MBA Global

Edexcel BTEC Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership

• Developing Strategic Management and Leadership Skills

This unit gives an organisational perspective, but it offers learners an insight into how it can contribute to development of their strategic management and leadership skills through assessing requirements for their current or future job roles and measuring these against relevant National Occupational Standards. Learners will develop analytical and long-term planning skills through the use of case studies and research.

Finally, this unit will enable learners to research a range of management and leadership development methods and evaluate their in meeting the skills requirements for effective leadership.

• Professional Development for Strategic Managers

This unit is designed to enable learners to take responsibility for their learning and development needs to gain the personal and professional skills needed to support the strategic direction of an organisation. Learners can achieve this through analysing their current skills and preparing and implementing a personal development plan.

This unit highlights the importance of seeking feedback from others to improve performance by continuously reviewing learning needs. The development of appropriate personal and professional skills will allow learners to cope with demanding responsibilities and career progression.

Learners will conduct a skills audit to evaluate the strategic skills they need to meet current and future leadership requirements and then use it to identify their preferred learning style. This will also inform the structure of a personal development plan.

Evidence for this unit needs to be generated continuously throughout the qualification, enabling learners to take ownership of their development needs.

Learners will need to demonstrate that they have a regularly updated and realistic personal development plan that fits with their preferred learning style.

This unit will also enable learners to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of their learning against the achievement of strategic goals and their chosen career path.

• Strategic Change Management

Strategic change impacts on the human resources structure of the organisation and this often means a restructuring of the workforce or changes in working practices.

Almost inevitably, change will generate resistance from some, particularly those who feel that the change will have no positive benefits for them. Other people may resist change simply because they prefer the status quo. Organisations need to ensure that they have strategies in place to manage resistance to change and this should be part of the overall model that they adopt for managing the change. Once in place, progress towards change will need to be monitored.

Learners will develop an understanding of the models of strategic change and the role that stakeholders play in this process. They will then examine the need for change in a selected organisation and plan the implementation of a model for change.

• Strategic Marketing Management

Strategic marketing is a way of focusing an organisation’s energies and resources on a course of action that can lead to increased sales and dominance of a targeted market. A strategic marketing strategy combines product development, promotion, distribution, pricing, relationship management and other elements of marketing. It identifies an organisation’s strategic marketing goals, and explains how they will be achieved, ideally within a designated timeframe.

Without a strategic marketing plan, organisations can waste resources, miss opportunities or, in a worse case scenario, threaten their own survival. Strategic marketing executives have up-to-date knowledge of competitive dynamics and know how to integrate marketing strategy into an overall business strategy.

Strategic marketing management provides a comprehensive examination of all the major components of marketing strategies and their integration into organisations.

It is the basis for continued success in highly competitive markets.

• Strategic Human Resource Management

The nature of the changing business environment requires adaptable strategic human resource plans. Organisations have a range of human resources policies that explain how human resources are managed. In many cases, there is a legal or regulatory requirement that insists on the existence of these policies. In other instances, organisations may wish to demonstrate good corporate practice in matters relating to employment.

The structure and culture of organisations affects human resource management.

The publication of lists of companies that are good employers indicates how structure and culture affect personnel and how the perceptions of other parties are shaped by how employees feel about working for particular organisations.

Organisations that are good employers are more likely to attract and keep good staff.

By examining human resource management, learners will understand how human resource strategy and policies enable personnel to work in ways that contribute to the overall effectiveness of organisations in both the short and long term.

• Managing Financial Principles and Techniques

This unit will give learners a foundation in financial principles and techniques relevant to the strategic management process. It encourages learners to explore the nature of cost-based financial data and information, the impact of the budgeting process on the organisation, and the development of cost reduction and management procedures and processes. It also focuses on the management of these costs through the use of forecasting, appraisal and financial reporting procedures. One of the main objectives of this unit is for learners to develop the confidence to apply, analyse and evaluate financial and cost information.

Learners will develop the ability to judge the sources, nature, accuracy and completeness of cost-based information and influence others to make decisions that are based on well-researched options. These important decision-making skills will be enhanced further through the use and validation of forecasting techniques, the consideration of financial statements and making judgements on the validity of information sources used in the decision-making process.

Learners will also apply strategies associated with determining sound management information with reference to sources of funds, the potential investment of resources and the interpretation of financial statements.

Learners will study issues of cost, responsibility and control in the contexts of management accounting and the management process. This unit gives learners the opportunity to enhance their competency in the construction, review and evaluation of cost-based financial information, and introduces them to the analysis and control or reduction of costs in a range of situations.