Strategy management, a business process approach

Whatever uncertainties and complexities the future might hold, companies will be faced with a dynamic environment and will have to cope with the resulting challenges through strategy management. The objective of work presented in this thesis is to develop a better understanding of the effect of a business process based approach to strategy management. This understanding adopts a business process perspective and extends the design view to integrate financial and operational performance measures by embracing the organisation as the unit of analysis. The work presented in this research, following an in-depth review of literature, developed a set of requirements for a Dynamic Strategy Management Process. These requirements suggest that strategy management is viewed as a business process. The research continued by critically evaluating the existing strategy management frameworks, models, methodologies, tools and techniques, which have been classified according to their scope. This review concluded that although approaches reviewed collectively met all the requirements, individually none of the approaches fulfilled all of these requirements. Hence, to fulfil these requirements, PROPHESY (Process Oriented Performance Headed Strategy) was developed which is documented in detail in a workbook format. PROPHESY process was tested using two alternative approaches: The broad approach was conducted using a structured and close-ended questionnaire as well as holding workshops with a total of forty managers. Narrow approach was conducted through implementation of the PROPHESY in case studies with four manufacturing companies. All feedback from these participants was used as a basis for improving the process. The research concludes with interesting observations on the positive impact of business process based strategy management approach. It also concludes that operations strategy should focus on creating value that is independent for each business unit. This means developing horizontal strategies that have objectives of coordinating business processes and developing objectives that encourage the sharing of resources and skills.Whatever uncertainties and complexities the future might hold, companies will be faced with a dynamic environment and will have to cope with the resulting challenges through strategy management. The objective of work presented in this thesis is to develop a better understanding of the effect of a business process based approach to strategy management. This understanding adopts a business process perspective and extends the design view to integrate financial and operational performance measures by embracing the organisation as the unit of analysis. The work presented in this research, following an in-depth review of literature, developed a set of requirements for a Dynamic Strategy Management Process. These requirements suggest that strategy management is viewed as a business process. The research continued by critically evaluating the existing strategy management frameworks, models, methodologies, tools and techniques, which have been classified according to their scope. This review concluded that although approaches reviewed collectively met all the requirements, individually none of the approaches fulfilled all of these requirements. Hence, to fulfil these requirements, PROPHESY (Process Oriented Performance Headed Strategy) was developed which is documented in detail in a workbook format. PROPHESY process was tested using two alternative approaches: The broad approach was conducted using a structured and close-ended questionnaire as well as holding workshops with a total of forty managers. Narrow approach was conducted through implementation of the PROPHESY in case studies with four manufacturing companies. All feedback from these participants was used as a basis for improving the process. The research concludes with interesting observations on the positive impact of business process based strategy management approach. It also concludes that operations strategy should focus on creating value that is independent for each business unit. This means developing horizontal strategies that have objectives of coordinating business processes and developing objectives that encourage the sharing of resources and skills