Technologies and concepts of modern strategic analysis. Modern trends in strategic analysis

New economy

Economic and technological changes in the 1990s and 2000s were colossal. They have led some economists to refer to these changes as the "Third Industrial Revolution". Of course, the "third industrial revolution" is a delusion. The revolution can be attributed to the 1980s, moreover, it cannot be called "industrial". Rather, it is a "post-industrial" revolution. It marked the transition to an information economy, to a knowledge economy, to a new economy.

Important driving force The "new economy" has become digital technologies and new means of communication, the Internet, wireless telephony and, finally, a new wireless telephony that does not need cellular networks. However, the triumph of the new economy has more than once been replaced by collapse. The new economy, like previous economies, is prone to crises caused by the periodic onset of pessimism and a drop in business activity.

In the new economy, the source of value is, first of all, information, for example, software rather than material values. P. Romer points out that the main feature of the new value is a movie, a book, computer program or business systems- consists in the fact that the initial cost of its creation is very high, but subsequent copies cost many times less.

Economies through reproduction, combined with complementary relationships between different types of knowledge, contribute to an unprecedented increase in productivity levels. Digital technologies reduce the cost of reproducing value to almost zero and facilitate instantaneous global distribution.

In the business of transforming administrative processes and the way firms make decisions, cardinal changes are coming, as firms will have to move to high-speed electronic communication processes, to real-time decision making.

Competition and increased environmental variability

New Information Technology, instead of becoming the source of extraordinary wealth that many expected, increased competition and reduced profitability in all industries. E-commerce has lowered barriers to entry and expanded the geographical coverage of markets, increased price transparency. Digital technologies, combined with network effects, have created winner-take-all markets where price competition has intensified.

The intensification of competition is far from the only source of increased volatility in the business environment. The acceleration of technological change has become a major cause of unpredictability. Climb Nokia and decline Motorola in the industry mobile phones gives vivid evidence of the ruthlessness of the forces of creative destruction, about which J. Schumpeter wrote. Economic uncertainty and volatility manifest itself in price volatility across multiple markets.

Influence of social groups

Events of the 2000s contributed to the confirmation of these ideas and discredited the doctrine of firm value maximization that dominated the 1990s. Notably, some of the most praised in the 1990s firms that exemplify shareholder value maximization have been the hallmark victims of the new decade.

As a result, demands to increase social responsibility companies. The harshest criticism was directed against the system of payments to top management, which came to be considered generous to the point of obscenity. Expectations have spread in society that firms should expand their commitments to consider the interests of staff, local communities, the natural environment and economic development third world. S. Hart and K. Prahalad argue that such initiatives can pave the way for innovation, growth, and ultimately shareholder value, rather than becoming an additional cost source.

Expectations about the social role of companies matter to the relationship between employees and the firms they work for. In the past, employment was regarded primarily as a source of economic security and financial reward. But people are increasingly looking for meaning, identity, and companionship beyond financial gain. This “paradigm shift” has important implications not only for governance by human resourses but also for strategy, management roles and corporate identity.

Strategic analysis can be carried out both in relation to the organization itself and in relation to other enterprises. Their actions can be analyzed for benefit and harm, their capabilities can be assessed for completeness and emptiness, their plans can be studied in terms of strategy and tactics.

Based on this vision, we can more adequately build our strategy. Thus, strategic analysis is not only the decomposition of a phenomenon into separate components, but also their understanding, comprehension from a certain angle.

Consider and analyze the main approaches and directions strategic analysis in the conditions of changes and transformations of economic processes.

One of the popular methods of strategic analysis is the Boston method. consulting group, matrix "growth - specific gravity in the turnover of the market ”, designed to assist managers of diversified multi-products, multi-markets and multi-national businesses in diagnosing corporate strategy by providing an analytical framework for calculating the optimal product or business portfolio. Many other management tools cannot combine the depth and breadth of information in the way that the growth-to-market share matrix does in one concise document. This simplicity allows the portfolio matrix to be used simply and quickly to identify areas for further in-depth analysis.

