Audience
- Managers contributing to organisational direction and investment choices.
- Business owners reviewing growth, focus or a changing operating model.
- Senior specialists moving from functional recommendations to organisation-wide decisions.
Programme module · Kent Business College
Strategic Management
Level 7 module 1: investigate organisational position, compare strategic choices and plan implementation across 14 weekly online sessions with KBC.
Learning with a practical purpose.
Decide where an organisation should concentrate its effort, then explain how that choice can be delivered. Strategic Management develops a connected argument from organisational diagnosis to options, investment priorities, change and review. You work with competing proposals, imperfect evidence and limited capacity, learning to make a recommendation that another leader can question and use.
Teaching is delivered by Kent Business College, UK, in 14 weekly two-hour sessions: 28 live hours. The indicative plan below is an original learning design informed by the Strategic Management unit. It develops your analysis through workshops and a continuing case; the issued assignment brief determines the assessed submission. Directed learning, reading and coursework continue outside these live sessions.
Live onlineTeaching through Kent Business College, UK
2 hoursOne live session each teaching week
14 sessionsA semester for each module
28 live hoursPer module, plus independent study
The outline below is a 14-session online module, with one two-hour live session each teaching week. Reading weeks, breaks and additional activities follow the agreed cohort calendar. The cohort syllabus, full route, dates, fees, independent study and assessment requirements are confirmed before enrolment.
Who this module is designed for.
Starting knowledge and preparation
- Bring an organisation you can examine or use the supplied fictional case.
- Be prepared for critical reading, structured writing and discussion of competing arguments.
- KBC checks eligibility for the full diploma and agrees any preparation you need.
What you will work towards.
- Identify the strategic issue that deserves management attention.
- Compare genuinely different options using explicit evidence and decision criteria.
- Connect strategic ambition with resources, structure and implementation responsibilities.
- Plan change and review using measures that reveal more than activity.
- Defend a recommendation and explain the conditions under which it should change.
Explore the 14-session learning plan.
Explore the focus and practical output of each teaching session. Open individual sessions below, or expand the complete plan.
Session 01 Purpose and the strategic question
Examine why the organisation exists, whom it serves and what decision it faces. Separate a strategic choice from an operational improvement and agree the boundaries of your investigation.
Practical output: A focused strategic question and context brief.
Session 02 Reading the external environment
Investigate developments that could affect customers, costs or the organisation’s ability to operate. Rank their relevance and identify the evidence needed to distinguish a material change from a passing signal.
Practical output: An external evidence log with implications and uncertainties.
Session 03 Markets, competitors and alternatives
Consider how customers currently solve their problem, including substitutes and doing nothing. Examine competitive pressure without assuming that every competitor is pursuing the same audience or value proposition.
Practical output: A market-position analysis and competitor assumptions.
Session 04 Capability and internal constraints
Inspect resources, relationships, systems and know-how. Test whether a claimed strength creates value in the intended market, and identify bottlenecks that a growth proposal could make worse.
Practical output: A capability map with strengths, gaps and dependencies.
Session 05 What the current strategy is producing
Review existing commitments and their observed consequences. Ask which results support the present direction, which costs are hidden and which activities consume capacity without advancing the organisation’s purpose.
Practical output: A diagnosis of the current plan and priority issue.
Session 06 Connecting strategic levels
Follow one decision from organisational direction through a business unit to daily operations. Identify contradictions between objectives and the management arrangements that could reconcile them.
Practical output: A map linking corporate, business and operational choices.
Session 07 Designing strategic options
Create distinct directions rather than differently priced versions of one preferred idea. Consider focus, partnership, service redesign or market development, and state what the organisation would stop doing.
Practical output: Three options with explicit assumptions and exclusions.
Session 08 Evaluating the alternatives
Agree criteria before scoring options. Compare fit, stakeholder consequences, capability, affordability and risk, then challenge whether the weighting or evidence quietly favours the sponsor’s preferred answer.
Practical output: An option appraisal with a reasoned recommendation.
Session 09 Testing strategy under uncertainty
Change a major assumption in the case and reconsider the choice. Use plausible scenarios to identify resilient actions, commitments that should wait and signals that would trigger a review.
Practical output: A scenario test and strategic decision triggers.
