Analysing Company Strategy: The Case of EMC Corporation

Despite the wide acceptance of David's [41] Comprehensive Strategic Management Model, there exist a number of challenges in the application of the model in practical strategic management cases. The main objective of this paper is to research for an improved model that can be used in conducting an executive level strategic planning effectively and efficiently, and test the methodology using EMC Corporation case. A practical strategic planning model for the top management, called an Executive Strategic Planning Model, is developed. The model improves David's model from the following perspectives: 1) Clearly defined the linkage between Vision and Mission Statements, and the Strategy Planning processes. 2) Provided specific methodology to evaluate the completeness of the mission statement in order for it to be effective in guiding the strategy planning processes. 3) Included Market Analysis explicitly as a process to produce crucial information to the strategy formulation processes. 4) Provided a practical model for collecting and processing internal and external data into the information required by the strategy formulation processes 5) Added a consolidation process in David's Strategy Formulation Analytical Model to reconcile the strategic options generated by different matching tools with different perspectives. 6) Simplify the planning process for top management by limiting the scope down to the issues that concerns the top management only. A top management level strategic planning case study for EMC Corporation, using the enhanced model, is conducted in this paper in order to demonstrate how the model can be applied in a real life situation