The Advantages of Strategic Intent Thinking
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The Advantages of Strategic Intent Thinking
Many people fulfill lifelong goals when they become a member of a certain profession. Perhaps you had a dream of being a business professor or operating your own business from a young age. You may have admired a teacher or a business owner who kindled your ambition. Despite having an idea of what you wanted to accomplish early on, you likely had little knowledge of the steps you would take to achieve your goal. As you learned about what was required to reach your ultimate goal, you set short-term and medium-range goals that aligned with your long-term goals. Short-term goals may have included getting good grades each year while medium-range goals might have included getting into a good college or saving money for tuition. You likely adjusted short-term and medium-range goals to take advantage of new opportunities that may not have existed when you set your long-term goals, such as attending the DBA program at Walden. Organizations that operate with strategic intent employ a similar approach often with substantial benefit. However, adopting a strategic intent approach can also present challenges for organizations that have relied on more traditional strategies. As a scholar-practitioner in the modern global business environment, it is important that you understand the benefits and challenges of strategic intent and how the approach differs from traditional strategies.
To prepare, consider the similarities and differences between conventional strategic planning and strategic intent thinking.
By Day 4 of Week 3, post a 2–3 paragraph response that compares traditional strategic planning to strategic intent thinking. Explain how the concepts are similar and how they are different. Also explain the impact of strategic intent thinking on business strategy. Finally, explain the implications of expanding business strategy to include different types of stakeholders and their viewpoints and relationships. Extend the conversation by identifying implications for practice or research, as well as for your own research agenda, where appropriate. Be sure to integrate one or two new related, and engaging, questions that will extend the discussion about your post in constructive ways. Try to think of a question(s) that will engage your peers in critical analysis and thinking about your organization, which may provide insight for your use as you continue preparing your sections of the major Weeks 4 and 7 Sustainable Solutions Paper (SSP) due in this course.
SAMPLE ANSWER
The traditional strategic planning determines how an organization can effectively allocate resources to its functions to improve its profitability by exploring the internal and external opportunities. The traditional strategic planning begins by setting an attainable goal then identifying the steps and the resources that are needed to make the goal a success (Hill & Jones, 2012). Thereafter, the management becomes responsible in controlling and maximizing the utility of resources to ensure that the goal of the strategic plan is effectively achieved. On the other hand, strategic intent differs from the traditional strategic planning in that the former operates towards increasing an organizations knowledge base with the aim of leveraging an organization’s resource towards the achievement of impossible goals. Whereas strategic intent thinking is surrounded with the notion of expectancy theory, the traditional strategic planning is concerned with reaching attainable goals using the available resources.
Both the traditional strategic planning and strategic intent are similar in the sense that they both place value on the available resources in order to reach organizational goal. Strategic intent and strategic planning are similar in the sense that both of them require critical thinking in addition to aligning an organization’s mission statement with the vision. Whereas strategic planning focuses on the available resources and the current environment to develop achievable goals, strategic intent looks above the realm of what is possible through inspired innovation to push the current resources beyond the production possibility frontier (Hill & Jones, 2012).
Strategic intent has an impact on strategy in that it inspires innovation and business strategies as the management works towards the strategic business goals. In addition, strategic intent improves the clarity of an organization’s mission and vision, which in turn improves the operational strategies within the company and the overall improvement in business strategy. When the viewpoints of all stakeholders are taken care of, the business strategy can greatly be expanded to add value to the organization. When the viewpoints from all stakeholders are taken into consideration, an organization is able to work in unison in achieving the strategic business objectives by allowing more flexibility and maximum exploitation of available opportunities (Hill & Jones, 2012). It thus becomes a topic worth exploring in research to determine to what extent strategic intent results in the achievement of impossible goals do
Reference
Hill, C.W & Jones, G.R. (2012). Strategic Management Theory: An Integrated Approach. Cengage Learning; 10 edition.
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