Strategic Analysis

This is an authoritative and practical guide to collecting, analysing and managing data, to enable managers and companies to develop successful business strategies. Data has become a dominant factor in today's business environment. This book, written by a leading practitioner, explains the underpinning nature of data for a company's business strategy. The book begins with data collection: getting data is no big deal; getting the right data to win in the market is. It moves on to data analysis: turning data into actionable intelligence is what drives and determines competitive advantage. And, finally, managing data: how to organise your data collection and analysis to create winning strategies. This is a definitive book about one of the most important topics in today's digital and data-driven economy.

In the last few years, competition has become increasingly more complex, variable and dynamic, as can be seen in phenomena like globalization and technological acceleration. To cope with the dynamism and uncertainty of competition, enterprises need capabilities that enable them to respond to competition, as well as to improve their analytical skills and knowledge in order to better manage new strategic projects. Strategic analysis uses both quantitative and qualitative tools to understand both competitive contexts and available company resources. In Strategic Analysis: Processes and Tools, author Andrea Beretta Zanoni develops a theory of strategic analysis and offers models for the application of strategic analysis tools during all phases of the process including planning and decision-making, the development of control, and the formulation of a strategic diagnosis.

Robert M. Grant combines a highly accessible writing style with a concentration on the fundamentals of value creation and an emphasis on practicality in this leading strategy text. In this new edition, he includes an even greater focus on strategy implementation that reflects the needs of firms to reconcile scale economies with entrepreneurial flexibility, innovation with cost efficiency, and globalization with local responsiveness. This edition also incorporates some of the key strategic issues of today including: post-financial crisis adjustment, the continuing rise of China, India and Brazil, and the increased emphasis on ethics and sustainability. Coverage is also provided on strategy in not-for-profit organizations. Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 8th Edition, is suitable for both MBA and advanced undergraduate students. It has been adopted by leading business schools all across the world.

Strategic planning encompasses much more than simply writing up a strategic plan and calling it a day. Successful strategic planning also requires developing the analytical skills leaders need to overcome current challenges while figuring out how to thrive well into the future. This book shows the way.Strategic Analysis for Healthcare: Concepts and Practical Applications presents a straightforward, step-by-step approach to strategic analysis and strategy development in healthcare. Through its clear explanations of theoretical concepts, supported by examples and applied exercises, the book provides readers with practical methods for developing healthcare strategy. This second edition includes the following new features and more:* A brand-new chapter on population heath, an increasingly important approach to value-based care * Three additional new chapters on strategic directional indicators, strategy selection and justification, and implementation plans and contingency planning* A substantially rewritten chapter on financial fit assessment and projection* Significant updates to many sections and topics, including financial analysis, competitive benchmarking, and organizational cultureWith its short, engaging chapters, this workbook can be used as a stand-alone, applied-learning tool or in conjunction with an additional textbook. Perforated pages allow for easy use of the exercises as gradable assignments. The authors also mapped specific chapters from this book that can be taught alongside two other Health Administration Press titles, Strategic Healthcare Management, Planning and Execution, Second Edition, and Healthcare Strategic Planning, Fourth Edition.Leaders must be able to assess and strategically manage change in healthcare, as well as envision the future from a predictive, competitive, and visionary perspective. This book is designed to provide current and future leaders alike with the knowledge and guidance to do so.

Though their primary concern, organizations in the creative industries don’t only succeed or fail based on the exercise of their creative resources. Their fortunes also depend on their understanding and approach to the problem of competition. In Strategic Analysis: A creative and cultural industries perspective, Jonathan Gander offers a much needed introduction to how the practice of strategic thinking and analysis can be applied to this diverse and dynamic field. The book employs a range of competitive scenarios and case studies in which to practically apply a recommended set of analytical frameworks and examine the strategic challenge facing the enterprise and the wider sector. This concise and practical text focuses on providing a clear series of steps through which to identify and tackle strategic issues facing an enterprise, making it perfect reading for students and practitioners in the creative sector who seek a strategic understanding of the competition they are involved in.

Strategic Business Analysis shows students how to carry out a strategic analysis of a business, with clear guidelines on where and how to apply the core strategic techniques and models that are the integral tools of strategic management. The authors identify the key questions in strategic analysis and provide an understandable framework for answering these questions. Several case studies are used to focus understanding and enable a more thorough analysis of the concepts and issues, especially useful for students involved with case study analysis. Accompanying the text is a CD-Rom containing the models, tutorial guidance, and a PowerPoint presentation. A blank template is provided for each model, enabling students to actively interact and enter their own data - an effective 'what if...' facility. This will enable students to appreciate the limitations as well as the advantages of the strategic models.

