标题: strategist这个职业的定义 [打印本页] 作者: albert 时间: 2003-9-17 09:48 标题: strategist这个职业的定义 请问谁知道strategist是做什么的？需要什么SKILLS？ 谢谢！作者: 7986 时间: 2003-9-17 10:06
In my opinon, strategist is related with strategic planning. Atrategic plannning jobs are found mostly at large, established companies. Just like management consultants, strategic planners apend a lot of time thinking about top-level strategy issues.
At some companies, strategic planing may be carried out by the corporate finance department. In such cases, it may resemble investment-banking functions such as mergers and acquisitions.
Strategic planning may also involve institutional investment, that is, parcelling out the company's money to fund outside startups.
In this definition, I think strategist needs skills in strategic managment, finance, and executive communication.作者: albert 时间: 2003-9-17 10:18
thanks a lot, 7986. very useful information.. anyone had more information?作者: wannafly 时间: 2003-9-17 10:53
You can focus on strategy and/or policy field after you graduate from school, but nobody call you strategist. What is strategy? 1. Operational effectiveness is not strategy. 2. Strategy rests on unique activities. 3. A sustainable strategic position requires trade-off. 4. Fit drives both competitive advantage and sustainability.
according to Michael E. Porter: there are three generic strategic approaches: overall cost leadership, differentiation, and focus.
strategy should include: 1. Areanas. Where will we be active? 2. Vehicles. How will we get there? 3. Differentiators. how will we win? 4. Staging. What will be our speed and sequence of moves. 5. Economic logic. How will we obtain our returns? Core.
1. I work in the strategic planning group for a large sporting goods/shoe company (so a little different from what you'd be doing in the IT industry), and we essentially function as an internal consulting team.
So, aside from macro-level industry /market analysis, brand strategy, etc., we'll also get called in to various business units when there's problems or decisions to be made, work on improving operational efficiency, and in general, are involved in whatever the "hot topic" of the day is. So, it's a good combination of macro and micro level work.
If you are interested in really learning how a business works from the top down, strategic planning is a good place to be. Most strategic planning teams report directly to the CEO, so the exposure to all areas of the business is pretty solid. Only negative I can think of is that the nature of the work is exactly the same as for a strategy consulting firm, but the pay is about half. On the other hand, hours are a bit more reasonable, and you stick around to see your projects implemented.
2. Career paths can be all over the map. I worked for a small consulting firm before strategic planning, but others in our group worked for larger MC firms, finance, or just joined straight after b-school.
In my case, pay is quite a bit lower (base salary at least...stock options help close the gap somewhat) because there are a lot of people willing to forego some $ to work for a "cool" company. And lifestyle differences are not to be underestimated (or undervalued!).
3. As for development space, that is definately a big plus. The way our company operates, (and I have heard that others are the same) is that the strategic planning group is essentially the feeder for good jobs in the rest of the organization. Members of our team usually have "right of first refusal", so to speak, for internal job openings. Right now, for example, we have "alumni" of our group running a country subsidiary and heading up a major product category.
The skill sets question is a little tougher to answer. As I have mentioned earlier, we prefer to have people with a very diverse set of experiences, which we feel adds varied and valuable perspectives to the group. Since we're a little atypical in regard to skill sets and the composition of our team, I can't really give good advice on how to position yourself for entering strat. planning. But, in all companies you will need to understand the general principles of business strategy, financial analysis, etc. I know of other strategic planning groups that are much more structured, ie. they hire mostly out of McK, Bain, BCG, etc, and I would expect this to be more the norm.
Organizational Structure: Strat. planning groups tends to operate quite independently from the rest of the company, and collectively reports to the CEO. Group size can range from ~5 to 20+, depending on the size of the company.
作者: albert 时间: 2003-9-18 08:37
Thank you, wannafly and tsljz two BANZHU