1 The Concept of Strategy
16 Carroll
2 Goals, Values, and Performance
17 NO LECTURE
3 Industry Analysis: The Fundamentals
18 Carroll
4 Further Topics in Industry and Competitive Analysis
5 Analyzing Resources and Capabilities
19 Carroll
7 The Sources and Dimensions of Competitive Advantage
8 Industry Evolution and Strategic Change
20 Carroll
9 Technology-based Industries and the Management of Innovation
13 Diversification Strategy
21 Surroca
14 Implementing Corporate Strategy: Managing the Multibusiness Firm
22 11 Vertical Integration and the Scope of the Firm Carroll
23 12 Global Strategy and the Multinational Corporation Surroca
1
,Chapter 1: The concept of strategy
The role of strategy in success
Four common factors stand out:
1) Goals that are inconsistent and long term
2) Profound understanding of the competitive environment
3) Objective appraisal of resources
4) Effective implementation
1) Leads to successful strategy
The basic framework for strategy analyses
The firm
• Goals & values
• Resources & capabilities
• Structure & systems
The industry environment
• Competitors
• Customers
• Suppliers
2) Both together determines the strategy
This framework is superior than SWOT
Strategic fit → Link between the firm & its external environment
Porters activity system → internal fit → contingency theory→ no single best way
A brief history of business strategy
Strategic decisions share 3 common characteristics:
1) They are important
2) They involve significant commitment of resources
3) They are not easily reversible
Corporate planning → Long term planning
Resource-based view of the firm
Strategy today
Firms need strategy because:
1) Strategy as decision support; Strategy improves decision making in several ways:
o It simplifies decision making by constraining the range of decisions
alternatives considered and act as heuristic (rule of thumb that reduces the
search required to find an acceptable solution to decision problem).
o The strategy-making process permits the knowledge of different individuals to
be pooled and integrated
o It facilitates the use of analytic tools
2) Strategy as a coordinating device
2
, 3) Strategy as target; strategic intent → creates an extreme misfit between resources
and ambitions. Top management then challenges the organization to close the gap
by building new competitive advantages.
A company’s strategy can be found in three places:
1) In the heads of managers
2) In their articulations of strategy in speeches, in written documents
3) In the decisions through which strategy is enacted
Only the last two are observable.
Entrepreneur starting point of strategy → is the idea for a new business.
Collis and Rukstad identify four types of statement through which companies communicate
their strategies:
1) The mission statement describes organizational purpose; it addresses “why we exist.”
2) A statement of principles or values outlines “what we believe in and how we will
behave.”
3) The vision statement project “what we want to be”
4) The strategy statement articulates the company’s competitive game plan, which
typically describe objectives, business scope, and advantage.
Strategic choices can be distilled into two basic questions:
1) Where to compete?
2) How to compete?
→ the answers to these questions define the 2 major areas of a firm’s strategy; corporate
strategy => the scope of the firm in terms of the industries and markets in which it
competes. And the business strategy => is concerned with how the firm competes within a
particular industry or market.
3
, How is strategy made? The strategy processes
Henry Mintzberg distinguishes:
1) Intended strategy; strategy as conceived of by the leader or top management team
2) Realized strategy; the actual strategy that is implemented
3) Emergent strategy; the decisions that emerge from the complex processes in which
individuals’ managers interpret the intended strategy and adapt to changing
circumstances.
Applying strategy analyses:
1) Identify the current strategy
2) Appraise performance; How well is the current strategy performing
3) Diagnose performance; what is going on here?
4) Industry analysis; analysing the fit between strategy and the firms’ industry
5) Analysis of resources and capabilities; analyse the fit
6) Formulate strategy
7) Implement strategy
Strategic management of not-for-profit organizations
4
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