Strategy in Global Context: Session 1
Strategy in Global Context: Session 1
Strategy in Global Context: Session 1
Session 1
Dilip dilip@bmaindia.com
Agenda
What is strategic management? Definitions of key terms. Historical development of the strategic
management discipline Contemporary perspectives on the nature of strategic management The strategic management model Understand the content and purpose of each element of the strategy process.
Strategy defined..
"Corporate strategy is the pattern of decisions in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals, produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the kind of economic and human organization it is or intends to be, and the nature of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities."
Kenneth Andrews (1980) The Concept of Corporate Strategy p.18
Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectations Johnson et al (2005) Exploring Corporate Strategy p.9
(shareholders vs. stakeholders) It involves broad decisions about the mix and use of resources Competitive advantage is an essential aim of strategy
(corporate, business and operational) It is dynamic and evolves over time (emergent strategy) as environmental conditions change. It is not synonymous with formal planning
of large industrial organisations in Europe and the US in the early 20th century.
Key early contributors were:
Frederick Taylor scientific management Henri Fayol administration Elton Mayo motivation (Hawthorne experiments) Max Weber bureaucracy and structure
(http://www.kernsanalysis.com/sjsu/ise250/history.htm)
grew in size and became more internationalised. This increased scale led to concerns for more effective long-term planning, co-ordination and capital budgeting.
The need to extend the planning horizon lead to the development of
formal corporate planning systems in large organisations in the 1960s. Typically, these systems produced detailed 5 year plans based on numeric analysis of economic (costs) and market forecasts (demand) containing precise objectives and plans.
In the early 1970s, the competitive landscape began to get more congested and so firms became concerned with issues of diversification as they sought new sources of revenue growth. This was the peak of formal planning with significant resources devoted to elaborate planning by specialist planning departments. In the late 1970s three factors undermined confidence in formal planning. Firstly, the results of diversification were frequently disappointing. Secondly, economic instability was generated by the oil price shocks of 1974 and 1979. Thirdly, the growth of international competition especially from Japan and SE Asia.
In response firms became more concerned with positioning their organisations favourably in the competitive landscape. The focus was on targeting, product positioning, segmentation, and product development. Strategic planning gave way to strategic management where the emphasis was on a broader range of competitive issues and less certain of environmental stability/predictability. (Porter, 1980, 1996)
In the late 1980s and 1990s, difficulties in sustaining competitive advantage saw an increased focus on internal resources and competencies as firms sought new ways to enhance profits. This major shift is often referred to as the Resource Based View (RBV) of strategy. (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). This trend has continued with a focus on intangible resources in particular (especially knowledge)
Levels of Strategy
Corporate Strategy Other Business Units Business Unit Strategy Focus: Portfolio management, diversification, corporate parenting. Focus: what product groups, segments, positioning and bases of competition to adopt. Focus: executing the decisions made above by translating them into detailed plans with budgets, etc. and implementing them.
Marketing plan
Business Mission
Objectives
Strategy selection
Action Programmes
Implementation
IMPLEMENTATION
INTENDED STRATEGY
DELIBERATE SRATEGY
REALISED STRATEGY
Unrealised elements
Emergent elements
* Note these schools are not mutually exclusive and will overlap in reality.
Competitive Advantage
Strategic Competitiveness
Core Competencies
Sources of Competitive Advantage
Above-Average Returns
Capabilities
Teams of Resources
Resources
* Tangible * Intangible