C J. Daly & Associates

Strategic management is designed to help an organization do a better job - to focus its energy and to ensure that the staff of the organization is working toward the same goal. It also serves to asses and adjusts the organizations direction in response to a changing environment.

The process is about planning and setting goals, and includes developing and achieving those goals. A series of questions are raised that helps participants evaluate experience, test assumptions, gather and utilize information about the present environment, and anticipate the direction in which the organization will be working in the future.

Strategic management is about fundamental decisions and actions because choices must be made in response to the series of questions that was mentioned above. The 'plan' is ultimately to make decisions about what to do, why to do it and how to do it.

Because it is impossible to do everything that needs to be done, strategic management implies that some organizational decisions and actions are more important than others - and the strategy lies in making the tough decisions about what is most important in achieving organizational success.