Rice. 1.1

While the growth-to-market share matrix is ​​a conceptual tool that allows you to quickly and easily identify areas for further comparative analysis its main disadvantage is that the relative market share does not allow to correctly assess the competitive position of the enterprise (that is, there is no clear and definite relationship between market share and the level of income of the enterprise or has grown as a whole).

The second method of strategic analysis is the General Electric business screen matrix (Fig. 1.4) - a descriptive method using an evaluation and regulatory strategy.

It consists of a matrix that combines an internal analysis of the strengths of the organization with an analysis external environment in an industry to describe the competitive situation of different strategic organizational units and to guide the allocation of resources between strategic organizational units.

The business screen model offers greater flexibility than the growth-to-market ratio matrix. This is for two reasons: firstly, different variables can be included in the definitions of business stability and industry attractiveness, allowing for a more detailed analysis, and secondly, different weights can be assigned to the selected variables, making the business screen more useful in each unique situation of each strategic organizational unit. disadvantages this method is the exhaustibility of the considered variables chosen to determine the stability of the business and the attractiveness of the industry. Moreover, the choice of significance for each variable is subject to bias and error. The use of return on invested capital as the only benchmark does not fully reflect the performance of an enterprise that competes in the market with other economic entities.

The industry analysis method (the “five forces” model) has become widespread, which offers a structured analysis and overview of any industry (Fig. 1.2)

Rice. 1.2

The purpose of this method is to identify the development potential of the industry. Competitive forces analysis is used to identify the main sources of competitive forces and the corresponding strength of these influences. The use of the "five forces" model will greatly improve the analysis of the component environment in formulating the strategy and its practical application. Home weak side The Five Forces model is the assumption that the economic structure of industries drives competition. Moreover, this framework is designed to analyze the strategies of only individual organizational units, since synergies and interdependencies of the overall corporate level portfolio are not taken into account.

The most popular method of strategic analysis is SWOT analysis or TOWS analysis - this is an abbreviation consisting of the words: " strengths”, “weaknesses”, “opportunities” and “threats”. SWOT analysis is an analogue of a more detailed situational analysis, used to assess the possible comparison of an organizational strategy, its internal capabilities (namely, strengths and weaknesses) and external conditions (that is, its opportunities and threats).

One of the most important advantages of SWOT analysis is its wide applicability. It can be used to analyze various staff units, including individual managers or decision makers, work groups, projects, products/services, functional areas of the organization (for example, accounting, marketing, production and sales), production units, corporations, conglomerates and commodity markets. SWOT analysis does not require special financial or computer resources, it can be carried out quickly and with high efficiency without the need to collect a lot of data. The SWOT model is clearly a descriptive model that does not provide the analyst with clear and well-articulated strategic recommendations. A SWOT analysis will not provide the decision maker with concrete answers. On the contrary, the method is a way of organizing information and determines the probabilities of potential events - both positive and negative - as a basis for developing business strategy and operational plans. Usually, as a result of the analysis, only too generalized, clearly manifested recommendations are offered: protect the company from threats, align the strengths of the company with its capabilities, or protect the company from weaknesses using methods and methods of protecting property, stimulating the creative activity of the company's personnel, developing innovation activities.

Thus, we believe that in the theory and practice of strategic planning there is no clear classification of methods of strategic analysis and there is no the most optimal one. Moreover, the attribution of a particular method to strategic analysis or strategic choice is most often very conditional, since the methods (models) themselves are quite universal. In strategic analysis, as noted above, the focus is on qualitative, substantive aspects.

Strategic SWOT Analysis Matrix

SWOT analysis

When conducting a SWOT analysis, various methods are used:

Formulating strategic goals and strategic alternatives

SMART - the principle Goals must satisfy several prerequisites