Strategy is a plan, method, or series of actions designed to achieve a specific goal or effect. Can you explain this?
First off let us distinguish between 'A strategy' and 'A Strategic Plan'
Strategic Plan; is a systemic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them. It involves a systematic, formally documented process for deciding the handful of key decisions that an organisation, viewed as a corporate, whole must get right in order to thrive over the next few years. The process results in the production of a corporate strategic plan.
Strategy; relates to the firm or company identifying its economic, social, and environmental performance objectives and it helps bridge the gap between the long-term vision and short-term decisions. It provides a basis for the company to build or gain a competitive advantage and increase its bottom line or market share over the long-term. As a strategy involves looking forward there is always uncertainty and risk associated with deciding strategy. The question ‘what is strategy?’ therefore also implies a set of strategic options from which one chooses a course of action to achieve advantage. Strategy is more about a set of options or "strategic choices" than a fixed plan or road map. As I have researched this paper it became apparent that strategy has many facets and means many different things to many different people. Henry Mintzberg addressing the question “what is strategy” argues the word strategy has has a multiplicity of meanings, and in his writing on strategic management theory, Henry Mintzberg from McGill University, identifies five common usages of the term strategy, each beginning with ‘P’.1
1 Mintzberg, H. 1987. The strategy concept I: Five Ps for strategy. California Management Review, 30(1), 11–24.
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