Designing strategy
Posted by Grant Brewer
That approach to strategy epitomised by Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad has often been referred to in this column. Their approach encourages organisations to reinvent their future rather than build their strategy purely as a response to the industry circumstances that they find themselves in. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but an interesting trend has emerged over recent years that links innovative strategy with innovative product or service design.
Apple Computer, Inc is one company that demonstrates this trend more than most: its innovative product design has assisted it to carve out a new set of markets for portable music players, computers and software. And they did this from a position of weakness since although Apple has always enjoyed a strong brand, they have very low market share. Sony is another example. They pioneered a design oriented strategy when they launched the Walkman in the early eighties, creating a new market that has grown significantly since then. In the service industry Virgin has embedded the design and position of their brand into every service they deliver. Boutique hotel chains provide another example of design oriented service delivery.
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Finding opportunity in globalisation
Posted by Grant Brewer
Globalisation is here to stay. South Africa picked a challenging decade to start transforming itself after 1990 because it was a decade of increasing globalisation; and the effects of a more open world couldn't be avoided. This doesn't mean that the global playing field is level – it is frequently anything but level; just ask the Department of Trade & Industry! Traditional international leaders such as the US and Western Europe remain dominant and are able to ensure the trade rules often favour themselves. The challenges and failures of the world trade organisation talks is evidence that globalisation isn't fair and that the global community isn't yet mature enough to compromise effectively and provide a better life for all people in the world. The challenges are evident, but globalisation isn't going away anytime soon so there is nothing to gain by complaining about it.
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Technology enabling your strategy
Posted by Grant Brewer
Hopefully by now your organisation has a good strategy that is focused around real business purpose instead of focusing on a flakey “vision statement”. If you’re doing a good job of strategy, then strategy in your organisation will be more than a few days away at the off-site and will have become a consistent and constant conversation through out the year. So this might be good time to extend your thinking to how technology can enable your strategy. Recent columns have considered the role of people in strategy execution in terms of customer service or in terms of leadership and ethics. Technology won’t replace the people or decrease the need to have an people-centric strategy, but it is a useful enabler of strategy.
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implementation (10) | strategy (8) | technology traps (1) | technology (1) | enablement (1)
Delivering the Dream
Posted by Grant Brewer
Interesting to see that Tony Manning has published a new book: Delivering the Dream. Instead of the usual corporate strategy thing he "provides a blue print" for getting effective service delivery in the public sector. Should be an interesting read – Tony's books usually are. I'll give it a review after reading it.
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All business planning is not strategy
Posted by Grant Brewer
The idea of what is strategic or what comprises strategy is often confused. The terms themselves are so overused that they risk losing any meaning at all. What is often necessary in organisations is a sense of getting back to basics. It is often forgotten that strategy is about the "big picture"; it relates to the overall landscape or context within which an organisation exists. Strategy is not about the day to day tactics.
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Is your strategy implementation failing?
Posted by Grant Brewer
The strategy is defined. You're a leader - your job is to develop the strategy for your team. Wrong! Your job is to deliver results. Coming up with strategies is often the easy part since it is frequently an intellectual activity. Choosing between alternative ideas and then managing their implementation is the hard part. Quite often, managers are not as well prepared for managing projects that cut across functions and business processes, where most of the project team are not under their direct management.
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Innovative strategy is more than passion
Posted by Grant Brewer
It is not unusual to see organisations that are struggling because they allow the passion and the belief in a new idea to masquerade as strategy. It is true that new ideas will almost always fail unless someone has the passion and the belief in the idea to stay with it through all the challenges. However, fresh ideas and people that are passionate about them are not uncommon, yet successful businesses built on these same ideas are a lot less common.
Innovation is more than ideas. Re-inventing an industry or a product category takes more than research and a fresh take on the business model. Managing innovation and implementing new business models is notoriously difficult -- regardless of whether you're an established business, a new business unit or a start up company. It is a common mistake to assume that sheer passion and belief will bring a strategy to life. New ideas need the passion and the belief -- they also need good strategy, leadership and implementation.
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Strategy is not a competitive advantage
Posted by Grant Brewer
Strategy is about choice. It’s about implementation. It’s about reality. It is about so much more than a document or a planning session. Strategy is worthless when it exists only as an idea, trapped in the intellect of its originator. Only the capacity to act creates value or competitive advantage. Strategy is about direction and a business concept that has focus, a purpose and has a clearly understood way of creating value. Most importantly, good strategy is about bringing the the ideas and the implementation together in an ecosystem that becomes far more valuable than the sum of its parts — an infinitely more difficult and costly for competitors to copy.
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