Decision making is very crucial in strategic management since it usually affects all the aspects of an organization. The main determinant of the decision taken is the mission and vision statement of an organization. This is because this statement provides a sense of direction and outlines the long term decisions of the organization and therefore cannot be contradicted. The corporate level managers are charged with the duty of making four key strategic decisions which provides the direction and targets of the strategic plan. These key decisions are; which issues to centralize at the corporate level, which markets or businesses to invest in, how much to invest in the business or the market and how to select and guide managers who will be in charge of the businesses (Campbell et al, 2014).

These decisions are usually made after a comprehensive research and analysis of the impacts of taking or failing to take the decisions. One of the key tools for corporate managers is the porter’s five forces model. This tool is used to identify where power lies in the business environment and therefore due consideration is taken before a decision is made. The key players in this tool are the suppliers, buyers, threat of substitution, threat of new entry and competitive strategy. Another tool that is useful is the Ansoff growth matrix which guides the management on the decision to make depending on the nature the products and markets (Riley, 2012). The tool has four main approaches which are ; market penetration which is used to sell existing product in the existing market, market development which helps in selling existing products in new markets, product development which helps in selling new products in new markets and the diversification approach which is used to sell new products in a new market. Other tools that are used are cost benefit analysis and outsourcing of experts (Hamel, 2014).

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