...“Strategy articulates the firm’s preferred environment and the type of organisations it is striving to become.” – Hiroyuki Itami. Discuss why an understanding of strategy and strategic management is fundamental to an organisations success. There is no one specific and definitive meaning to the word strategy. You would generally consider strategy to be the process involved in setting goals and objectives and then, ultimately the way's of achieving these goals through the designated and limited resources. Strategy describes how a firm will achieve their goals using the necessary resources. The firms Strategy will generally be established by the leaders in an organisation. Strategy can be intentional or emergent. Mc Keown argued that strategy is about shaping the future. Mintzberg thinks its a pattern in a stream of decisions. They both think strategy is a very important part of any firm and what the firm is striving to be. The key steps in planning a strategy is usually coordinated by the top management. This involve Mintzberg's 5 P's for strategy: The consist of…. A plan, A pattern, A position, A prospective, A ploy. Plan, Strategy is a plan, usually an intended course of action, a way to deal with a situation. By this definition, strategies have two essential characteristics, they are made in advance of the actions to which they apply, and they are developed consciously and purposefully. Ploy Like plan, a strategy can be a ploy too, its really just a specific manoeuvre...
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...sure you have a strategy? Donald C. Hambrick and James W, Fredrickson Executive Overview After more than 30 years of hard thinking about strategy, consultants and scholars have provided an abundance of /rameworks for analyzing strategic situations. Missing, however, has been any guidance as to v^hat the product of these tools should be—or virhat actually constitutes a strategy. Strategy has become a catchall term used to mean whatever one wants it to mean. Executives now talk about their "service strategy," their "branding strategy," their "acquisition strategy," or whatever kind of strategy that is on their mind at a particular moment. But strategists—whether they are CEOs of established firms, division presidents, or entrepreneurs—must have a strategy, an integrated, overarching concept of how the business will achieve its objectives. If a business must have a single, unified strategy, then it must necessarily have parts. What are those parts? We present a framework for strategy design, arguing that a strategy has five elements, providing answers to five questions—arenas: where will we be active? vehicles: how will we get there? differentiators: how will we win in the marketplace? staging: what will be our speed and sequence of moves? economic logic: how will we obtain our returns? Our article develops and illustrates these domains of choice, particularly emphasizing how essential it is that they form a unified whole. Consider these statements of strategy drawn from actual...
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...(Definition of Strategy) "Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations.” (Johnson and Scholes) Mintzberg starts off by identifying that there are differences in strategy, some are ‘intended’ and others ‘realised’. He states that this diagram allows the distinction of deliberate and emergent strategy to be identified. (Definition of Deliberate) It follows a calculated formula, where they set a goal, define a set of steps to reach that goal and then methodically act on each step, formulated by central leadership. This is a conscious and rational process that involves assessment of market structure, competitive analysis and detailed market research to determine specific customer needs, so much so it is a ‘surprise free situation’. (Definition of Emergent) On the other hand, an emergent strategy is a pattern of actions that develops over time in an organization in the absence (or despite) a specific set of goals. The extent to which change can be differentiated depends on whether a company chooses to implement developmental, transactional or transformational change (Ackerman 1997) As Mintzberg says, it is unlikely for a firm to be operating a ‘purely emergent’ or ‘purely deliberate’ strategy. Firms lie in between the two, which could be seen as the...
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...Strategy Strategy is the long term direction of an organisation; it is the plan which decides the future course of action for an organisation or an individual. It is likely to be expressed in broad statement both about the direction and the action required to be taken by an organisation to achieve the objectives. For example: it may be stated in terms of market entry, new products or services or ways of operating. Strategic decisions are likely to be concerned with the scope of an organisation’s activities. And these types of decisions are normally about trying to achieve some advantages for the organisation over competitors. For example, Dell felt that the margins earned by many competitors were too high and that made them vulnerable to a strategy of lower prices and tighter margins. Strategy can be seen as creating opportunities by building on an organisation’s resources and competences. This is called resource-based view of strategy, which is concerned with exploiting the strategic capability of an organisation, in terms of the resources and competences to provide competitive advantage and yield new opportunities. E.g. a large MNC may focus its strategies on those businesses with strong brands. The strategy of an organisation is affected not only by environmental forces and strategic capability, but also by the values and expectation of those who have power in and around the organisation. The beliefs and values of the stakeholders will have a greater or lesser...
