The Importance of Strategic Direction

In the modern world, strategic direction has an essential role to play in the process of decision making, controlling and directing the operational activities of a business in an effective manner. The process of strategic direction determines the extent of efficiency level of a company and therefore, strategic direction is not only associated with the immediate operational performance but is looked upon to be a long term objective (Werhahn et al., 2017). This paper would therefore look to address the assistance of strategic direction in four key areas of a business and thereby determine the effectiveness of strategic direction within an organization.

The process of entrepreneurship is related to understanding the overall tasks that needs to be performed within a business in order to determine the various activities that are related to a business. Accordingly, the key strategic direction associated to entrepreneurship is segmented into three essential elements and they are as follows:

Defining the business

The first key element of entrepreneurship is associated to organizational direction setting initiates with a clear and lucid vision and concept of what kind of business, the company is associated with and what are the paths of development the company should undertake. This aspect is determined with the help of understanding whether the business should be diversified or should concentrate on the single business and in case the the management is looking for diversification then what should be the numerous lines of business the company can be associated to. The process of entrepreneurship initially looks to determine what the business is and what kind of business functions they would perform (Aguinis et al., 2017). The three aspects of explaining the business is related to understanding the groups of the customers, who are going to be satisfied by the company, the needs of the customers as to what is being satisfied and technologies that would be used in order to understand the process with the help of which the needs of the customers are satisfied.

Establishing Strategic Objectives

The next step of entrepreneurship is constructing and understanding the strategic objectives with the help of which the company would be able to attain their goals and objectives. The strategic objectives are helpful in recognising the position in the competitive market that an organization looks to have and the distinct target of performance that the management looks to have in order to attain the trailing missions of the strategies (Bergh et al., 2016). The establishment of the strategies is undertaken by differentiating into external and internal strategies. The external strategies are related to the mix of the industries and understand the competitive edge of the organization. The internal strategies are associated to understanding the financial outcomes and the performance of the organization as whole.

The Three Key Elements of Entrepreneurship

Formulating the Strategy

The last step of entrepreneurship is to construct the strategies in accordance to the objectives and the goals of the business with the help of which the company would be able to operate the business and accordingly enhance their performance.

These three elements are essential and are related to the entrepreneurial process with the help of which the company can function their business and it is observed that all the elements that have been determined are all long term functions and therefore strategic direction is concerned with the long term operational performance and not with the performance for a financial year.

The SPICE Framework is a key tool that is constructed for enabling the efficient operational and strategic process of making decisions. The strategic direction in relation to the SPICE Framework is helpful in understanding the key areas with the help of which an organization is able to develop their business. All the elements in the SPICE framework is helpful in understanding how these elements are helpful in the strategic development of the business. Each of the elements will be discussed accordingly.

Strategy: The SPICE model assists the development of the flourishing and the existing businesses with the help of changing the aspiration and the vision of the company into a plan that is desirable with quantifiable impacts (Hartmann?Boyce et al., 2017). The key are of the strategy is helpful in determining the reasoned delivery and planning and the effect for the development.

Patterns: The SPICE Framework is a resource that is solution concentrated and accordingly assists the managers, leaders and the entrepreneurs in order to recognise, construe and respond accordingly and in an effectively to the present threats and the developing potentials (Ormazabal et al., 2017). All these aspects are related to the long term operational function and therefore the pattern that would be constructed needs to be maintained.

Individual: The SPICE Framework authorizes an organization and the individuals to develop and flourish through constructing a cohesive and strong functioning relationships and acting to the strengths of the organization. This section is related to connecting the performance of an individual to the team and accordingly to the performance of the organization.

Context: The SPICE model enables the organizations to embellish with the help of modifying the lucidness of the purpose, vision along with creating the self-belief within the companies (Looy et al., 2014). This area discovers and attains the clarity about a company and their developments that are on-going.

