What are the four types of strategic control strategies?

There are two broad types of control- strategic control and operational control. Strategic control focus on pre-action evaluation and control of the company over extended time period, while operational control provides post-action evaluation and control over short time period.

Operational control
Operational control shows more concern to action and performance of particular division or SBU of the company. It is aimed at the allocation and use of organizational resource in optimum level. The operational control is exercised by middle level management on the direction of the top level management. Budget, program schedule, short term objective may be the main techniques of operational control.

Strategic control
Strategic control shows the more concern on early warning system. It is the process of evaluating strategy that is practiced both after the strategy is formulated and after it is implemented. It is aimed at proactive and continuous questioning on the fundamental direction of strategy. It is exclusively exercised by top level management getting support from operating level management. Environmental scanning, information gathering, logical reasoning, questioning and reviewing may the techniques of strategic control. 

Strategic control possesses the following features;

• Requires more data from external sources,
• Future oriented,
• More concerned with measuring the accuracy of the decision premise,
• Control standards are based on external factors,
• Relies on variable reporting interval,
• Proactive.                                                                                                                                                          Following are the four basic types of strategic control;
• Premise control
• Implementation control
• Strategic surveillance
• Special alert control

Premise control
Any assumption or prediction made by the management just before setting the plan, decision making and controlling mechanism, is known as premise. Almost accurate assumption is essential to establish adaptive control mechanism as per complex and dynamic environment. Premises are made regarding the potential environment in which the company operates or going to operate.

Premise control checks the assumptions regarding the potential environment. It is a process of checking whether the key assumptions have been made or not accurately, and keep in track the possible changes of environmental assumptions so as to assess their impact on strategy implementation. Premise control aims to check the validity of environmental assumptions continuously. Assumptions on following factors have to be considered to make effective premise control;

• Factors those are likely to change,
• Factors those are likely to have a major change in the strategy of the company.

In the process of premise control, the premises are mainly made in following two factors;

• Premises regarding environmental factors- Premises are made regarding the general environmental factors like- political legal, economic, socio-cultural, technological and global factors.
• Premises regarding industry factors- Premises are made regarding industry related tasks- competition, buyers, suppliers, substitute product, new entrants etc.

Implementation control
Implementing a strategy takes place as a series of steps, activities, investments and acts over a lengthy period. Implementation control is designed to assess whether the series of steps, activities, investment, programs and projects are actually going towards its predetermined objectives or not. 

As a manager, one has to mobilize resources, carry out special projects and employ or reassign staff unless the completion of predetermined plans and projects. So, implementation control continually focuses on monitoring and reviewing the strategic issues and resources necessary for its implementation.

Strategic control is a term used to describe the process used by organizations to control the formation and execution of strategic plans; it is a specialized form of management control, and differs from other forms of management control (in particular from operational control) in respects of its need to handle uncertainty and ambiguity at various points in the control process.

Four types of strategic control –

1. Premise Control:

Every strategy is based on certain planning premises or predictions. Premise control is designed to check methodically and constantly whether the premises on which a strategy is grounded on are still valid. If you discover that an important premise is no longer valid, the strategy may have to be changed. The sooner you recognize and reject an invalid premise, the better. This is because the strategy can be adjusted to reflect the reality.

1. Special Alert Control:

A special alert control is the rigorous and rapid reassessment of an organization’s strategy because of the occurrence of an immediate, unforeseen event. An example of such event is the acquisition of your competitor by an outsider. Such an event will trigger an immediate and intense reassessment of the firm’s strategy. Form crisis teams to handle your company’s initial response to the unforeseen events.

1. Implementation Control:

Implementing a strategy takes place as a series of steps, activities, investments, and acts that occur over a lengthy period. As a manager, you’ll mobilize resources, carry out special projects and employ or reassign staff. Implementation control is the type of strategic control that must be carried out as events unfold. There are two types of implementation controls; strategic thrusts or projects, and milestone reviews. Strategic thrusts provide you with information that helps you determine whether the overall strategy is shaping up as planned. With milestone reviews, you monitor the progress of the strategy at various intervals or milestones.

1. Strategic Surveillance:

Strategic surveillance is designed to observe a wide range of events within and outside your organization that are likely to affect the track of your organization’s strategy. It’s based on the idea that you can uncover important yet unanticipated information by monitoring multiple information sources. Such sources include trade magazines, journals such as The Wall Street Journal, trade conferences, conversations, and observations.

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