What are the steps of the decision-making process in the field of strategic management?

1. Define the problem:

2. Analysing the problem:

(i) The futurity of the decision. This means to what length of time, the decision will be applicable to a course of action.

(ii) The impact of decision on other functions and areas of the business.

(iii) The qualitative considerations which come into the picture.

3. Developing alternative solutions:

4. Selecting the best type of alternative:

(a) Risk element involved in each course of action against the expected gain.

(b) Economy of effort involved in each alternative, i.e. securing desired results with the least efforts.

(c) Proper timing of the decision and action.

(d) Final selection of decision is also affected by the limited resources available at our disposal. Human resources are always limited. We must have right type of people to carry out our decisions. Their calibre , understanding, intelligence and skill will finally determine what they can and cannot do.

5. Implementation of the decision.

(a) Proper and effective communication of decisions to the subordinates. Decisions should be communicated in clear, concise and understandable manner.

(b) Acceptance of decision by the subordinates is important. Group participation and involvement of the employees will facilitate the smooth execution of decisions.

(c) Correct timing in the execution of decision minimizes the resistance to change. Almost every decision introduces a change and people are hesitant to accept a change. Implementation of the decision at the proper time plays an important role in the execution of the decision.

6. Follow up:

7. Monitoring and feedback:

Feedback provides the means of determining the effectiveness of the implemented decision. If possible, a mechanism should be built which would give periodic reports on the success of the implementation. In addition, the mechanisms should also serve as an instrument of “preventive maintenance”, so that the problems can be prevented before they occur.

According to Peter Drucker, the monitoring system should be such that the manager can go and look for himself for first hand information which is always better than the written reports or other second-hand sources. In many situations, however, computers are very successfully used in monitoring since the information retrieval process is very quick and accurate and in some instances the self-correcting is instantaneous.

planification, organization, coordination, direction, and control

In strategic management, it becomes very essential to break it up into parts to get into decision making

(A)Identifying the areas of issue

(B)Impact of the issue(Internal and external customers

(C)Brainstorming for a solution

(D)Arriving at one best solution and 

(E)Conducting an Root Cause analysis for the cause, so this kind of an issue does not crop up in the future.

While all these steps are followed, the employees and their opinions are also to be kept in mind while taking a decision.

The steps of the decision-making process are:

• Determine the strategic priorities
• Examine all possibilities
• Integrating the best choice in the elaboration of the strategy.