Strategy comes from the Greek work strategos, which has its roots in military language. It refers to a general's grand design behind a war or battle. In fact, Webster's New American Dictionary defines strategy as the "skillful employment and coordination of tactics" and as "artful planning and management"
             Strategic management is a process, and approach to addressing the competitive challenges an organization faces. It can be thought of as managing the "pattern or plan that integrates an organizatio's major goals, policies, and action sequences into a cohesive whole" Thes strategies can be either the generic approach to competing or the specific adjustments and actions taken to deal with a particular situation.
             Fisrt, business organizations engage in generic strategies that often fit into some strategic type. One example is "cost, differentiation, or focus." Another is "defender, analyzer, prospector, or reactor". Different organizations within the same industry often have different generic strategies. These generic strategy types describe the consistent way the compay attempts to position itself relative to competitors.
             However, a generic strategy is only a small part of strategic management. The second aspect of strategic management is the process of developing strategies for achieving the company's goals in light of its current environment. Thus, business organizations engage in generic strategies, but they also make choices about such things as how to scare off competitors, how to keep competitors weaker, how to react to and influence pending legislation, how to deal with various stakeholders and special interest groups, how to lower production costs, how to raise revenues, what technology to implement, ad how many and what types of people to employ. Each of these decisions may present competitive challenges that have to be considered.
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