Strategy and Tactics

December 25, 2017 By Hitesh Bhasin Tagged With: Marketing

strategy articles
It is beneficial to make distinction between strategy and tactics
so that managers can concentrate themselves on strategic
functions rather than engaging in tactical functions.
Organizational decisions range across a spectrum, having a
broad master strategy at one end and minute tactics at the other.
The major difference between strategy and tactics is that
strategy determines what major plans are to be undertaken and
allocates resources to them, while tactics, in contrast, is means
by which previously determined plans are executed. Beyond this
major difference, there may be some other differences, which
can be understood better by analyzing military use of strategy
and tactics.

Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian army general and military

scientist, defines military strategy as ‘making use of battles in
the furtherance of the war’ and the tactics as ‘the use of armed
forces in battle.’ A successor to Clausewitz, Count von Moltke
is more lucid in making distinction between strategy and tactics.
He states that:

‘Strategy is a system of makeshifts. It is carried through an

originally conceived plan under a constantly shifting set of
circumstances. Strategy furnishes tactics with the opportunity to
strike with the prospect of success. It does this through its
conduct of the armies and their concentration on the field of
battle. On the other hand, however, strategy concept accepts the
results of every single engagement and builds on them. Strategy
retires when a tactical victory is in the making in order later to
exploit the newly created situation.

The basic goal of strategy accordingly is to break the will pf the

army, deprive him of the means to fight, occupy his territory,
destroy or obtain control of his resources or otherwise make him
submit. The goal of tactics is success in a given action which is
only one part in a group of related military actions.

A further distinction between strategy and tactics as used in

Military Science is made on the basis of delegation of decision-
making authority. Strategic decisions are not delegated too low
in the organization. Normally the authority is not delegated
below the levels than those, which possess the perspective
required for the most effective decisions.

Such a distinction between strategy and tactics is quite sharp.

However, business is different from war in its true perspective
not only in terms of its objectives vis-a-vis its competitors but
also in terms of process of achievement of objectives. In
business, there is seldom a win-lose situation as is the case with
the war. Therefore, the distinction should be made between
strategy and tactics in business terms.

Distinction between Strategy and Tactics

 Level of Conduct – As discussed earlier, strategy is

developed at the highest level of management either at the
headquarter or at major divisional offices and related
exclusively to decisions in the province of these levels.
 Tactics is employed at and relates to lower levels of
management.
 Periodicity – The formulation of strategy is both
continuous and irregular. The process is continuous but the
timing of decision is irregular as it depends on the
appearance of opportunities, new ideas, crisis, management
initiative, and other non-routine stimuli. Tactics is
determined on a periodic basis by various organizations. A
fixed timetable may be followed for this purpose, for
example, preparation of budgets at regular intervals.
 Time Horizon – Strategy has a long-term perspective;
especially the successful strategies are followed for quite
long periods. In occasional cases, it may have short-term
duration. Thus, depending on the nature and requirement, its
time horizon is flexible, however, emphasis is put on long-
term. On the other hand, time horizon of tactics is short-run
and definite. The duration is uniform, for example budget
preparation.
 Uncertainty – Element of uncertainty is higher in the case
of strategy formulation and its implementation. In fact,
strategic decisions are taken under the conditions of partial
ignorance. Tactical decisions are more certain as these are
taken within the framework set by the strategy. Thus,
evaluation of tactics is easier as compared to evaluation of a
strategy.
 Information Needs – The total possible range of
alternatives from which a man-ager can choose his strategic
action is greater than tactics. A manager requires more
information for arriving at strategic decision. Since an
attempt is made to relate the organization to its environment,
this requires information about the various aspects of
 environment. Naturally the collection of such information
will be different. Tactical information is generated within
the organization particularly from accounting procedures
and statistical sources.
 Subjective Values – The formulation of strategy is affected
considerably by the personal values of the person involved
in the process. For example, what should be the goals of an
organization is affected considerably by the personal values
of the persons concerned. On the other hand, tactics is
normally free from such values because this is to .be taken
within the context of strategic decisions.
 Importance – Strategies are most important factors of
organization because they decide the future course of action
for the organization as a whole. On the other hand, tactics
are of less importance because they are concerned with
specific part of the organization. This difference, though
seems to be simple, becomes important from managerial
action point of view.
 Type of Personnel Involved in Formulation – Generally
separate group of managerial personnel are involved m
strategy and tactics formulation and their implementation.
As discussed earlier, strategic decisions are never delegated
below a certain level m the managerial hierarchy. The basic
principle m this context is not to delegate below the levels
than those possess the perspective required for most
effective strategic decisions. Personnel at lower levels can
take tactical decisions because these involve minute
implementation of strategic decisions.
Though these differences between strategy and tactics are there,
often the lines of demarcation between these two are blurred
both conceptually and operationally. At the one extreme end, the
differences are crystal clear, as discussed above. But these
differences may not always hold true because tactics is
generated by strategy and may rightly be called sub-strategy.
What is one manager’s strategy is another manager’s tactics and
vice versa. For example, strategies are developed at the head-
quarters m the strategic planning process. Various divisions of
the company may then pursue sub strategies within this strategic
planning. Thus, what might be considered tactical plans at the
headquarters may be termed as strategy at the divisional levels.
Thus, depending on the level of the organization, an action may
be strategic or tactical.

