Strategy

Strategy is a combination of choices that a business makes and implements to

achieve its guiding purpose. This may include

choosing customers / segments

choosing products and/or services and varieties within them

choosing geographies

choosing the value proposition

choosing how the value is configured

choosing how the value is delivered

etc.

Strategy need not be an explicit exercise . A professional who goes about his job in
chosen way and manner and consistently winning customers with the valu e he delivers
and expanding his business does have a strategy even if he hadnt thought about
strategy or spent hours analyzing his competitors / industry.

Strategy exercise need not be an annual event or for that matter occupy ones
calendar periodically. As the situation demands or as foreseen, strategy exercise
should kick start. In a happening industry / environment companies may be forced to
relook at their strategy every six months. In a sedate or mature industry, strategy can
even be a once in two or three years affair. The determinant for the timing of strategy
exercise is the ground situation (either real or forecasted) and not the calendar.
However nothing stops periodic review of business strategy to confirm assumptions /
choices made and that the performance is on desired lines .

Strategy as formed should be flexible to accommodate changes as may be

necessitated by changing (either real or forecasted) situation. This requires feedback
systems that track how well, strategy originally formed is implemented and serves its
purpose.

Every business must keep learning about its business / customers / performance
/ competitors / suppliers / substitutes / any factor that impacts its revenue and
the very purpose for which it exists

Strategy may be, formally, formed at the top but the inputs for the same should
come from all interested sources from within and from all corners of a business /
company. Feedback systems play a huge role in strategy formation.

Strategy = Thinking + action . Strategy is an elaborate and systematic plan of

action is how the dictionary defines it. Strategy sans action is not strategy but just a
theorization of how an organization should move forward.

Critical factors in strategy formation are capabilities, environment and strategic

insight. Capabilities involve both internal and partner capabilities while environment
refers to industrial, regulatory and social environments. Strategic insight (customer
insight + market insight + feedback) refers to the knowledge that a company develops
by observing and learning about

how well its products / services are received by the mark et

customer experiences and what is missing in that experience

changing tastes / preferences of cu stomers

how substitutes and complementary pro ducts / services are shaping up

how various players and their capabilities threaten / complement the

businesses position

how the business has performed in meeting the demands of the customers /
market, where it has failed, where it succeeded and what it needs to achieve

gaps in capabilities, resources and infrastructure

etc.

A business needs to formulate / reformulate strategy under following situations.

New
market

New
product /
service

Revenue /
Profit
concerns

(Re)
Formulate
Strategy

+++

Refreshed
business
goals

Strategic
insights