A business would not succeed without both strategic management and project management. Both types of management tools will help a company to succeed in its industry and create healthy profit margins. Businesses can use strategic management to determine mission, vision, values, goals, objectives, roles and responsibilities and timelines, according to the Pakistan Institute of Management. Project management is for creating specific plans to complete a project.

Business Goals vs. Project Goals

Strategic management involves short-term and long-term planning to assist a business in reaching goals. Such goals may include increasing worker productivity, improving marketing strategy and improving production operations. Project management involves the short-term goals of creating a service, program or product that meets customer satisfaction, while striving for the same goals regarding productivity, marketing strategy and production operations. The only difference between the two is that strategic management goals involve the entire business striving for future success, while project management goals focus just on the current product's or program's future success.

Product Risks vs. Financial Risks

Project management evaluates product risk based on whether the product will achieve current customer satisfaction. Most project management involves quality assurance tests to review the project's or product's functionality for success or failure. Although the product line is essential for strategic management, in terms of creating a marketing strategy, strategic management must plan for the financial risk of a changing market. Put simply, strategic management must plan on how to respond to changing situations concerning the project and how those changes would affect the business overall.

Business Procedures vs. Project Procedures

Strategic management revolves around overarching procedures for making sure the business is continuously managed properly. That's the main thrust. These procedures involve managing the budget, developing timelines in reaching business objectives and assigning responsibilities to team members for reaching the business's mission. Project management involves procedures to roll out a final product or project, such as assigning team members to develop, create and complete the product; keeping the project within budget; and reaching the main objective of providing a quality product to customers.