The SPICE Framework

Emergence: This framework assists the enhancement of flourishing the business with the help of creating the vision and the objective for the possibilities of the business. This zone concentrates on creating insights for the development of the future and sustainable developments.

All the elements that have been explained in the SPICE Framework is associated to developing long term operational as well business strategies with the help of which the current performance of the business would even develop. The attainment of the long term plans leads to development of the current activities and therefore strategic is increasingly associated to this framework.

The process of making decisions is an extensive tool that has the ability to make or break an organization. The decisions are based on the aims and objectives of an organization as it is seen that certain companies look to take risks and on the other hand there are certain organizations who look to play safe. The decision making process that is undertaken by an organization is long term based as the decisions that are constructed should last for a few years and elimination of the decision with a year would determine that the decision has not been competent in making decisions (Sharma et al., 2014). One of the essential steps in the process of undertaking a decision is based on creating the goals and allocating the responsibilities so that precise level of decision making process can be undertaken. The decisions that are constructed are based on an innovative framework so that new and improved plan can be incorporated according to the changes in the environmental factors.

The decisions that are constructed are delegated to the various teams and departments and the effectiveness of the decision is assessed with the help of the performance of the business. The effectiveness of the business decision is not based on understanding the current operational activities of the business, but is possible to understand by gaining knowledge about how the business would perform in the long term. Shepherd et al., (2015) cited that strategic direction is one of the key factors that is helpful in constructing effective decision making process. The management of an organization is looking to create strategies that would be effective to the business in accordance to the objectives of the company. On the other hand, Rosemann, & vom Brocke (2015) debated that effective decision making can be understood with the help of the current performance of the business and does not have any significance towards the long term benefits. However, the effective decision making is helpful for the long term operational performance, as any decision that is efficient would be able to have an impact on the organizational performance of a company on a long term basis and thereby would lead to competitive edge for the organization.    

The Process of Decision Making

Voorberg et al., (2015) addressed social innovation as the method of transformation that have been influenced by the extensive strategies in order to combine the elements and the factors from the point of view of a company in order to fulfil the social needs that were not met. Phillips et al., (2015) addressed the idea of social innovation is associated to the re-implication and the empowerment of the social innovation that represents substitute ways of undertaking everyday tasks.  

Social innovation is a key job for an organization with the help of which the organization is able to understand the desires of the society and the culture where the company operates and accordingly take measures that would be helpful in satisfying the community. The social innovation looks to meet the desires and the needs of the society and therefore the organizations look to incorporate the ideas that are in their mind in order to satisfy the community. The society plays a pivotal role with the help of which the organizations are able to understand what the customer desire and accordingly take actions that assists in social innovation. The society is in need of quality and innovative products and services and therefore the companies look to make use of the resources and the assets optimally. Strategic direction has an essential role to play in social innovation as the development of effective strategies in accordance to social innovation can lead to a better operational activities and sales for an organization. Van der Have, & Rubalcaba (2016) on the other hand, states that strategic direction does not assist in social innovation as strategic direction is associated to the functional activities of the organization and is not concerned with any other activities. However, Epstein et al., (2015) addressed that developing the capacity of the society to react and the satisfying their desires are the best way to improve the functional activities of the business. Strategic innovation therefore looks to explore the alternative processes and activities that would be helpful in social innovation and in a manner improve the operational activities as well.

Conclusion and Recommendation 

The assessment of the key areas that are related to a business is compared in accordance to the strategic direction. The results have indicated that strategic direction is one of the essential elements and it is recommended to the board of directors to construct plans and policies that would assist in the incorporation of strategic direction in various areas that have been discussed. The incorporation of the strategic direction within the various departments can lead to efficiency of an organization and it is recommended that the board of directors assesses the strategic directions from time to time in order to understand the how the strategic plans have been operating and what other changes can be made with the help of which the strategic directions can be enhanced. The incorporation of the strategic directions would be helpful for any organization and it is determined that strategic directions are related to the development of the long term operational plan and is not concerned with the activities that occur within a financial year.   

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