Strategic Business Analyst

The increasing flow of business information has caused many executives to lose their direction and be unable to make proactive decisions. For example, while the issue of rescheduling foreign debt is still unsettled, a new threat of a second financial crisis has emerged affecting Asia. While an investment in the expansion of production facilities is being approved, the market suddenly shows sign of slowing; or while sales are on the rise, a new competitor suddenly emerges with better quality product at lower prices.

To deal with an ever-changing business environment, executives need to equip themselves with new strategic business analysis capabilities; i.e. the ability to analyze different factors in business that will help in the understanding, interpretation, and characterization of strategic issues that determine the survival of a company. Only when business executives understand these strategic issues will they be able to survive and thrive amid the storm of information.

Strategic-management process can be described as an objective, logical, systematic approach to making major decisions in an organization. It attempts to organize qualitative and quantitative information in a way that allows effective decisions to be made under conditions of uncertainty.

Nevertheless, strategic management is not a pure science that ends itself to a nice, neat, one-two-three approach. Based on past experiences, judgment, and feelings, intuition is essential to making good strategic decisions. Intuition is particularly useful for making decisions in situations of great uncertainty or little precedent. Although some organizations today may survive and prosper because they have intuitive geniuses managing them, most are not so fortunate. Most organizations can benefit from strategic management, which is based on integrating intuition and analysis in decision-making. Choosing an intuitive or analytic approach to decision-making is not an either-or proposition. Managers at all levels in an organization inject their intuition and judgment into strategic management analyses. Analytical thinking and intuitive thinking complement each other.

This course includes a study of strategic planning including mission statement development, analysis of the external environment and internal organizational factors, development of strategic alternatives, selection of appropriate alternatives, implementation of strategies, and competitive strategies and dynamics. Special emphasis is given to the integration and coordination of the functional areas within the enterprise. The case method will be used to provide practical experience in analysis and decision-making in the solution of business problems.

The participants by the end of the course program shall undertake the certification exam to prove that they have fulfilled the standard requirement as strategic business analysts.