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...Business Press Boston, Massachusetts ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-4672-9 4673BC This document is authorized for use only in GMBA-EN-BL_Abr2015_A1 - Strategy Implementation by Pedro Guillermo Ruiz, IE Business School from January 2016 to January 2017. Copyright 2008 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America This chapter was originally published as chapter Introduction of The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations, copyright 2002 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to permissions@harvardbusiness.org, or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163. You can purchase Harvard Business Press books at booksellers worldwide.You can order Harvard Business Press books and book chapters online at www.harvardbusiness.org/press, or by calling 888-500-1016 or, outside the U.S. and Canada, 617-783-7410. This document is authorized for use only in GMBA-EN-BL_Abr2015_A1 - Strategy Implementation by Pedro Guillermo Ruiz, IE Business School from January 2016 to January 2017. INTRODUCTION The Heart of Change T ...
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...Slide 1.1 1: Introducing Strategy Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, Exploring Strategy, 9th Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2011 Slide 1.2 Learning outcomes • Summarise the strategy of an organisation in a ‘strategy statement’. • Identify key issues for an organisation’s strategy according to the Exploring Strategy model. • Distinguish between corporate, business and operational strategies. • Understand how different people contribute to strategy at work. • Appreciate the contributions of different academic disciplines and theoretical lenses to practical strategy analysis. Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, Exploring Strategy, 9th Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2011 Slide 1.3 Definitions of strategy (1) • ‘..the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resource necessary for carrying out these goals’ Alfred Chandler • ‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’ Michael Porter Sources: A.D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of American Enterprise, MIT Press, 1963, p. 13 M.E. Porter, ‘What is strategy?’, Harvard Business Review, 1996, November–December, p. 60 Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, Exploring Strategy, 9th Edition, © Pearson Education Limited 2011 Slide 1.4 Definitions of strategy (2) • ‘..a pattern in a stream of decisions’...
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...that there was a difference between operational effectiveness. Operational effectiveness measures competency and how well a company outperforms its rivals, but a large part of strategy implements evolution and differentiating amongst competitors. As Michael E. Porter states, “A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve” (Porter 2010, p. 3). In addition, a great deal of strategic positioning is to know the market and deliver the needs of demands. For example, Southwest provides a first come first serve seating and allows its customers to check in 2 bags for free, while Spirit Airlines have the lowest deals in most flights, but charges their customers a fee for any carry on bags or checked in luggage. American Airlines and affiliates offer wifi and complimentary drinks on flights and JetBlue has Direct TV for its customers. I use these examples because I travel back and forth from California and Oregon, and have observed these features on many airlines. I find it very applicable to the topic of strategy. Each and every airline has its distinguishable features as incentives for customers to choose them over their rivalries. My perception of strategy has evolved in that I have applied many of the previous discussions we have had in the past with strategy and effective implementation. I find it hard to successfully carry forth strategic planning and success within a company without great leadership, management and an understanding...
