A. Strategic position
A1.The need for, and purpose of, strategic and business analysis

• Recognise the fundamental nature and vocabulary of strategy and strategic decisions
• Discuss how strategy may be formulated at different levels (corporate, business level, operational) of an organisation Explore the Johnson, Scholes and Whittington model for defining elements of strategic management – the strategic position, strategic choices and strategy into action
• Analyse how strategic management is affected by different organisational contexts
• Compare three different strategy lenses (Johnson, Scholes and Whittington) for viewing and understanding strategy and strategic management
• Explore the scope of business analysis and its relationship to strategy and strategic management in the context of the relational diagram of this syllabus.

A2. Environmental issues affecting the strategic  position of, and future outlook for, an organization  

• Assess the macro-environment of an organisation using PESTEL
• Highlight the external key drivers of change likely to affect the structure of a sector or market.
• Explore, using Porter’s Diamond, the influence of national competitiveness on the strategic position of an organisation
• Prepare scenarios reflecting different assumptions about the future environment of an organisation.
• Evaluate methods of business forecasting used when quantitatively assessing the likely outcome of different business strategies

A3. Competitive forces affecting an organization

• Discuss the significance of industry, sector and convergence
• Evaluate the sources of competition in an industry or sector using Porter’s five forces framework
• Assess the contribution of the lifecycle model, the cycle of competition and associated costing implications to understanding competitive behaviour.
• Analyse the influence of strategic groups and market segmentation
• Determine the opportunities and threats posed by the environment of an organisation

A4. Marketing and the value of goods and services

• Analyse customers and markets
• Establish appropriate critical success factors (CSF) and key performance indicators (KPI) for products and services
• Explore the role of the value chain in creating and sustaining competitive advantage
• Advise on the role and influence of value networks
• Assess different approaches to benchmarking an organisation’s performance.

A5. The internal resources, capabilities and competences of an organization

• Discriminate between strategic capability, threshold resources, threshold competences, unique resources and core competences
• Discuss from a strategic perspective, the continuing need for effective cost management and control systems within organisations
• Discuss the capabilities required to sustain competitive advantage
• Explain the impact of new product, process, and service developments and innovation in supporting business strategy
• Discuss the contribution of organisational knowledge to the strategic capability of an organisation
• Determine the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation and formulate an appropriate SWOT analysis

A6. The expectations of stakeholders and the  influence of ethics and culture

• Advise on the implications of corporate governance on organisational purpose and strategy.
• Evaluate, through stakeholder mapping, the relative influence of stakeholders on organisational purpose and strategy
• Assess ethical influences on organisational purpose and strategy.[3] d) Explore the scope of corporate social responsibility
• Assess the impact of culture on organisational purpose and strategy
• Prepare and evaluate a cultural web of an organisation
• Advise on how organisations can communicate their core values and mission.
• Explain the role of integrated reporting in communicating strategy and strategic performance.

B. Strategic choices

B1. The influence of corporate strategy on an organization

• Explore the relationship between a corporate parent and its business units.
• Assess the opportunities and potential problems of pursuing different corporate strategies of product/market diversification from a national, international and global perspective.
• Assess the opportunities and potential problems of pursuing a corporate strategy of international diversity, international scale operations and globalisation
• Discuss a range of ways that the corporate parent can create and destroy organisational value
• Explain three corporate rationales for adding value – portfolio managers, synergy managers and parental developers
• Explain and apply the following portfolio models (the BCG growth/share matrix, public sector matrix, the parenting matrix or Ashridge Portfolio display) to assist corporate parents in managing their business portfolios

B2. Alternative approaches to achieving  competitive advantage

• Evaluate, through the strategy clock, generic strategy options available to an organisation
• Advise on how price-based strategies, differentiation and lock-in can help an organisation sustain its competitive advantage
• Assess opportunities for improving competitiveness through collaboration

B3. Alternative directions and methods of development

• Determine generic development directions (employing an adapted Ansoff matrix and a TOWS matrix) available to an organisation
• Assess how internal development, mergers, acquisitions, strategic alliances and franchising can be used as different methods of pursuing a chosen strategic direction
• Establish success criteria to assist in the choice of a strategic direction and method (strategic options).
• Assess the suitability of different strategic options to an organisation.
• Assess the feasibility of different strategic options to an organisation.
• Establish the acceptability of strategic options to an organisation through analysing risk and return on investment.

C. Strategic action

C1. Organizing and enabling success

• Advise on how the organisation can be structured to deliver a selected strategy.
• Explore generic processes that take place within the structure, with particular emphasis on the planning process
• Discuss how internal relationships can be organised to deliver a selected strategy
• Discuss how organisational structure and external relationships (boundary-less organisations; hollow, modular and virtual) and strategic alliances (joint ventures, networks, franchising, licensing) and the supporting concepts of outsourcing, offshoring and shared services, can be used to deliver a selected strategy
• Discuss how big data can be used to inform and implement business strategy.
• Explore (through Mintzberg’s organisational configurations) the design of structure, processes and relationships.

C2. Managing strategic change

• Explore different types of strategic change and their implications.
• Determine and diagnose the organisational context of change using Balogun and Hope Hailey’s contextual features model and the cultural web.
• Establish potential blockages and levers of change
• Advise on the style of leadership appropriate to manage strategic change 3

C3. Understanding strategy development

• Discriminate between the concepts of intended and emergent strategies
• Explain how organisations attempt to put an intended strategy into place
• Highlight how emergent strategies appear from within an organisation
• Discuss how process redesign, and e-business can contribute to emergent strategies
• Assess the implications of strategic drift and the demand for multiple processes of strategy development
   

• Management
• Financial Controllers
• Accountants
• Auditors