The Fundamental Elements Of Strategy

This open access book clarifies confusions of strategy that have existed for nearly 40 years through the core thoughts of three fundamental elements. Unlike the traditional definition of strategy as "a plan to achieve a long-term goal from overall considerations”in a linear view, this book defines strategy from non-linear viewpoint as it is in the real world. The art of a strategy lies not only in the determination of development goals, but also in the identification of development problems and putting forward overall guiding ideology of solving problems. Rich illustrations as well as numerous business and military cases are presented in helping readers to understand the fundamental elements of strategy.The general scope of the book includes introductions to the three fundamental elements of strategy, three-sub decisions of a complete strategic decision, incomplete strategies, relationship between tactic and strategy, three elements of competitive and corporative strategies. There may be biases in company-level, real strategic decision-making which makes a complete strategy not necessarily a perfect one. The book introduces biases and reasons for the biases, helping industrial strategic decision-makers understand the importance of knowing the nature of the company, the industry and its environment. In addition, this book also presents principles and evaluation approaches of strategic decisions, explores the reasons for the excessive definitions of the strategy concept, and discusses directions of future’s research tasks.The book will benefit business managers who are interested in knowing what a complete strategic decision is and how to avoid errors or biases in strategic decision-making. It also benefits students in business schools (especially in MBA/EMBA programs) who are (or will be) on executive positions. Academic researchers may find it is interesting to understand strategy from the view of the three elements. The new view provides a novel insight into strategy and promotes several research directions in the future. The three elements of strategy are also applicable to military strategies and readers who are interested in military and may find its value as well.

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.

Over the past ten years, there has been growing interest in the process of strategic decision-making among both managers and researchers. Strategic decisions are important for five main reasons: They are large-scale, risky and hard to reverse; they are a bridge between deliberate and emerging strategies; they can be a major source of organizational learning; they play an important part in the development of individual managers and they cut accross functions and academic disciplines. Strategic Decisions summarizes the current state of the art in research on strategic decision-making, with chapters prepared by leading strategy researchers. The editors also present implications for current application and proposed directions for future research.

This valuable resource helps institutional leaders understand and implement a data strategy at their college or university that maximizes benefits to all creators and users of data. Exploring key considerations necessary for coordination of fragmented resources and the development of an effective, cohesive data strategy, this book brings together professionals from different higher education experiences and perspectives, including academic, administration, institutional research, information technology, and student affairs. Focusing on critical elements of data strategy and governance, each chapter in Data Strategy in Colleges and Universities helps higher education leaders address a frustrating problem with much-needed solutions for fostering a collaborative, data-driven strategy.

Simple but powerful strategies for increasing your success by improving your thinking The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking presents practical, lively, and inspiring ways for you to become more successful through better thinking. The idea is simple: You can learn how to think far better by adopting specific strategies. Brilliant people aren't a special breed—they just use their minds differently. By using the straightforward and thought-provoking techniques in The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking, you will regularly find imaginative solutions to difficult challenges, and you will discover new ways of looking at your world and yourself—revealing previously hidden opportunities. The book offers real-life stories, explicit action items, and concrete methods that allow you to attain a deeper understanding of any issue, exploit the power of failure as a step toward success, develop a habit of creating probing questions, see the world of ideas as an ever-flowing stream of thought, and embrace the uplifting reality that we are all capable of change. No matter who you are, the practical mind-sets introduced in the book will empower you to realize any goal in a more creative, intelligent, and effective manner. Filled with engaging examples that unlock truths about thinking in every walk of life, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking is written for all who want to reach their fullest potential—including students, parents, teachers, businesspeople, professionals, athletes, artists, leaders, and lifelong learners. Whenever you are stuck, need a new idea, or want to learn and grow, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking will inspire and guide you on your way.