INTRODUCTION

Success or failure in business is decided by strategy, the ability to implement it and leadership qualities. Strategic decisions always aim to secure the longer-term, future viability of a company or company area. They show the way forward, and in doing so must be flexible enough to allow adaptation to changing conditions. In addition, they define the roadmap on which a company must travel to achieve its objectives. If the strategy is unclear, or the roadmap not practical, success is not achievable – and the result is often operative activities where the company as a whole stalls or goes in circles. Strategy expertise at executive level, therefore, determines whether commitment to the daily business is rewarded with good results – results that the company is proud of and that motivates staff to further top performance. Nonetheless, even the best strategy and the most intelligent guidelines won’t help if mistakes are made during implementation. That’s why good strategies are always made by leaders with a solid leadership skills. Whether, and to what degree, their staff is motivated to achieve strategic objectives depends on how they conduct themselves as leaders. Clear objectives, sensible guidelines and the right management conduct creates the freedom a company needs for controlled entrepreneurship. This in turn creates the prerequisites for sustainable top performance and first-class results that will secure the future of your company.

Strategic Management for Executives: The success of a company and its business units depends on a few strategic decisions. This program offers you the latest knowledge and an integrated approach to strategic management. You will learn from many real-world examples, have an exchange of experiences, get new ideas, and learn the tools you need for successful strategic management.

Strategy – and not effort and diligence in the daily business – determines success or failure of your company, your division or the business unit you lead. In this course, we show you what’s important in navigating and developing strategy in the direction of success and sustainability.

How you benefit

This course will give you detailed knowledge about strategy with the goal of better understanding the principles, tools and methods of strategic management and strategy development and how they interrelate to the whole. You will receive the latest know-how about developing innovative, competitive strategies. You will learn how to position your business in a competitive environment and how to launch programs that will optimize your company’s value, profitability and performance. You will critically analyze your own strategic concepts and will return to you job ready to give new impetus to creating an innovative future for your company. Methods, concepts, instruments and effective tools to guiding your company are explained using numerous examples.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Executives and experienced managers, who want to deepen their knowledge of how to ensure future company success, learn the latest principles behind strategic management and effective leadership. These include:

• General managers, heads of business units and profit centers
• C-level executives
• Heads of larger divisions and departments
• Members of the management board and board of directors
• Those responsible for business units, subsidiaries and important projects
• Managers who are soon to move up to a CEO or executive
  position
• Decision-makers from management boards, board members, members of supervisory boards
• Mid-level to senior-level executives responsible for strategic planning, implementation, and business development
• Executives who test strategy proposals for their plausibility
• Executives of companies, divisions or business units in charge of implementing strategies
• Executives, managers, consultants and specialists who conduct strategic analysis, lead strategy meetings or draft strategic concepts

DURATION

10 Days

COURSE CONTENT

Strategic Management as Navigation Tool for the Future

Executives must steer a company during turbulent times as well. Success can be defined in many ways – by corporate value, cash flow, shareholder value, profitability, customer value, market share, customer satisfaction, performance culture and trust. Successful strategic management seeks to secure a balance between short-term results-optimization and long-term success. The main focus is primarily this – sustainable profitability thanks to high customer value.

• Viability and achieving healthy profit development
• How do you execute a strategy process?
• Handling complexity as a practical test for successful management
• How globalization and digitalization are influencing strategy and management

Strategic Objectives and Directions

No strategy without objectives or strategic guidelines. As interface between ideal results and feasibility, strategic guidelines define the strategic corridor through which company development should take place. Here you need to pave the way and actively shape the future.

• Inventing the future – the importance of vision in the strategic management process
• How do you turn your vision into a concrete strategy?
• How to derive motivating goals from your vision

Modern Strategy Tools for Understanding your Strategic Situation

Strategic decisions are made based on analyses, studies and assessments. If these are wrong, or wrongly interpreted, then by necessity the decisions made from them are also wrong. That’s why a competent use of strategic management tools is so important. We will show you how to use these tools and what pitfalls you need to avoid.

• Information as basis for strategic decisions – what’s really important?
• A look to the future – always a look at my own expertise and resources
• Analysis tools – what’s out there, what’s new, and how do I employ them expertly?

The Spectrum of Strategic Options

The spectrum of possible strategic options is wide – do we expand, retain, differentiate, specialize, move into a niche, work for cost leadership, enhance our value-added chain, form alliances, create platform strategies, purchase, pursue a merger, disinvest, focus on virtuality, internationalize – countless options are available to you. Each one of them is determined by specific rules and have to be well thought-through.

• Strategic thinking means thinking in alternative scenarios
• Realistic estimation of risks and investment needs
• Business development and innovation

Strategic Decisions

Strategic decisions determine the direction a company will develop. They set objectives and pave the way for future success.

• What differentiates a good from a bad strategy?
• Successful strategy development
• The decision-making process and typical pitfalls
• Plausibility checks

Strategy Implementation

The larger, the more unwieldy – unfortunately, this is the case with numerous companies. However, many smaller organizations also struggle to implement what has been decided in their everyday business. Here management is called upon. How can new strategies, new concepts and new ideas actually be realized?

