Understanding Strategic Analysis: A Simple Guide to Choosing, Developing and Implementing Business Strategy

Understanding Strategic Analysis is a concise and practical guide for organisational strategic analysis, strategy development, decision-making, and implementation.

The book takes the reader step by step through the background of strategic management and the process of developing a new strategy. It considers how to assess the strategic capabilities and context of the organisation, how to identify and choose between the various strategic options, and how to successfully implement the change in strategy. Mini-case studies and reflective questions provide stimuli for class discussion, whilst chapter objectives and summaries structure and reinforce learning. The final chapter sets out a complete worked example to illustrate the process as a whole.

Refreshing and concise, this text provides valuable and practical reading for postgraduate, MBA and executive education students of strategic management, as well as practising managers in organisations of all sizes. Online resources include a short Instructor’s Manual, chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint slides, and a test bank of exam questions.

Tom Elsworth is Senior Lecturer in Leadership, General Management and Strategic Management at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Previously, he has held posts as Finance Director of OMNI Communications Ltd, a private PR business operating across the EU (2000–2006); Head of PR at Joint European Torus, a Euratom-funded research project (mid-1995–2000); Director of Brussels Marketing Office at AEA Technology (1994–mid-1995); and Company Secretary at Fusion Business, UK Atomic Energy Authority, a UK government-funded research project (1992–1999). He has also held various posts with the UK Atomic Energy Authority both in the US and the UK.