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 year s 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 a n 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.

Revenue / Profit concerns

New market

Refreshed business goals

New product / service

(Re) Formulate Strategy

Strategic insights

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