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Business Strategy Defined
A full statement of a selected business
strategy is a
business plan defining:
-
the
company vision,
overall
corporate strategy,and
objectives
-
the strategy and tactics
that will enable the company to
reach those objectives
-
the resources required, and how they are going to be
obtained;
-
what the main milestones and steps are along the way;
-
who is responsible for causing each step to occur;
-
what are the company's business risks and external factors
that need to be kept under review for indications that
a change in strategy
or plan may be required.
Surprise
To Win: 3 Strategies
Modern Theory of Business
Strategy
Strategizing is much more than just visioning, forecasting
and planning. In the
new rapidly changing economy, all substantive issues of strategy have
been redefined as issues of implementation.
Today, strategizing is concerned with the match between the internal
capabilities of the company and its external environment. "The modern
subject of business strategy is a set
of analytic techniques for understanding better, and so influencing, a
company's position in its actual and potential marketplace".4
As strategy today is a subject of application, rather than a
discipline, the obvious underpinning disciplines for strategy are economics
and organizational sociology. You should employ them to define a structure
in which the process of strategy formulation and its implementation are
bound together.
3Ss of Winning in Business
Working On Your Business
"Most businesspeople are so busy working for their business
or in their business that they never find time to
work on their
business. Thus they fail to
anticipate what might happen or what they might be able to make happen."9
Unless you regularly schedule time (one-day out-of-the-office meeting a
month at least) to work on your business and answer
critical questions, you'll never achieve your
stretch goals.
The Methods of Business Strategy
"Even if you do
see the future correctly, its timing is hard to predict and its implications are
uncertain."
~ John Kay
According to John Kay4, methods of
business strategy require:
-
Looking inward: strategic
analysis of the characteristic
of your company to identify your
distinctive capabilities and surround
them with a collection of reproducible capabilities, or complementary
assets, which enable your company to sell its distinctive capabilities
in the market it operates.
-
Looking outward:
strategic analysis of the industries and markets in which your company operates to identify
those markets in which your company's capabilities can yield
competitive advantage.
The questions are twofold:
-
What are the origins and characteristics of the
successful fit between
capabilities and
environment?
Why do companies succeed?
-
How can companies and their managers make that fit more
effective? How will companies
succeed?
Creating Sustainable Profit Growth: 9 Questions To
Answer
Competitive Strategies
To be successful today, your company must become
competitor-oriented. You must pursue the right
competitive strategy – avoid
strengths of your competitors and look for weak points in their positions
and then launch marketing attacks against those weak points...
More
Building Your
Sustainable
Competitive Advantage
Sustainable competitive advantage is the prolonged benefit of
implementing some unique value-creating strategy based on unique
combination of internal organizational
resources
and
capabilities
that cannot be replicated by competitors...
More
Business Strategy
Stretching
To
Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of
GE, business strategy stretching is doing the best possible
–
and then reaching beyond.
What Welch calls "stretch"
simply means figuring our performance targets "that are achievable,
reasonable, and within GE's capabilities. And then raising sights higher –
much higher – towards goals that seem almost beyond reach, goals requiring
superhuman effort to achieve."8 Often business leaders exceed
goals even as they fall short of the stretch. Don't punish, reward them.
What's critical is setting the performance bar high enough; otherwise, it's
impossible to find out what people can do...
More
25 Lessons from Jack Welch
New Paradigm:
Resource-Based Theory
The currently dominant view of business
strategy –
resource-based theory – is based on the concept of economic rent and the
view of the company as a collection of capabilities. This view of strategy
has a coherence and integrative role that places it well ahead of other
mechanisms of strategic decision making.4
The resource based view of strategy emphasizes
economic rent
creation through
distinctive
capabilities. Economic rent is what companies earn over and above the cost
of the capital employed in their business. It is the measure of the
competitive advantage, and competitive advantage is the only means by
which companies in competitive markets can earn economic rent. The objective
of a company is to increase its economic rent, rather than its profit as
such. "A company which increases its profits but not its economic rent
– as
through investments or acquisitions which yield less than the cost of
capital – destroys value."4 The perspective of economic rent
forces the question 'why can't competitors do that?' into discussion.
Case in Point
7-Part Competitive
Strategy of Microsoft
Although Bill Gates, Founder of
Microsoft, built his empire on technological products, his business
mastery is even more important than his technical skills, and his
competitive urge is a huge driving force.
The early success of Microsoft was founded on
the company's 7-part competitive strategy...
More
Business Strategy in the
New Knowledge
Economy...
Dynamic Enterprise Strategy...
Strategy Innovation: Evolution of a
Successful Strategy...
Business Intelligence...
Technology-oriented Business Strategy
Formulation...
Connecting
Power...
Strategic Achievement...
Competitive Strategies..,
Competitive War Games...
Flying Beneath the Radar...
Innovation Strategies...
Competitive Disruption...
Cleaner Production
Strategy...
Make It Fun...
Four Categories of Business Tactics...
Strategic Project
Management (SPM)...
Case in Point
GE...
Case in Point
Silicon
Valley Firms...
Case in Point
Amazon.com...
Case in Point
Microsoft...
Case in Point
Charles
Schwab...
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