The term ‘strategy’ proliferates in discussions of business. Scholars and consultants have provided myriad models and frameworks for analysing strategic choice (Hambrick and Fredrickson, 2001). For us, the key issue that should unite all discussion of strategy is a clear sense of an organization’s objectives and a sense of how it will achieve these objectives. It is also important that the organization has a clear sense of its distinctiveness. For the leading strategy guru, Michael Porter (1996), strategy is about achieving competitive advantage through being different – delivering a unique value added to the customer, having a clear and enactable view of how to position yourself uniquely in your industry, for example, in the ways in which Southwest Airlines positions itself in the airline industry and IKEA in furniture retailing, in the way that Marks & Spencer used to. To enact a successful strategy requires that there is fit among a company’s activities, that they complement each other, and that they deliver value to the firm and its customers.
The three companies we have just mentioned illustrate that industries are fluid and that success is not guaranteed. Two of the firms came to prominence by taking on industry incumbents and developing new value propositions. The third was extremely successful and lost this position. While there is much debate on substance, there is agreement that strategy is concerned with the match between a company’s capabilities and its external environment. Analysts disagree on how this may be done. John Kay (2000) argues that strategy is no longer about planning or ‘visioning’ – because we are deluded if we think we can predict or, worse, control the future – it is about using careful analysis to understand and influence a company’s position in the market place. Another leading strategy guru, Gary Hamel (2000), argues that the best strategy is geared towards radical change and creating a new vision of the future in which you are a leader rather than a follower of trends set by others. According to Hamel, winning strategy = foresight + vision.
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