Strategic management: concepts and cases,13th ed.

Abstract

The global economic recession has created a business world today that is quite different and more complex than it was just two years ago when the previous edition of this text was published. Thousands of businesses have vanished, and consumers have become extremely price sensitive and oftentimes reluctant purchasers of products and services. Very tight credit markets, high unemployment, and millions of new entrepreneurs have also changed the business landscape. Business firms that have survived the last three years of global economic turmoil are today leaner and meaner than ever before. Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage is harder than ever. Social networking and e-commerce have altered marketing to its core since the prior edition. This new edition reveals how to conduct effective strategic planning in this new world order. Since the prior edition, thousands of liquidations, bankruptcies, divestitures, mergers, alliances, and partnerships captured the news. Corporate scandals highlighted the need for improved business ethics and corporate disclosure of financial transactions. Downsizing, rightsizing, and reengineering contributed to a permanently altered corporate landscape. Thousands of firms began doing business globally, and thousands more closed their global operations. Thousands prospered, and yet thousands failed in the last two years as the global recession spared few. Long-held competitive advantages have eroded as new ones formed. This new edition captures the complexity of this world business environment. Both the challenges and opportunities facing organizations of all sizes today are greater than ever. There is less room than ever for error in the formulation and implementation of a strategic plan. This new edition provides a systematic effective approach for developing a clear strategic plan, even in the worst of times. Changes made in this edition are aimed squarely at illustrating the effect of new business concepts and techniques on strategic-management theory and practice. Due to the magnitude of recent changes affecting companies, cultures, and countries, every page of this edition has been updated. The first edition of this text was published in 1986. Since then, this textbook has grown to be one of the most widely read strategicmanagement books, perhaps the most widely read, in the world. This text is now published in nine languages.