Session 10 Direction, structure and accountability
Translate the choice into a coherent purpose and a small set of strategic goals. Examine whether responsibilities, decision rights and organisational structure will help people deliver them.
Practical output: A strategy statement and proposed accountability structure.
Session 11 Resources and implementation
Sequence the work around available money, skills and management attention. Identify cross-functional dependencies, assign owners and distinguish early experiments from commitments that are expensive to reverse.
Practical output: A resourced roadmap with milestones and dependencies.
Session 12 Leading strategic change
Use force-field analysis to examine support and resistance. Compare change approaches and select interventions that address the reasons people might struggle with the proposed direction.
Practical output: A change plan with named interventions and owners.
Session 13 Monitoring, risk and adaptation
Build a review that checks implementation and strategic effect. Define measures, sources and responsibility, then decide when a variance needs corrective action and when the strategy itself needs reconsideration.
Practical output: A review dashboard and escalation criteria.
Session 14 The strategy decision meeting
Present the proposal to a challenging peer board. Answer questions about rejected options, assumptions and delivery capacity, then revise the argument and identify the evidence that still needs strengthening.
Practical output: A revised strategy report and personal improvement plan.
Apply the learning
Meridian Technical Services: choosing the next commitment
In this original fictional case, a specialist services business must choose between expanding its existing offer, developing a digital service or partnering to enter another market. Its teams cannot deliver every proposal at once. Build an evidence-led recommendation, show the opportunity cost and design a review that would reveal whether the chosen direction is working. An authorised organisational case may be agreed instead.
Your project evidence can include
- A strategic diagnosis with traceable evidence and material assumptions.
- An options appraisal with a justified choice and rejected alternatives.
- A resourced implementation and change roadmap.
- A monitoring approach with review triggers and a concise board briefing.
Use anonymised, public or suitable synthetic material where workplace information is confidential. The issued assessment brief confirms the required evidence.
Assessment, feedback and certification.
- Formative feedback on the diagnosis, option comparison and implementation logic.
- A case presentation that tests the argument through questions and changed assumptions.
- An integrated preparation report; the issued OTHM coursework brief controls the final assessed task.
- Review of referencing, critical evaluation, contextual judgement and clear recommendations.
Kent Business College, UK, delivers the teaching. OTHM unit achievement requires the issued coursework to meet every applicable assessment criterion, with centre assessment and OTHM external verification.
Make the argument stronger than the framework
A completed analysis grid can organise thinking without resolving the decision. In workshops, every significant claim needs an explanation of why it matters. If customer demand is rising, ask whose demand, what evidence supports it and whether the organisation can serve it profitably.
You also examine a credible counterargument. A recommendation becomes more useful when its author can state what would make it unsuitable and how management would recognise that change. This habit connects postgraduate analysis with the practical responsibility of committing resources.
- Use a model because it helps answer a question.
- Keep evidence, interpretation and assumption distinguishable.
- Explain the practical consequence of each important finding.
Take a decision process back to work
The reusable output is a disciplined decision process: define the issue, investigate it, compare alternatives, allocate resources and review the result. You can use the same sequence for a new service, a partnership or a change of operating focus.
The module connects with leadership and people strategy: an implementation plan needs capable teams and workable decision-making. In the later KBC Applied Strategy and Leadership Studio, these subject outputs can inform a broader synthesis. That studio is an additional KBC learning module and does not add regulated credits to the OTHM award.
Questions worth asking.
Will I mainly memorise strategy models?
Models are tools for enquiry. The main task is to use relevant evidence to make and defend a choice, including the trade-offs and the work needed to deliver it.
Are 28 live hours the whole OTHM unit?
No. The unit specifies 100 GLH and 200 TQT. Your learning plan includes additional directed activity, independent study and assessment. The full six-unit diploma is 120 credits, 600 GLH and 1,200 TQT.
Is the case project the official assignment?
It is an indicative preparation project. The issued coursework brief sets the assessed tasks and criteria, and your tutor explains how the learning activities support them.
Can I use a small business?
Yes, subject to the brief and KBC’s agreement. A bounded organisation can support demanding analysis when you examine its constraints, alternatives and evidence carefully.
Programme references.
Further reading and programme references · reviewed 18 October 2026