Corporate Strategy

A One-Volume, MBA-Level Course on Creating­­and Implementing­­Powerful Corporate and Divisional Strategy

Decision makers in today's evolving corporate environment often must formulate strategy on two different levels. Corporate-level strategies must focus on a firm's overall goals and objectives. At the same time, division-level strategies require targeted decision-making to accomplish more focused, distinct tasks and responsibilities.

Corporate Strategy outlines and explains a working model for addressing the complex issues of corporate as well as divisional strategy. This straight-talking guide encompasses:

• The Strategic Planning Process
• Productivity Improvement
• Valuation of Acquisitions and Divestitures
• Restructuring for Shareholder Value

For all businesses, the strategic planning process begins with executives devising strategies for growth, then managers using those strategies to approach operational issues. Corporate Strategy addresses both factions­­and provides hands-on answers to the strategic issues and dilemmas faced every day by executives and managers in multidivision companies.

Look to The McGraw-Hill Executive MBA Series for straight-talking, technique-filled books, written by front-line executive education professors and modeled after the programs of top business schools. Other titles in the series include:

• Finance & Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Sales Management

In today's increasingly streamlined corporate environment, relationships between parent corporations and their subordinate divisions have been transformed. The inherent values of product and service diversification­­once considered fundamental strategic requirements­­are being questioned, and in many cases set aside, in favor of more focused, centralized structures.

Corporate Strategy bridges the gap, providing strategic guidance for the fundamentally linked­­yet functionally separate­­corporate and divisional factions. Mirroring the tactics, knowledge, and hands-on instruction found in today's finest business schools and executive education seminars, this insightful book builds a step-by-step model for setting short- and long-term corporate goals and objectives, tackling divisional strategic issues, and subsequently improving both corporate performance and shareholder value. Executives, line and staff managers, consultants, and academics can use its charts, checklists, case studies, exercises, and quizzes to:

• Understand strategic similarities and differences between corporate and divisional levels
• Develop a decision-making approach that involves detecting problems and opportunities­­and implementing effective courses of action
• Restructure a business unit to best support corporate goals and requirements
• Dramatically increase work force productivity to improve both short-term profitability and long-term value
• Employ time-tested, old economy processes to strengthen the financial performance of new economy organizations
• Reorganize and divest to return a company to profitability­­and establish cash flows beyond those needed for ongoing operations

The major, ongoing restructuring of U.S. industry has introduced a reformulated set of strategic requirements, along with new tools for meeting those requirements. Corporate Strategy provides an innovative, rigorous look at today's strategic issues, describes new tools and alternatives available to address those issues, and outlines a distinctly original­­yet fundamentally sound­­approach for strategic success in the competitive corporate arena of today and tomorrow.

Contents

Part I: Corporate Strategy.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Corporate Strategy.

Chapter 2: The Increasing Emphasis on Strategic Planning.

Chapter 3: Strategy, the Old Economy, and the New Economy.

Chapter 4: The Strategic Planning Process.

Part II: The Strategic Importance of Productivity.

Chapter 5: Productivity Improvement and Competitiveness.

Chapter 6: Productivity Improvement in the Old and New Economies.

Chapter 7: Productivity and Competitive Analysis.

Part III: Analytical Tools for the Strategist.

Chapter 8: Residual Income, Corporate Capital Charges, and EVA.

Chapter 9: Analytical Relationships Among Cash Flow, Growth, and Investment Goals.

Chapter 10: The Valuation of Acquisitions and Divestitures.

Part IV: Strategic Issues at the Corporate Level.

Chapter 11: Strategic Issues for the Corporate Parent.

Case 11A-8 Lewis Corporation.

Case 11A-9 Monument Corporation.

Case 11A-10 Concord Corporation.

Part V: Strategic Restructuring for Shareholder Value.

Chapter 12: The Restructured Pelican Corporation.

Chapter 13: A Final Strategy for Pelican Corporation.

Chapter 14: Final Thoughts.