Management and Strategic Management

Management

The management is well defined by Richard L. Daft that “Management is the attainment of organizational goals in an effective and efficient manner through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling organizational resource”.

This definition of management explains a wide-ranging meaning of management and bestows following functions in management:

1. Formulation of plans for future
2. Organizing the resources of the organization
3. To lead the people of the organization
4. Exercising the control over resources
5. Performing the above tasks efficiently and effectively so that optimum resource utilization is ensured for the sake of achieving ultimate goals.

Another popular definition of management exits i.e. “The art of getting the things done through others”. The problem with definition is that it focuses attention towards administering the people only and ignores other resources. This definition is also misunderstood in the real world to exercise a bureaucratic control over the others. It conveys that the manager has the ultimate knowledge and he/she should get the work done from other in either way.

Strategic Management

Formally speaking strategic management is a mechanism of devising, executing, and appraising cross-functional decisions based on analysis of alternative strategies that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. It implies that strategic management works through integrating the activities of all functional segments of an organization in order to maximize the efficiency sought to accomplish the aims, goals, targets, objectives, and missions of an entity.

Academicians more often use the term strategic management whereas strategists from the business world usually refer it as strategic planning. The focus of strategic management or planning remains tomorrow with the aim to create new opportunities and take advantage of them accordingly through efficient resource management and curbing deficiencies.