Let me take you on a ride to the top most position of a large organization. Consider yourself a CEO if you like. This is a place from where you can see any part of the organization. Your vision, however, will cognize things at a higher level rather than the details of it. It is similar to sitting at the top of a mountain and viewing small towns and villages from the high up. You can see various roads joining these and the vehicles coming in and out from there, you can also see town lights and the location of the town with respect to the natural surroundings. At such a position, you can think about high level things like planning any roads that additionally need to be constructed to connect multiple locations that aren't connected yet, you can also plan for town expansion direction, etc. The plans made from such a position shall influence many lives. Such a high level position is called "Strategic Position" and the planning done from this high up is called "Strategic Planning".

You would know by now that being at such a high position, people expect you to plan for them and the organization, at a strategic level, so that you may provide a correct direction to the organization and as a result, whole organization thrives along with its people. People would also expect you to manage the short falls of strategic plans if any and change the course suitably, when needed. This is called "Strategic Management".

Strategic Management aims at steering an organization towards better profits and earnings. It does this by 1) Creating plans to increase the number of loyal customers, 2) Maintaining competitive edge in the area of services / products offered, 3) setting right leadership, in house, to drive implementations that nurtures proper values and 4) Assessing true strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business.

Here are a few things that you can do to first plan and then manage your strategies, effectively.

$ Know Your Surroundings Well $

Focus on what you would need to know in order to understand the bigger picture. The top list that comes to the mind is something similar to below.

^ Market Position
* The industry domain / sector that your company is a part of
* The estimated revenue capacity of the sector
* Your current revenue share

^ Competitors
* Who are your competitors
* Top 5 competitors by market share percentage
* Products and services offered by top competitors
* Perceived quality of products and services

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