Company Analysis: Determining Strategic Capability

It is vital for organizations to use company analysis to gain understanding of their limiting and enabling factors and strategic capabilities. Profits can then be maximized by selecting the most effective strategies, and through successful implementation of mergers, acquisitions and divestment opportunities.

In this book Jenster and Hussey move away from the opinion based SWOT analysis commonly used, to provide a more objective step-by-step approach to objectively analyzing an organization. This important task is clearly explained, with information helpfully displayed in diagrams, and checklists of critical questions provided. In addition to the key, functional areas of management, corporate-wide approaches such as core competencies, critical success factors, industry analysis and the value chain are also examined.

The book is illuminated with examples from the authors' own experiences, resulting in a practical and effective approach which will provide a foundation for corporate strategy and add a strategic dimension to a due diligence study - and so prove invaluable to MBA students and lecturers in strategic management.

Every manager will be asked to participate in assessing strengths and weaknesses at some time in their career, and this book enables a considerable improvement to be made to many commonly used methods - and for those responsible for the development of strategies, it offers even more.

About the Authors

Dr. Per V. Jenster is Research Professor and chairman of the MBA board of Copenhagen Business School and also on the marketing faculty of IMD (The Institute of Management, Switzerland). He was previously on the faculty of the University of Virginia and gained his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh.

Per Jenster has extensive industry experience including consulting to senior managers on strategic management, marketing planning, competitive analysis and cost evaluation studies. He is appointed advisor and member of the Virginia Export Council, US Department of Commerce and has served on the boards of international companies. His award winning research is widely published in more than 88 articles, books and case studies.

David Hussey is renowned international authority on strategic management with both practitioner and consulting experience across a range of industries. Formerly Managing Director of Harbridge Consulting Group Ltd, director of the Japan Strategic Management Society and a cofounder of the Strategic Management Society, he has published extensively on strategy and related subjects. He has gained the 1999 Ansoff Award of the Japan Society of Strategic Management, a Bcom for the University of South Africa, A Dlitt from Notting ham Trent University and the professional ACIS qualification. He is currently visiting Professor at Nottingham Business School.