Chapter 1: The Nature of Strategic Management: We can define Strategic Management as the art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. Strategic Management focuses on integrating management, marketing, finance/accounting, production/operation, research and development (R&D) and computer information systems to achieve organizational success. Strategic management involves strategy development, which is comprised of five stages. Discovery requires all members of the team to individually gather information on an agreed upon set of attributes affecting the organization. Strategic thinking, which can be defined as ‘the generation and application of business insights on a continual basis to achieve competitive advantage’. Strategic planning stage utilizes the insights form the strategic thinking phase to assemble a mission statement, set goals and objectives, audit the organization for internal strengths and weaknesses, assess the external environment for opportunities and threats, evaluate strategic options, and then select and operational an organizational strategy. The strategy roll-out phase turns the strategy into activities and offerings and ensures that the strategy is communicated well throughout the organization. The strategy tune-up phase is a meeting held several times per year to keep track of the progress of the implemented strategy and adjust for changes in the internal and external climate of the organization. Seven S-Models includes are Business Environment/Strategy: Competition, Economy, regulation/taxes, labor & supplier issues, Short-Term Vs. Long-Term Goal etc. Shared Values: How would you describe the mission of this company to your prospective buyers? Structure: Organization Chart, Departments, the number of management layers. Staff: the strengths and