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...Question 1 (strategy game): You have managed your camera company in the virtual industry environment for seven “years” together with your co-managers. As an individual now, and with the benefit of hindsight, if you were to start again from Year 6, what would you do differently in your strategy and in your management, and why? Note: the game is clearly a means to an end, and what I’ll be looking for in your answer is that you use your “toolkit”, which you have acquired from Strategy and from other courses in this GXMBA. Also, the question is about company strategy and its deployment, not about internal group organization. GO TO ANSWER Article 1 - Home Depot Earnings Beat, Raises Outlook Published: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2012 | 6:33 AM ET By: CNBC.com With Reuters Home Depot raised its full-year outlook on Tuesday as the retailer benefited from a recent uptick in the U.S. housing market and analysts expect a sales boost from super storm Sandy in the current quarter. The nascent recovery in housing has encouraged professional contractors to buy more in recent months. Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement chain, has also gained from its own efforts to improve distribution, cut costs and localize marketing and merchandising. Excluding a charge for closing seven stores in China, Home Depot said it had earned 74 cents per share. Analysts had been expecting 70 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Third-quarter revenue...
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...J U LY 2 0 12 strategy practice Becoming more strategic: Three tips for any executive Michael Birshan and Jayanti Kar You don’t need a formal strategy role to help shape your organization’s strategic direction. Start by moving beyond frameworks and communicating in a more engaging way. We are entering the age of the strategist. As our colleagues Chris Bradley, Lowell Bryan, and Sven Smit have explained in “Managing the strategy journey” (on mckinseyquarterly.com), a powerful means of coping with today’s more volatile environment is increasing the time a company’s top team spends on strategy. Involving more senior leaders in strategic dialogue makes it easier to stay ahead of emerging opportunities, respond quickly to unexpected threats, and make timely decisions. This is a significant change. At a good number of companies, corporate strategy has long represented the bland aggregation of strategies that individual business unit heads put forward.1 At others, it’s been the domain of a small coterie, perhaps led by a chief strategist who is protective of his or her domain—or the exclusive territory of a CEO. Rare is the company, though, where all members of the top team have well-developed strategic muscles. Some executives reach the C-suite because of functional expertise, while others, including 1 In a McKinsey Global Survey of more than 2,000 global executives, only one-third agreed that their corporate strategy approach represented “a...
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...evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment. ------------------------------------------------- Strategic Management – An Ongoing Process by GE Consult on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 8:59am December 16, 2009 by Fred Victor The term “globalization” is not new, what is more, it is more rapid and pervasive nowadays. Significant reductions in barriers to international commerce since the mid-1970s have resulted in markets and industries becoming increasingly integrated across nations. In fact, distance is becoming a shrinking barrier. Markets are globalizing rapidly, due to technological advancement particularly in computer technology, as are the firms that competing. As a result, strategic management will be more significant as the pace of business nowadays. Managing change has become the "silver bullet" in seeking the final component of successfully managing strategy, process, culture and people in most modern organizations. Furthermore, staying competitive in the face of demographic trends, technological...
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...Book: Be Different or Be Dead by Roy Osing ISBN: 9781626753150 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1894694694/?tag=sounexecbooks-20 This book is an A to Z business strategy guide, including how to create strategic game plan, elements of execution and staying alive in the competition. Author basically has 2 main objectives for readers to reach. The first is to provide a guide for the execution journey and provide a process to follow. One of the lesson I learned from that is, If you commit to the process, It will deliver executional competency to you in your business life even individually. The second is give more information about the conversation about strategic planning. Just from a different point of view by not completely destroying the traditional planning model, main purpose is to shift the balance between where you or your company want to go, and how you intend to get there. I learned a lot more how to create a strategic game plan. Author lists the possible issues you may be facing, and gives keywords for fast implementation. He also states that focusing the critical elements of execution and keeping all these things easy, play an important role for your act. In addition to that author encourages readers to user their leadership intelligent. Author also lists the questions that we need to ask during the journey, and we have to keep these answers always updated along the way: How big you want to be, how do you want to serve and how will you compete to win. Deciding how big you...