trategy has to do with the bigger picture, while tactics is what

one uses at the moment to deal with a situation. This can be best
exemplified by the example of war. There will always be a
larger strategy or game plan in a war. For example a General
might decide that he will take enemy territory using tanks.
That’s strategy. To operationalize that strategy the commander
of a tank regiment would have to study the territory in question
and come up with the tactics to be deployed to achieve the set

objective. 

Tactics are the day to day decisions that one has to take to carry
forward a strategy to its logical outcome. Strategy on the other
hand has to do with perspective. It encompasses the overall plan
to achieve a certain objective. Without a well thought out
strategy any endeavor would be a blind shot in the dark. There
will neither be a planned direction in which you would want to
proceed nor would there be any idea about the methods to be
deployed to get anywhere.

The funny thing though is this. Strategy has long been

considered to be the domain of the superior thinker who can
visualize the future and make grand plans to take his
organization there. For that he draws up a grand plan the
implementation of which is left to intellectually inferior minions
who have to resort to tactics to make any headway in accordance
with the leader’s plan. Ironically it is often the thinking on the
feet tactician who has to contend with real situations who saves
the day. Sometimes strategy is all talk and thunder while tactics
is action and reality.
However it is nobody’s case that you throw strategy out of the
window. Without strategy to guide one, tactics will achieve
nothing. Any company or organization will not prosper unless it
is able to marry the skills of both strategists and tacticians.
Strategists are able to select the right long term objectives as
well as decide on the means to go in that direction Tacticians on
their part will make full use of the available means on a day to
day basis to best achieve the strategist’s long term objectives.

You need different types of people with different levels of skills

and competencies to strategize and devise tactics for an
organization. The thing is that tactics without strategy amounts
to nothing. If labor supervisors in ancient Egypt deployed a
mass of men to move stones to the site of a pyramid
construction, the tactic was probably right in terms of the
number of men required to push a certain number of stones. But
what would really make this effort worthwhile would be the
prior provision for building a ramp from where the stones lie to
the exact site of the pyramid. Now that’s strategy. Tactics need
to flow from strategy and mostly not vice versa.
Summary:

1.Strategy has to do with the bigger picture, while tactics is what

one uses at the moment to deal with a situation.
2.Tactics are the day to day decisions that one has to take to
carry forward a strategy to its logical outcome. Strategy on the
other hand has to do with perspective.
3.Without strategy to guide one, tactics will achieve nothing.

Read more: Difference Between Tactics And Strategy |

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