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Two Levels of Control: Strategic and Operational
Imagine that you are the captain of a ship. The strategic controls make sure that
your ship is going in the right direction; management and operating controls make
sure that the ship is in good condition before, during, and after the voyage. With that

analogy in mind, strategic control is concerned with tracking the strategy as it is
being implemented, detecting any problem areas or potential problem areas
suggesting that the strategy is incorrect, and making any necessary
[2]
adjustments. Strategic controls allow you to step back and look at the big picture
and make sure all the pieces of the picture are correctly aligned.
Ordinarily, a significant time span occurs between initial implementation of a
strategy and achievement of its intended results. For instance, if you wanted to
captain your ship from San Diego to Seattle you might need a crew, supplies, fuel,
and so on. You might also need to wait until the weather lets you make the trip
safely! Similarly, in larger organizations, during the time you are putting the strategy
into place, numerous projects are undertaken, investments are made, and actions are
undertaken to implement the new strategy. Meanwhile, the environmental situation
and the firm’s internal situation are developing and evolving. The economy could be
booming or perhaps falling into recession. Strategic controls are necessary to steer the
firm through these events. They must provide some means of correcting direction on
the basis of intermediate performance and new information.
Operational control, in contrast to strategic control, is concerned with
executing the strategy. Where operational controls are imposed, they function within
the framework established by the strategy. Normally these goals, objectives, and
standards are established for major subsystems within the organization, such as
[3]
business units, projects, products, functions, and responsibility centers. Typical
operational control measures include return on investment, net profit, cost, and
product quality. These control measures are essentially summations of finer-grained
control measures. Corrective action based on operating controls may have
implications for strategic controls when they involve changes in the strategy.
Types of Control
It is also valuable to understand that, within the strategic and operational levels
of control, there are several types of control. The first two types can be mapped
across two dimensions: level of proactivity and outcome versus behavioral. The
following table summarizes these along with examples of what such controls might
look like.
Proactivity
Proactivity can be defined as the monitoring of problems in a way that provides
their timely prevention, rather than after the fact reaction. In management, this is
known as feedforward control; it addresses what can we do ahead of time to help our
plan succeed. The essence of feedforward control is to see the problems coming in
time to do something about them. For instance, feedforward controls include
preventive maintenance on machinery and equipment and due diligence on
investments.
Types and Examples of Control

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