Staying ahead of the competition is one thing; staying there is another. Many institutions can produce a strong plan once, but far fewer manage to keep their policies relevant as the market, the resources and the competition around them keep shifting.

Arab British Fellowship Training Academy designed this course around that exact challenge — giving participants the practical grounding to build institutional policies that hold up under real industry standards and real competitive pressure, not just policies that look good on paper.

Participants work through the full arc of smart strategic management, from reading internal and external environments to applying the EFQM excellence model, so the policies they design actually institutionalise a framework the organisation can keep adapting rather than rebuilding from scratch.

Who Should Attend?

• Managers of various institutions and companies.
• Those responsible for overseeing plan implementation.
• Employees across different administrative functions.
• University students in business administration departments.

What You Will Be Able to Do

• Master the key concepts and building blocks of smart strategic planning.
• Analyse internal and external environmental factors that shape strategy.
• Develop, register and evaluate an organisation's strategy against quality standards.
• Build policies and programmes that fit both internal capacity and external requirements.
• Apply the stages of strategic management using recognised excellence models.
• Monitor strategic plans, correct deviations and support sound strategic decisions.

Module 1: The Case for Smart Strategic Management

• Concept, scope and levels of smart strategic management
• Competitive advantages, opportunities and their strategic impact
• Integrated concepts in strategic planning

Module 2: Reading the Environment Before You Plan

• Analysing external opportunities and threats
• Analysing internal strengths and weaknesses
• Fundamentals of preparing smart strategic plans

Module 3: From Plan to Policy: Building Institutional Excellence

• The relationship between strategy and the EFQM excellence model
• Developing vision, mission and strategic direction
• Formulating and building strategy, strategic and tactical plans

Module 4: Applying the EFQM Excellence Criteria

• Leadership, policies and strategy as excellence criteria
• Human resources, available resources and operations
• Customer, community and human-performance results

Module 5: Creative Planning and the Skills That Support It

• The concept and benefits of creative planning, and how it differs from tactics
• Control systems, information systems and strategic incentive systems
• Effective communication systems and the role of work teams

Module 6: Practising Strategic Planning and Avoiding Common Mistakes

• Building a real action plan for the participant's own department
• Common mistakes in the strategic-planning process and how to avoid them
• A practical lab reviewing participants' own past planning experience