1 What is Strategy?
1.1 The definition of strategy
1.2 The target of a strategy
1.3 Strategy Statement
1.3.1 The Objective
1.3.2 The Scope
1.3.3 The “Competitive” Advantage
1.4 Strategy Sweet Spot
1.5 Hierarchy of company statements
1.6 Characteristics of a good strategy and strategic positioning
1.6.1 Uniqueness
1.6.2 Trade-offs
1.6.3 Fit – Coherence – Consistency
2 Value Creation and Value Capture
2.1 Value Creation
2.2 Value Capture
2.3 Added Value
2.4 Formulas
2.4.1 NOPLAT
2.4.2 ROIC (= Return on Invested Capital)
2.4.3 WACC (= Weighted Average Cost of Capital)
2.4.4 EVA (= Economic Value Added)
2.4.5 FCF (= Free Cash Flow)
2.4.6 Enterprise Value
2.4.7 The keys to capturing value.
3 The competitive landscape
3.1.1 Industry attractiveness
3.1.2 Porter’s 5-forces model
3.1.3 The industry value system
4 Building competitive advantage
4.1 Definition of a competitive advantage
4.2 Method of analyzing
1
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of this work.
, 4.3 Types of competitive advantages
4.3.1 Horizontal differentiation
4.3.2 Vertical differentiation
4.4 Define the scope of your business. (Step 2)
4.4.1 Customer specialization focus
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4.4.2 Product specialization focus
4.4.3 Geographic specialization focus
4.4.4 Niche focus
4.5 Select the Activity set of your business. (Step 3)
4.5.1 The value chain.
4.5.2 Platforms
4.5.3 Cost examination
4.5.4 WTP
4.5.5 Consider Changes in Activities
4.6 Assemble the needed resources and develop the key capabilities (Step 4).
4.6.1 Definitions
4.6.2 Resources
4.6.3 Capabilities
4.7 Set up the business model to link value creation and value capture and create
a virtuous cycle (STEP 5).
5 Sustaining Competitive Advantage
5.1 Understand the sustainability of your competitive advantage (STEP 6).
5.1.1 Tetra-threat framework
5.2 Test your strategy (STEP 7).
5.2.1 Internal Consistency – Coherence
5.2.2 External Consistency – Coherence
5.2.3 Dynamic Consistency
6 Testing your strategic thinking
6.1 Will your strategy beat the market?
6.2 Does your strategy tap a true source of advantage?
6.3 Is your strategy granular about where to compete?
6.4 Does your strategy put you ahead of trends?
6.5 Does your strategy rest on privileged insights?
6.6 Does your strategy embrace uncertainty?
6.7 Does your strategy balance commitment and flexibility?
6.8 Is your strategy contaminated by bias?
6.9 Is there conviction to act on your strategy?
6.10 Have you translated your strategy into an action plan?
,7 Corporate Strategy
7.1 Corporate Advantage
7.2 Building your Portfolio of Businesses and Defining your model for Corporate
Advantage (STEP 1)
7.2.1 BCG’s Growth/Share Matrix
7.2.2 The industry attractiveness – business strength matrix
7.2.3 Problems with the previous matrices
7.2.4 The growth map
7.2.5 The ‘better-off’ test
7.2.6 The ‘best-alternative’ test (natural owner)
7.3 Designing your group and organizing for corporate advantage (STEP 2).
7.4 Conclusion
8 Diversification Strategy
8.1 Does diversification create or destroy value?
8.2 Why do companies diversify?
8.3 Empirics
9 Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility
9.1 Responsibility
9.1.1 Shareholder/Stakeholder Perspective
9.2 Shared Value
10 Strategy Process
10.1 Challenges in execution
11 Guest Speakers
11.1 Rika Coppens (House of HR).
11.2 Marc Michils (Kom op tegen Kanker).
11.3 Annick Van Overstraeten (Le Pain Quotidien).
11.3.1 Internal Consistency
11.3.2 External Consistency
11.3.3 Dynamic Consistency
, 1 What is Strategy?
1.1 The definition of strategy
The choice of a future for the organization and of a way to reach that future, understood as
the framework that coordinates, unifies and integrates the company’s decisions and actions
and positions a business in an industry to generate superior financial returns over the long
run.
= THE SMALLEST SET OF CHOICES TO OPTIMALLY GUIDE OR FORCE OTHER
CHOICES.
1.2 The target of a strategy
The end goal of strategy is to be successful over the long term. A company is successful
when it creates and captures economic value.
1.3 Strategy Statement
There are three critical components of a good strategy statement, and executives should
be crystal clear about them.
1.3.1 The Objective
Any strategy statement should begin with a definition of the ends that the strategy is
designed to achieve. “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will lead you there”.
The objective should be specific, measurable and time bound. It should also be a single
goal.
1.3.2 The Scope
It is also crucial to define the scope or domain of the business. We try to answer the
following question: ‘What’s the part of the landscape in which the firm will operate?’. Some
question that a restaurant should answer; sit-down or quick service, casual or upscale
environment, French food or Mexican food, ....
A firm’s scope encompasses three dimensions: customer or offering, geographic location
and vertical integration. The three dimensions may vary in relevance. Vertical integration
refers to a business strategy where a company controls multiple stages of the production
or distribution process within its industry.
1.3.3 The “Competitive” Advantage
Your competitive advantage is of essence for your strategy as
well. What your business will do differently from or better than
others define the all-important means by which you will achieve
your stated objective. This advantage has complementary
external and internal components: Why should the target
customer buy your product above all the alternatives? And how
must internal activities be aligned so that only your firm can deliver
that value preposition?
Advantage is the most critical aspect of a strategy statement.
We could use the Value Preposition to identify our competitive
advantage.
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