaches
• How value migrates over Time
• Customer Selection and the Principle of Differentiated Customer Engagement
• The Integrated Supply-Demand Chain as the Basis of 21st Century Strategic Thinking
• Choice and Complexity – The Fundamental Problem in Strategic Thinking and Planning

Unit 2: How to Build a Robust Strategy:

• The Interface of External and Internal Analysis: Trade-Offs and Balance
• The Concept of Shareholder Value and its Relationship to Strategic Planning
• Financial and Non-Financial Aspects of Strategy, Objectives and Mechanisms
• Advanced Application of the “Balanced Scorecard” Principles
• Diagnosing Strategic Problems and Opportunities
• Strategic Choice – Offensive versus Defensive Strategic Programs
• How to Build and Use the “5-page Strategy Framework”

Unit 3: The Concept of Competitive Advantage and the Ways of Securing Competitive Advantage:

• Review of the tools used so far
• Competitive Advantage through Cost Leadership
• Competitive Advantage through Product/Service Differentiation
• Competitive Advantage through Differentiation of the Business Model
• Combining Cost Leadership with Differentiation
• Balancing Cost Leadership and Differentiation in Delivering Value to Customers

Unit 4: Strategic Risk and Global Strategic Management:

• Identifying and Assessing Risk and Uncertainty
• Tools and Techniques in Managing Risk and Uncertainty
• The Essence of Globalization and Global Business Strategy
• Globalization – Managing the Strategic shift from between National/International/Global phases
• Globalization – Managing Organizational Change and the Human Resource dimension
• How to Build and Manage a Strategic Planning team
• Managing the Interface of Strategy and Global Operations

Unit 5: Building Tomorrow’s Organization Out of Today’s Organization:

• Strategic Renewal: The Life-Cycle Principle Applied to Business Strategy
• The Importance of Vision and Values in Driving Strategic Development and Organizational Change
• The Senior Executive as Strategic Leader and Communicator
• The Senior Executive as Coach and Mentor - Getting Strategic Thinking into all Levels of Management
• Building Tomorrow’s Organisation out of Today’s organization
• The Corporate and Individual Value of Strategic Thinking