Strategic Systems Thinking: Creating Competitive Advantage

Thursday - Friday
8:30 am to 5:30 pm

The world of business is changing rapidly and discontinuously.  To cope with today’s challenges, and help their companies achieve competitive advantage, managers have to be outward-looking and be able to think strategically.

Strategic Systems Thinking: Creating Competitive Advantage equips you with the skills to meet those challenges.  The course guides you in (a) thinking systematically, to see the “big picture” of your companies beyond your functional “silos,” and in (b) becoming more strategic in your outlook and in your work, thereby adding value to your job and to those of your team members.

This 2-day training course presents a framework for systems thinking and strategic thinking, applied to your own organization and functional unit.

Strategic Systems Thinking: Creating Competitive Advantage is one of the three courses in the Leading for Competitive Advantage Series. The other courses in the Series are:

• Leading Strategic Execution
• Leading Change: Critical Success Factors

After the course, you will:

1. Relate three laws of systems thinking to your own organization and/or experience;
2. Apply strategic thinking models to your own organization; and
3. Create a framework based on three strategies, applied to your own organization and functional unit.

The course is appropriate for managers and supervisors who are involved in developing and/or implementing corporate and functional strategies.

I.    Systems Thinking: How to ensure that your plans encompass the whole system of your company
    A.    Develop a “big picture” systems perspective
    B.    Understand three laws of systems thinking
    C.    Map out the work of a strategist
    D.    Match external opportunities and internal changes

II.    Strategic Thinking: How to participate in strategy creation
    A.    Analyze your company’s industry
    B.    Analyze the five environments of your company
    C.    Analyze your company’s internal capabilities
    D.    Craft corporate strategies
    E.    Use the TOWS Matrix
    F.    Use the Growth Matrix

III.    Strategic Thinking: How to be more strategic in your job
    A.    Craft functional strategies that align with corporate strategies
    B.    Create strategic connections between your units and other units
    C.    Add strategic value to your job

IV.    Integration: How to apply systems thinking to strategies
    A.    Measure strategic success
    B.    Apply systems thinking to strategies

is one of Asia’s leading personalities in global competitiveness, organizational strategy, and management development. He is also the President of Strategic Directions, Inc.