• How do you convert strategies skillfully into concrete projects?
• The most common mistakes in implementing strategy

Leadership and Result-Orientation

Inspiring others to achieve objectives as a team. Communicating your vision, deriving ambitious objectives from it and ensuring that the fire of enthusiasm in your daily work does not go out. Giving new impulse. Convincing, supporting and if necessary doing it yourself. To be a normal person and a role model. Never losing sight of what’s important – results. We show you how to sharpen and develop your leadership skills even further.

• Effective leadership – what do you need to achieve this?
• Modern leadership approaches and leadership styles
• Performance and motivation
• Trust as an element of corporate culture

Change and Communication

When you have to implement new strategies and concepts, you will usually have to change the attitudes, behavior and habits of employees and colleagues. We all know that this is a difficult task. Successful change management begins with the right management conduct and targeted communication. Using numerous examples, we will demonstrate what you need to do in these situations.

• How do you communicate strategies?
• Agility and digitalization at executive level
• Successful transformation – approaches and methods

An Integrated Approach to Strategic Management

One strategy fad quickly follows another. One strategic project follows the next one, when the first project has really just started and is not completed by a long shot. Aren’t we doing too much of a good thing here? What are «must haves» what are «nice to haves»? What’s important here is the right dosage of the new. Modern management theory and real-world management experience offer a lot of insight. In this seminar, we will show you what has proven itself in real business situations.

• Current strategic management concepts and tools
• Strategic principles
• What characterizes good strategies

Clarifying your Strategic Position and the Need for Strategic Action

Change is a given. It forces management to constantly check their strategic position. Changes need to be anticipated promptly and dangers to the business have to be recognized. During this process, new opportunities will become apparent and should be capitalized on. That’s why it’s important for you, as a decision-maker, to recognize the need for strategic action.

• Determining your current strategic position
• Understanding strategic challenges correctly
• Important tools for analysis

The Role played by the Business Model in Strategic Management

Your business model describes how your company will generate profit. Calculating profit based on costs plus margin is banal. More interesting is to link margins to created benefits. Classic business cases often obscure the profit drivers of a business model. This course teaches you how to identify and use the relevant profit drivers.

• The architecture of creating value, understanding your profit drivers
• Improving on your current business model, developing new business ideas
• Innovative and digital business models

Strategic Options that Promise Success

Decades-long observation, discussions with thousands of decision-makers and evaluating the relevant literature on the subject show that companies often have their own favorite tried and tested strategies. A high percentage of these strategies are transferred into strategic projects and then formulated into strategic initiatives. But we also live in times characterized by disruption, globalization and digitalization. We will introduce you to several strategic options that promise success during the seminar, along with tips for everyday implementation. We will show you the traps you’ll need to avoid to successfully implement your strategy.

• Strategic options – what works and what doesn’t?
• Classic competitive strategies
• Growth based on core competencies
• Customer-centric strategic approaches
• Evaluating strategic options according to their potential for success and their chances of being realized

Effective Strategy Development Processes

Strategic projects often come to nothing because a sensible way to proceed is missing. That’s why many companies let their strategy be done by external consultants. We will show you how to successfully conduct effective strategy development processes, so you can put down a basic roadmap to ensure the future success of your company.

• Designing a strategy project, planning and carrying it out
• Strategic analysis, strategic options
• Corporate philosophy and values
• Corporate governance principles
• Your corporate strategy –the course the owners and top management want to take
• Operational strategies – marketing strategy, production strategy, supply-chain strategy, HR strategy, financial strategy etc.
• Strategies for business divisions, departments, fields of business, business units
• Regional strategies for countries, sales regions, branch offices
• Strategies for staff positions, cross-departmental and support functions
• How to integrate the many sub-strategies into an understandable, integrated strategic system
• How to precisely formulate strategies
• Results management

Implementing a New Strategy, Change Management

The implementation of new strategies requires an efficient implementation system. Just as important is to convince employees that an upcoming change makes sense, that you identify barriers to implementation early, and that you win-over everyone involved.

• Translating strategic objectives into an execution plan
• Ensuring clear responsibility and accountability
• Incentives and controls
• Learning, feedback and adaptation

GENERAL NOTES

• This course is delivered by our seasoned trainers who have vast experience as expert professionals in the respective fields of practice. The course is taught through a mix of practical activities, theory, group works and case studies.
• Training manuals and additional reference materials are provided to the participants.
• Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be issued with a certificate.
• We can also do this as tailor-made course to meet organization-wide needs. Contact us to find out more: training@data-afriqueconsultancy.org
• The training will be conducted at DATA-AFRIQUE TRAINING CENTRE, Nairobi Kenya.
• The training fee covers tuition fees, training materials, lunch and training venue. Accommodation and airport transfer are arranged for our participants upon request.
• Payment should be sent to our bank account before start of training and proof of payment sent to: training@data-afriqueconsultancy.org