Strategic Management: Formulation and Implementation
Analysis:
- Strategic control models are less precise. This is
in contrast to operational control models, which are
generally very precise in the narrow domain they
apply.
- Strategic control models are less formal. The models
that govern the considerations in a strategic
control problem are much more intuitive, therefore,
less formal.
- The principal variables in a strategic control model
are structural. In strategic control, the whole
structure of the problem, as represented by the
model, is likely to vary, not just the values of
the parameters.
- The key need in analysis for strategic control is
model flexibility. This is in contrast to operating
control, for which efficient quantitative
computation is usually most desirable.
- The key activity in management control analysis is
alternative generation. This is different from the
operational control problem, in which in many cases
all control alternatives have been specified in
advance. The key analysis step in operations is to
discover exactly what happened.
- The key skill required for management control
analysis is creativity. In operational control, by
contrast, the formal review of outcomes to discover
causes means that they skill required is the ability
to do technical, even statistical, analysis of the
data received.