From Student to Professional — The Strategy Management Career Path
An advanced degree course, such as an MBA, typically endows professionals with a variety of leadership skills, extremely valuable at a workplace. Where a specialization becomes significant is in preparing them with the knowledge most needed on the path they have chosen for their career. Thus, if an MBA student desires to work on the long-term path for an organization and direct its critical day-to-day functions, the best advice would be to pick a specialization in strategic management.
What is strategic management?
Strategic management, as defined by Investopedia, is “the management of an organization’s resources to achieve its goals and objectives. Strategic management involves setting objectives, analyzing the competitive environment, analyzing the internal organization, evaluating strategies, and ensuring that management rolls out the strategies across the organization.” These strategies must be regularly evaluated to judge their effectiveness and need for adjustment or replacement.
Here are some key points:
• Strategy is important as the future cannot be predicted with certainty, and firms must be prepared to deal with business uncertainties.
• Strategies focus not on day-to-day operations but long-term developments and projections.
• Strategies look at probable behaviors of employees, customers, and competitors.
In essence, a strategy specifies organizational objectives, develops plans and policies to achieve the objectives, and allocates resources toward those plans and policies.
What does strategic management involve?
This combines formulating and implementing strategies. A high-order activity, it often falls to the CEO and senior members of the executive team. Strategic management gives the organization an overall direction by looking at a situation from multiple perspectives and objectives, and then planning to achieve these objectives.
Why are strategy professionals needed?
The world of business today operates at a fast clip, with data driving most if not all decisions. In such a scenario, individuals capable of evaluating situations with a broad perspective and thus coming closer to organizational goals are extremely valuable. Good strategy combines efficient operations and smart business planning, and graduates with the right knowledge and skills can take on such roles across industries.
What responsibilities do strategy professionals handle?
Strategy managers look to coordinate all objectives and projects to steer them toward common goals. A key task in this regard is to ensure a proper system of communication between different groups, and interfacing regularly with them to ensure progress is on track.
Some of their tasks and skills are:
• Working with senior management to develop strategies for the business
• Analyzing data to back up financial and investment decisions
• Evaluating and participating in M&As
• Managing investment portfolios and looking to improve investments
• Driving change through logical judgment and structured thinking
• Communicating the strategies through different modes to diverse audiences
What role does data analytics play in strategic management?
Rapidly-rising amounts of data with organizations have meant an extremely important role for analytics in long-term planning. To succeed in such a market, strategy managers must be able to work with quantitative information and models as per the needs of their company. They need to be alert to the dynamic nature of the globalized economy and its components — competitors, logistics, regulations and more — and data analytics can help immensely.
What attributes do strategy professionals need?
A strategy manager must have strong organizational and analytical skills, essential to analyze and segment corporate goals into smaller objectives. These must then be assigned to the right groups, and progress monitored accordingly. Also important is the ability to adapt and be flexible when in the midst of fast-changing situations, as well as being strong on communication skills.
What career paths can a strategy professional take?
Given the importance of strategic knowhow across organizations, the right skills open up many roles and also the chance to move up in responsibilities.
• Business analyst: suggest how to lower costs of operations
• Operations manager: supervising different processes and streamlining them wherever possible
• COO: overseeing day-to-day operations and developing strategies for the business
• Entrepreneur: learn how to efficiently and smoothly run a business
How can an aspiring professional plan a strategy career?
The following steps are useful as a rough guideline:
• Research well: look into prospects in different industry verticals and different companies, educational requirements, salaries, and other essential data. Attend the right workshops.
• Examine career options and get work experience: look at different role options available, and connect with the right people while studying. Pick up internships or good entry-level jobs.
• Network: join good professional associations and build networks in the desired work area.
What are the desired education and experience requirements?
The typical requirement is for a candidate to hold at least a bachelor’s degree in business, finance, mathematics, or statistics, along with possibly a master’s degree. Business certifications or strategic management certifications are increasingly finding favor.
At the manager level, companies seek five years or more of experience.
What salaries can a strategy manager earn?
The average annual salary for a strategy manager — including bonus, commission, and profit-sharing — is USD 101,463, with a range of USD 65,000–139,000.
In terms of experience levels,
• Entry-level (<1 year): USD 80,981
• Early career (1–4 years): USD 91,144
• Mid-career (5–9 years): USD 104,781
• Experienced (10–19 years): USD 113,798
• Late career (20+ years): USD 126,445
Is it a good idea to get certified?
For an aspiring strategy professional, a business certification from a reputed institution validates his/her knowledge of the most current skills in the field, along with showing that the candidate is serious about a strategy career and is looking for growth and additional responsibilities.
Among the well-known institutions offering strategic management certifications in this domain is The Strategy Institute (TSI). TSI offers the following certifications:
• Associate Business Strategy Professional (ABSP™): targeted at new career entrants and current students from diverse disciplines and areas of expertise such as business, finance, HR, marketing, research and analytics, or technology
• Senior Business Strategy Professional (SBSP™): to accelerate careers of experienced marketing, accounting, technology, HR, or other professionals, and an excellent choice for those targeting leadership roles
