| Chapter 1: | Africa's 21st-Century Renaissance in Higher Education: The Need for Strategic Planning |
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graduating), the vibrancy of curricula, and the relevancy and adequacy of faculty (by way of numbers, academic qualifications, and scholarly activity) ultimately all depend on careful planning. Strategic plans are products of the broader field of strategic management. In mainstream literature (e.g., David, 2009), strategic management is viewed as a process that consists of three major stages: strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. Formulation involves developing an organization's mission and vision; identifying its major external factors (opportunities and threats); assessing its internal situation (strengths and weaknesses)—commonly referred to as conducting the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis; establishing goals; and generating strategies to achieve those goals (through setting objectives) and choosing the best strategies to pursue. Implementation requires establishing annual objectives, devising policies, motivating employees toward achievement of objectives, and allocating the necessary resources (time, money, employees, raw materials, equipment, and information and technology) so that formulated strategies can be executed and objectives achieved.
David (2009) went further to say that strategy implementation includes developing a strategy-supportive culture, creating an effective organizational structure, redirecting marketing efforts, preparing budgets, developing and utilizing information systems, and linking employee compensation to organizational performance. Implementation is thus referred to as the “action” stage of strategic management.
Because of the importance in strategic planning of understanding strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, a working definition of these terms is in order. Strengths are positive internal factors that may help an institution achieve its goals or objectives used interchangeably, for our purposes). Weaknesses are negative internal factors that may prevent an institution of higher learning from achieving its objectives. Opportunities are positive external factors on which an institution may capitalize to achieve its goals. Threats are the exact opposite—negative external factors that may damage a university's chances for success on many fronts. The search for internal strengths and weaknesses is