Article
Strategic Management Practices and Their Role in Enhancing Organizational Performance in Competitive Markets
Strategic management practices are important in determining the survival of success of organisations functioning in competitive markets in the long run. The modern business world, which is fast adopting technological shift, globalization and emerging requirements of customers demands that organizations have disciplined strategic practices in the quest to remain competitive and enhance organizational performance. Strategic management refers to the development, execution, and analysis of strategies that allow organizations to fit the alignment of internal resources, capabilities, with the external environmental opportunities and threats. Proactive strategic activities of the forms of environmental analysis, competitive positioning, resource distribution, innovation management, and performance monitoring, assist organisations in reacting in advance to the market dynamics and sustain their growth. This paper discusses the role that strategic management practices play in increasing the performance of an organization in a competitive market. The study examines strategic management key dimensions such as strategic planning, competitive strategy development, alignment and performance evaluation in organizations. The paper points out that organizations that have properly-designed strategic management structures have been shown to have high level of organizational efficiency, decision-making, positioning in the market and good financial results. Moreover, strategic management is used to plan long term, manage risks, and lead to constant improvement of an organization. The implications as offered by the findings indicate strategic management practices are some of the key resources that organizations require to attain sustainable competitive advantages and performance stability in the ever more competitive and complex business contexts.