Advanced Management

There is no ambiguity in saying that advanced management is a plan, ploy, position, pattern and perspective as it balances internal progressions of organizations with external factors. The overall strategic management of organizations is indivisible from strategic management of relationships, usually the accountability of the public relations or communication department.

Strategic management rivets taking decisions and actions that resolve long-term organizational performance. The process comprises strategy formulation, completion, appraisal, and control. It underlines monitoring and assessing environmentally generated opportunities and restraints in light of organizational strengths and weaknesses.

Essentially, advanced management is a vehicle for giving forward-looking leadership concerning the most essential issues of concern to an organization and its surroundings in a very determined, efficient, and valuable manner.

At the heart of the progression is “the communal management of a strategic agenda that transforms as an organization’s problems and opportunities transform. Effective advanced management is a core form of strategic management needs intensive, continuous, and collective concern of senior management” (Eadie and Stein bacher, 1985, p 425).

The purpose of strategic management is to help formulate, implement, and evaluate cross-functional decisions in such a way as to assist the organization in achieving its long-term objectives. The strategic management process is seen as “an objective, logical and systematic approach for making major decisions in an organization” (David, 1997: 6) in which both analysis and intuition have a role to play.

Another accepted perspective (Pearce and Robinson, 1997) emphasizes information flows through interrelated stages of analysis. It implies:

1. The interconnectedness of all process components;
2. The sequential character of strategy formulation and implementation;
3. The necessity of ongoing feedback to assess the success of strategies as they are implemented;
4. The need to regard strategic management as a dynamic system (components of the process are constantly evolving; formal planning must “freeze” them to achieve its aims).

Advanced management entails the configuration of a strategic management group to give leadership for the process. Characteristically, the framework of this group will comprise the C.E.O., top-line managers, and key executive staff members. In a small organization, for example, the strategic management group might comprise the mayor or the city manager and the heads of numerous operating departments.

It is the responsibility of the advanced management team to give the configuration for developing and modernizing strategic plans and for guiding their realization in all areas. As advanced management is a continuous process, the strategic management group must meet on a usual basis to confer strategies, monitor development, evaluate efficiency, and generally sustain a shared focus on the strategic agenda.

This comprises identifying newly promising strategic issues, estimate problems and opportunities as they develop, adapting strategies, and giving direction and control over completion plans to preceding the strategic agenda efficiently. Sporadically, it may consequence in the development of new strategic initiatives.

The business environment has transformed drastically since the advent of internet. Business organizations have undertaken extreme restructuring by modifying their means of communication and synchronization of work activities. Internet has made it promise for companies to work on a real-time basis, whereby products and services are conveyed to the right place at the right time.

Since then, internet has propagated and has undergone significant improvements. Costs have sustained to decline as these new technologies have emerged. A business not supported by a network of computer systems (primary information technology) is more or less destined to fail, since it will be incapable to compete efficiently in today’s complex and dynamic environment.

Companies are not the only ones who have gained from advances in modern information technology. Consumers and interest groups have created strategic alliances and now capable to coordinate their activities as well as exchange ideas and thoughts through a number of database and network systems.

For instance, owners of personal computers can subscribe to a computer network and without difficulty retrieve information on the products and corporations on line. Such information can also without problems be transmitted to other users.

This huge use of internet by both consumers and companies affects, but the way business is run today. These consumer strategic alliances know no geographical limitations; oftentimes, they are global in nature, particularly among the industrialized nations.

As companies can get in enormous profits from the better coordination, greater product elasticity, improved quality, leaner production, and more time-based competitiveness that internet offers, they also facades the threat that can come from these consumers’ strategic alliances. For instance, corporations can no longer ignore consumer demands for constant product quality, reliability and respect for the environment, or timely delivery of services.

As we move toward more and more advanced technologies, the labor force must be retrained. This training must not only expose workers to the technical matters adjoining the new process but also to the new focus of the organization.

They have to be made responsive of the importance of advanced technology in improving work methods and in remaining competitive. Employee compulsion to the new process is imperative.

Advanced technology by itself adds little or no value to an organization. There should be organizational as well as employee dedication to exploit the technology to the maximum. For instance, with ever-increasing use of computer-integrated manufacturing systems, and the stream of technical documentation that accompanies it, employees have to be skilled of recognizing the critical information at the right time.

Once that information is recognized and properly interpreted, there must be an organizational dedication to use the information to make better decisions. Without this potential, the organization cannot take advantage from internet.

Advanced management, therefore, will persist to be a critical factor in the survival of any organization. We sum up the influence of information technology on human resources as follows:

• Internet transforms the mode of communication and work processes.
• Custom or standardized operations are replaced with skilled and multi-skilled workers. An extremely trained labor force is desired to manage internet.
• Worker motivation and satisfaction might improve since workers are no longer restricted to routine operations, enjoy management powers, and can contribute to developments in their work processes.

Internet also has an impact on the organization itself, as follows:

• Organizational reformation is required. This reformation makes the organization flat. Decision-making powers are decentralized.
• Communications are better and the organization is capable to make timely responses to its environment.
• Introduction of new products and services is improved and varieties of products can be efficiently introduced and marketed by the organization.
• The organization is competent to improve its efficiency, quality, and competitiveness.

Today’s advanced technology can, conversely, easily become a basic technology. A rapid increase of internet also brings rapid obsolescence of earlier technologies. Policies concerning internet must not be static; they must keep evolving. Stalk (1988) points out that “competitive advantage is a persistently moving target . . . The best competitors, the most thriving ones, know how to keep moving and always stay on the cutting edge.”