Strategic management is defined by all the decisions taken by the general management of a company, with the aim of giving it a direction. It must embody a vision for the medium/long term. The implementation of this type of management involves an in-depth analysis of your activity, the competition and the motivation of your teams. To be implemented, a business strategy must use operational management.
What is strategic management?
Concretely, operational italy phone data management is based on concrete actions defined by the reality on the ground, which are implemented to ensure that the company develops and functions properly. The strategic decisions that generate these actions are taken with regard to specific objectives over the long or medium term.
Based on concrete resources , operational decisions therefore involve investments of all types. Examples include the purchase of new warehouses or investment in new machines that are more suited to the reality of demand or actual use, but also the adjustment of internal processes based on feedback or the establishment of new services.
Three key steps structure operational management : the alignment of available resources with concrete objectives by means of effective planning, the careful coordination of actions, and above all the real-time monitoring of the results of these actions in order to adapt them immediately if necessary.
What is the place of strategic management in the field of logistics?
It is internal resources and external dynamics that must guide the global strategies of companies with regard to their management. This is the premise on which operational management is based with regard to logistics.
Playing a decisive role in the assessment of the company's internal resources, managers must establish a precise assessment of the skills of the people working in their team, while taking into account their motivation. This then makes it possible to distribute tasks and missions and coordinate them optimally. In the field of logistics as in other areas, operational monitoring of the actors in the chain will finally make it possible to ensure that the strategy works and that it develops concretely on the ground.
Too rarely taken into account in many companies, especially at the supply chain level , the teams' adherence to the manager's overall vision is fundamental in operational management. It is therefore up to the manager to generate adherence by highlighting the company's medium- or long-term plans, to unite the teams and make them more effective on their own initiative.
The human aspect being taken into account, operational management can then concentrate on the purely material logistics aspect . Focus on optimizing the flow of goods, materials, raw materials, etc. by anticipating the evolution of the different markets on a company scale , identifying new opportunities for improvement, to ultimately reduce overall costs and deadlines. Having worked upstream on the human factor allows operational management to have real importance in the field of logistics and to have concrete results quickly.
Main differences between strategic management and operational management
The concepts of strategic and operational management , far from being antagonistic, are in fact complementary. Indeed, operational management stems from strategic management, and is distinguished by a more concrete and realistic vision of the major directions given by managers. Intervening in various fields, operational managers can exercise their skills within many departments such as HR, logistics or marketing. Their role will be to coordinate the teams by taking into account the human factor and the characteristics of each, before coordinating their actions and ensuring that they are in line with the established plan and translate into concrete results .
Strategic management: essential for businesses
-
- Posts: 554
- Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2025 7:17 am