After designing a strategy for your small business, you'll need to track whether the desired results came about as expected.
Strategic
controls help you do this by analyzing your company and its ability to maximize its strengths and opportunities. Knowing and applying the different types of strategic control can allow the manager to control the strategic direction of a company and direct it towards the long-term objective of the organization. The four types of strategic control are facility control, implementation control, special alert control, and strategic surveillance.Each provides a different perspective and analysis method to maximize the effectiveness of your business strategy. If we analyze the different types of strategic control with examples, we will see how each of them can help to track a strategy, detect any problems or changes that could alter the outcome, and make appropriate adjustments to avoid unwanted results. Read on to learn about the different types of strategic control with examples.
Premise Control
Premise control allows us to examine whether that assumption is valid or not after the strategy has been implemented and adapt to changes accordingly. Environmental factors such as inflation, interest rates, or industry factors, such as competition or supply, affect this type of strategic control.A bicycle brand began manufacturing and selling skateboards with millennials as target consumers. After a quarterly sales review, Premise Control revealed that the fastest-growing skateboard consumers are a younger generation.
Implementation Control
Setting performance standards, measuring actual performance, and analyzing the root cause of non-compliance with these standards are common forms of implementation control. Schedules, budgets, and milestones are also considered implementation control. Information sources, such as trade magazines, newspapers, financial journals, conferences, and economic forums, are all strategic surveillance controls that can identify possible changes in an industry and provide possible answers.Special Alert Control
No company can look the other way simply by implementing a well-thought-out strategy.They have to evolve with the changes and react to them, whenever necessary. Special alert control allows a company to be evaluated under particular circumstances, such as natural disasters or a market crash. This type of strategic control helps us analyze a strategy in new circumstances and manage it with the right tools, procedures, and priorities.
Strategic Surveillance Control
Strategic surveillance control identifies overlooked factors, inside and outside an organization, that may affect its strategy. Smaller companies mainly use it as a larger information scan to learn about an industry and its trends.The implementation period is full of evolutions and changes. Managers must be aware of the different types of strategic control to prevent strategies from going wrong and producing unwanted results.
Asset Control
Asset control, in this case, would involve regularly monitoring economic indicators, such as GDP growth, employment rates, inflation, and other relevant metrics in those key markets. If the economy starts to decline or grow more slowly than expected, the company would have to reevaluate its strategies.They may need to delay expansion plans, adjust their product development schedule, or modify their marketing strategies to respond to changing economic conditions.
Facility Control
Therefore, facility control acts as an early warning system, allowing companies to recognize changing circumstances and proactively adjust their strategies. This allows for more agile decision-making and helps prevent major strategic errors.Conclusion
The various types of strategic control are crucial to provide solutions related to the strategies that an organization plans to implement.Strategic surveillance is not focused on any specific area but is designed to detect unexpected events that could affect the organization's strategy. Knowing and applying these different types of strategic controls can help managers make better decisions for their businesses.
