For any employee understanding of the key issues involved in planning, developing, communicating and implementing organizational strategy is an essential skill to have.

The strategy pursued by an organisation has a major influence on the day-to-day working lives of its employees and the contribution they make to achieving their organisation’s goals and objectives. This is true irrespective of the sector, type of organisation and the level at which an individual works. Therefore, an understanding of the key issues involved in planning, developing, communicating and implementing organisational strategy is essential.  

Using a broad range of contemporary management models and theories, this 3-day course aims to provide an overview of these issues. After addressing the question ‘What exactly do we mean by strategy’ the course will then go on to examine the practice of strategic management along three broad lines:

Join us to learn and address your questions on:

The strategic analysis process and position

• How to perform a macro-environment analysis
• Understand the industry and sectors we operate in.
• What are the resources and capabilities we have?
• Who are the stakeholders and how is the governance of the firm?
• What about our history and culture!

How to make strategic choices

• Which tools are available for business strategy formulation
• Should we use diversification?
• How different is strategy versus international strategy?
• But what about entrepreneurship and innovation?
• Mergers, acquisitions and alliances, do they work?

How do we put strategy into action?

• How do we evaluate the organisational performance?
• Is the strategy suitable, feasible or acceptable?
• Is strategy always planned or can it be emergent?
• What are the effects on organisational structure and culture.
• The practice of strategy

• Middle managers involved in planning, executing, or translating business strategy into action.
• Senior managers responsible for strategic direction, growth, and organisational performance.
• Department heads who need to align team objectives with corporate strategy.
• Business unit leaders managing competitive positioning and operational execution.
• Project and transformation managers driving strategic change initiatives.
• Consultants advising organisations on growth, restructuring, or market strategy.
• Entrepreneurs and business owners shaping long-term direction and competitive advantage.
• Junior managers preparing for broader leadership or strategic responsibilities.
• HR, operations, and commercial leaders contributing to organisational change and performance.
• Professionals who want to understand how strategy is built, communicated, and implemented.

09:00 – 09:30 | Welcome and mutual presentations

09:30 – 10:30 | Introducing strategy 

• What is strategy?
• The „exploring strategy“ framework
• Working with strategy
• Defining strategy 

The strategic position

10:30 – 11:15 | Macro-environment analysis

• Introduction
• PESTLE Analysis
• Scenario Analysis

11:15 – 11:30 | Morning Break

11:30 – 12:30 | Industry and Sector Analysis

• The competitive forces
• Industry types and dynamics
• Competitors and markets
• Opportunities and Threats

12:30 – 13:00 | Resources and Capabilities

• Foundations of R&C
• Distinctive resources and capabilities as a basis of competitive advantage
• Diagnosing R&C
• Dynamic Capabilities

13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:00 | Stakeholders and Governance

• Stakeholders
• Corporate Governance
• Social responsibility and ethics

15:00 – 15:15 | Afternoon Break

15:15 – 17:00 | History and culture

• Why is history important?
• Why is culture important?
• Strategic drift

09:00 – 10:15 | Strategic choices

Business strategy and models

• Generic competitive strategies
• Interactive strategies
• Business Models

10:15 – 11:30 | Corporate strategy and diversification

• Strategy directions
• Diversification
• Vertical integration
• Value creation and the corporate parent
• Portfolio matrices

11:30 – 11:45 | Morning Break

11:45 – 13:15 | International strategy

• Internationalisation drivers
• Geographic sources of advantage
• International strategies
• Market selection
• Subsidiary roles
• Internationalisation and performance

13:15 – 14:00 | Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:00 | Entrepreneurship and innovation

• Entrepreneurship
• Innovation Dilemmas
• Innovation Diffusion
• Innovators and imitators

15:00 – 15:15 | Afternoon Break

15:15 – 17:00 | Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances

• Organic development
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Strategic alliances
• Comparing acquisitions, alliances and organic development

09:00 – 10:15 | Strategy in action / Evaluating strategies

• Organisational performance
• Suitability
• Acceptability
• Feasibility

10:15 – 11:15 | Strategy development processes

• Deliberate strategy development
• Emergent strategy development
• Implications for management strategy development

11:15 – 11:30 | Morning Break

11:30 – 12:30 | Organising and strategy

• Structural types
• Systems
• Configurations and adaptability

12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch Break

13:30 – 15:00 | Leadership and strategic change

• Leadership and strategic change
• Diagnosing the changing context
• Types of strategic change
• Levers of strategic change
• Problems with change programmes

15:00 – 15:15 | Afternoon Break

15:15 – 16:15 | The practice of strategy

• The strategists
• Strategising
• Strategy methodologies

16:15 – 17:00 | Summary, discussions, questions and answers (why strategy matters?)

• Quite a wonderful experience to learn and improve skills. I am glad I took the course, I strongly recommend to colleagues or just anyone in business or corporate management. Thank you.
• This Course provides an excellent overview of the development of strategy from its origins to today and explains how the world has changed and how the strategy has evolved from SWOT to Strategic Planning, to the BCG Matrix and the Experience Curve, to Porter and to Mintzberg
• The course is clear and helps you understand how to look at the problem in a long term vision and not effect your own existing moments/growth/plan.
• Excellent course which allowed to broaden my knowledge and skills regarding the essence of strategy, strategic planning and implementation processes as well as its evaluation.