For Strategic Management courses. This book examines the techniques involved in analyzing business and competitive data and information including environmental analysis, industry analysis, competitor analysis, and temporal analysis models.

Business Chemistry: How to Build and Sustain Thriving Businesses in the Chemical Industry is a concise text aimed at chemists, other natural scientists, and engineers who want to develop essential management skills. Written in an accessible style with the needs of managers in mind, this book provides an introduction to essential management theory, models, and practical tools relevant to the chemical industry and associated branches such as pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. Drawing on first-hand management experience and in-depth research projects, the authors of this book outline the key topics to build and sustain businesses in the chemical industry. The book addresses important topics such as strategy and new business development, describes global trends that shape chemical companies, and looks at recent issues such as business model innovation. Features of this practitioner-oriented book include: Eight chapters covering all the management topics relevant to chemists, other natural scientists and engineers. Chapters co-authored by experienced practitioners from companies such as Altana, A.T. Kearney, and Evonik Industries. Featured examples and cases from the chemical industry and associated branches throughout chapters to illustrate the practical relevance of the topics covered. Contemporary issues such as business model design, customer and supplier integration, and business co-operation.

A strategic requirement is something an organisation sets out to achieve; it could be the long-term vision the organisation sets itself, the key business condition for a specific project to be a success or a business strategy to achieve a goal. A set of strategic requirements defines the goals, strategies and tactics that organisations need to put in place to give them direction and impetus. Business analysts and consultants have to understand strategic requirements to know where projects can deliver business benefits and where not. The ability of the analyst to interview, gather, analyse, model and present strategic requirements is key to success. The primary tool consultants and business analysts use for communication is talking; but, if you cannot present all that incredible information back to your client effectively, it is hard for them and you to get to grips quickly enough with what is going on. Being able to present a model is really powerful because it provides a visual format and structure on one page to reason about those strategic requirements. Dr Karl A. Cox offers a process, guidelines and ideas - that have been tried and tested in practice - for conducting interviews and shows you how to rapidly turn interview findings into strategic requirements models all on one page, to present to your clients, customers, team and / or supervisors.

Volume 1 of 'The Strategic Analysis of Financial Markets,' — Framework, is premised on the belief that markets can be understood only by dropping the assumptions of rationality and efficient markets in their extreme forms, and showing that markets still have an inherent order and inherent logic. But that order results primarily from the 'predictable irrationality' of investors, as well as from people's uncoordinated attempts to profit. The market patterns that result do not rely on rationality or efficiency.A framework is developed for understanding financial markets using a combination of psychology, statistics, game and gambling analysis, market history and the author's experience. It expresses analytically how professional investors and traders think about markets — as games in which other participants employ inferior, partially predictable strategies. Those strategies' interactions can be toxic and lead to booms, bubbles, busts and crashes, or can be less dramatic, leading to various patterns that are mistakenly called 'market inefficiencies' and 'stylized facts.'A logical case is constructed, starting from two foundations, the psychology of human decision making and the 'Fundamental Laws of Gambling.' Applying the Fundamental Laws to trading leads to the idea of 'gambling rationality' (grationality), replacing the efficient market's concept of 'rationality.' By classifying things that are likely to have semi-predictable price impacts (price 'distorters'), one can identify, explore through data analysis, and create winning trading ideas and systems. A structured way of doing all this is proposed: the six-step 'Strategic Analysis of Market Method.' Examples are given in this and Volume 2.Volume 2 of 'The Strategic Analysis of Financial Markets' — Trading System Analytics, continues the development of Volume 1 by introducing tools and techniques for developing trading systems and by illustrating them using real markets. The difference between these two Volumes and the rest of the literature is its rigor. It describes trading as a form of gambling that when properly executed, is quite logical, and is well known to professional gamblers and analytical traders.But even those elites might be surprised at the extent to which quantitative methods have been justified and applied, including a life cycle theory of trading systems. Apart from a few sections that develop background material, Volume 2 creates from scratch a trading system for Eurodollar futures using principles of the Strategic Analysis of Markets Method (SAMM), a principled, step-by-step approach to developing profitable trading systems. It has an entire Chapter on mechanical methods for testing and improvement of trading systems, which transcends the rather unstructured and unsatisfactory 'backtesting' literature. It presents a breakout trend following system developed using factor models. It also presents a specific pairs trading system, and discusses its life cycle from an early, highly profitable period to its eventual demise. Recent developments in momentum trading and suggestions on improvements are also discussed.