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... MAN4120 Exercise 1A: Compare Business Strategy with Military Strategy Ranking the nine military maxims: 1= most important 9= least important Top 9 Maxims: 9= Simplicity-prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding Plans are important. Strategic management relies on strategies that are first formulated, implemented and than evaluated for success. This is the most important. 8= Objective- direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective After plans are formulated in a general scope, now objectives or goals are also formulated in order for it to be implemented and achieved. 7= Unity of Command-for every objective, ensure unity of effort under the responsible commander In business, we have organizational structure. Strategic plans are executed by certain people with duties such as management and employees. Without this type of structure, there is no way of directing the path of success. 6=Offensive-seize, retain, and exploit the initiative At this point, strategy can now be implemented after planning. 5= Maneuver-place the enemy in a disadvantageous position through the flexible application of combat power. Part of implementing strategies, placing competitors in a disadvantage by having “competitive advantage” 4= Mass-concentrate combat power at the decisive place and time Also, part of strategy implementation, deciding when to execute goals...
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...The Importance of Strategy Most corporations would purport to have a well defined strategy which they have developed to take their business forward. Often however strategy is confused with operational planning, planning focused on delivering a more effective outcome for the business as it exists and not about positioning the company for the future. So widgets are made with ever increasing efficiency until the time comes when no one wants widgets like the company makes them any longer and a once proud company is consumed by its wily competitor or ceases to exist. Strategy is about planning to reach a vision which differentiates a company from its competitors in a positive way. It encompasses overall direction as well as the many detailed activities that occur in a company. Strategic success generally depends on possessing an enlightened and unique vision as well as doing the many things needed to achieve the vision well. If one focuses too much on the activities often the vision is lost, likewise if the focus on the vision is too intense then the operational matters are neglected resulting in across the board problems in personnel, quality, poor productivity, and so on. Indeed, ask any manager to define his or her idea of strategy and one will invariably be given a raft of answers as the person struggles to differentiate between corporate strategy and operational planning. Thus whilst one may be given the answer that the “corporate strategy” is to improve quality over a 2 year...
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...The two broad turnaround strategies that may be followed by Public and Private companies are Strategic and Operating. Strategic turnarounds can be branched into activities that comprises of a change in business strategy for competing in the same business and those that involve for entering a new business or businesses. Operating strategies does not involve altering the business level strategies and usually focuses on increasing revenues, decreasing cost, decreasing assets or a combination effort. Our research work mainly focuses on existing corporates that applies Strategic turnaround strategies to reverse a major decline in their performance. Repositioning Strategy Repositioning is an entrepreneurial strategy that puts its emphasis on growth and innovation. This strategy answers the declining situation in an organization by devising out a new definition of the mission and its core activities. The organization can choose to stay and become more dominant in the existing market or by diversifying itself into new markets and products. In some of the cases the management may think that the current resource capabilities of a company can achieve a greater competitive advantage, if applied to a new market segment by successfully integrating and making a fit between the capabilities of the firm and the external environment. The repositioning strategy acknowledges the notion of diversification and provides an opportunity for a firm to leverage on it existing resources such as financial...
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...What’s Strategy? Introduction The ability to sustain the business in the market is definitely a tough job. That explains why behind every company there is a strategist to come up with innovative ideas to achieve specific goals. The need for a structural organization to grow, a plan such as a unique strategy is needed. A strategy is a unique plan, a long term plan for a structural organization to achieve a targeted goal. It involves unique activities that enhance the organization to outshine from the competitors and still preserve it. There are different strategies to take into consideration but the definition of strategy that this essay will outline here focus on three questions below: 1. What forms of value do organization wants to create? 2. How to create that value? 3. How to manage that value? In answering these three questions we will then have a better understanding of what is strategy. What forms of value do organization wants to create? Firstly, why do organization wants to create something valuable to consumer? The value benefit the consumers, therefore organization create the value consumers’ desire. Value can be in a form of service, a product or other different forms of value. A market research need to be done to have a better understanding of the consumers’ needs. After the above source being gathered, organizations are able to match the consumers’ needs with the newly created value. A win-win situation should be established for consumers...
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