Chapter 9: Strategic management.

Strategic management as presented in this text examines a generic set of management models. By definition, they have application to any organisation or industry. In this chapter, we look at how these strategic management tools and techniques can be of value in considering management issues in the audiovisual industry. Johnson and Scholes define strategy as: the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term: ideally which matches its resources to its changing environment, and in particular its markets, customers or clients as to meet stakeholder expectations. Strategy is essentially about the big decisions that owners, directors or managers might make; for example: • which products to make and services to offer • how they (owners, directors or managers) see their company in the marketplace • how they analyse their own internal and external competitiveness • how they can be a more effective company or firm in the future. Strategic management starts by analysing the business environment, and we suggest a few tools and techniques to help that task. An organisation's managers can consider the options based on this analysis by, say, scenario planning and risk analysis. Then they have to consider how to apply the choices available. Finally, the management team develop the implementation plan and tactics to match this strategy. This process can be summarised as: • analysis • choice • implementation. In the last 50 years, many strategic theories have come and gone, along with the popularity of the professors of various business schools or management gurus who propound them. In this chapter, we present tools and techniques that will allow any competent manager, irrespective of the particular strategic model favoured, to analyse the economic and business environment in which he or she operates. The audiovisual industry is highly volatile and unstable. The churn rate of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) listed in media trade directories is high. Many UK film production companies are formed for a single production. Others, such as Goldcrest, go from being lauded in Hollywood to receivership within just a few years. 'The British are coming' said Colin Welland, actor and scriptwriter, at his Oscar acceptance speech for the screenplay of Chariots of Fire in 1982. The British might be coming, but just as many are going. As earlier chapters have indicated, management strategies in the audiovisual industries are often underpinned by government policy. In the UK there is currently controlling regulation for television and a minimalist intervention policy for film. The business environment of the media company (see Introduction, Figure I) was devised to show some of the interlocking, complex and circular relationships with which the media manager has to deal. Imagine the media manager at the centre of this space; every one of these relationships will influence the decisions of the media manager -- decisions that cannot be made without recognising the paradoxes that beset a manager in the audiovisual industry: • balancing creativity with project control • managing a chaotic and unstable business environment • coping with change or an increasing rate of change • dealing with an ever-changing technical platform. This chapter has been devised to introduce you to how you might deconstruct, understand and possibly act more effectively in organisational management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]