CERTIFIED STRATEGIC BUSINESS ANALYST (CSBA)

Descriptions

The increasing flow of business information has caused many executives losing their direction and
being unable to make proactive decisions. For example, while the issue of rescheduling foreign debt
is still unsettled, a new threat of a second financial crisis has emerged to affecting Asia. While an
investment in the expansion of production facilities is being approved, the market suddenly shows sign
of slowing; or while sales are on the rise, a new competitor suddenly emerges with better quality
product at lower prices.
To deal with an ever-changing business environment, executives need to equip themselves with new
strategic business analysis capabilities; i.e. the ability to analyze different factors in business that will
help in the understanding, interpretation and characterization of strategic issues that determine the
survival of a company. Only when business executive understand these strategic issues will they be
able to survive and thrive amid the storm of information.
Strategic-management process can be described as an objective, logical, systematic approach for
making major decisions in an organization. It attempts to organize qualitative and quantitative
information in a way that allows effective decisions to be made under conditions of uncertainty.
Nevertheless, strategic management is not a pure science that lends itself to a nice, neat, one-twothree approach. Based on past experiences, judgment, and feelings, intuition is essential to making
good strategic decisions. Intuition is particularly useful for making decisions in situations of great
uncertainty or little precedent. Although some organizations today may survive and prosper because
they have intuitive geniuses managing them, most are not so fortunate. Most organizations can benefit
from strategic management, which is based upon integrating intuition and analysis in decision making.
Choosing an intuitive or analytic approach to decision making is not an either or proposition. Managers
at all levels in an organization inject their intuition and judgment into strategic-management analyses.
Analytical thinking and intuitive thinking complement each other.