Strategy: An Executive’s Definition

Strategy is different from vision, goals, mission, priorities and plans

as strategy is the outcome that executives make in order to decide
where to play and how to win to sustain for a long term.

Where to play tells us what type of market to target, which varies

from one business to another. Moreover, a target market is defined
based on the presence of target customers, which is decided on
parameters like where the customers resides (city or town), the
frequency at which they buy, their demographics (innate
characteristics), what and from whom do they prefer buying do they
prefer buying etc. Having a unique way to decide about the target
market has always proved to be advantageous (like in the case of
southwest’s airlines) and not every company can do so. Deciding
upon the right choices and making decision is a crucial task.
Therefore, target market, value proposition and capabilities should
go hand in hand.

How to win is about delivering value proposition that stands out in

the eyes of target customers. It is very difficult for the company to
decide whether to go for long-term growth objective or short-term
profitability hence maximising long-term value is not same as
maximising shareholder value (as shareholder value focus on short
term profitability).

A business should focus on parameters such as target customers,

value proposition and important capabilities. A company with a
good vision, goal and plan but without a strategy won’t sustain
longer.