Boston Consulting Group Basics: Strategy Development Knowing ...

To build a robust corporate strategy, businesses all must perform business strategy development that starts with a clear understanding of its current situation and existing strategic challenges. The next steps include forming what the desired vision of the organization is and then delving into the details of strategically planning how to get to that state. To properly gauge and analyze your strategic challenges, you must begin with a comprehensive current state understanding of your situation. Proper strategy development involves more than a focus on maximizing profitability. Business strategy is about value innovation, strategy is about competitive selection, and strategy is about speed to market.

Business strategy development has evolved through 5 key stages since the early 1900s. Strategy development started with a focus on financial planning in the 1950s, moving to sustainable business planning in the 1960s, to strategic planning in the 1970s and eventually to a focus on strategic management in the present day. Shifts in strategic mindset represent a changing landscape, emerging business leaders, and emergence of disruptive technologies and trends. Much of competitive strategy is also hinged on ideas in the 1970s, where the core theme was around thinking strategically to out maneuver competition and the business frameworks of alternative strategies, portfolio analysis, and the BCG Growth Share Matrix were developed. Today, the strategic development theme is on integrating strategic planning and implementation with a stress on the key concepts of core competencies, strategy planning and execution, and balance scorecard analysis.

Strategic thinking of contemporary businesses has been shaped by militant strategists since 400BC when Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War. Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War, which has been adopted into a business strategy book. In Sun Tzus Art of War, he spoke about several core factors in military strategy and each of these factors relates to a popular concept of business strategy. Sun Tzu spoke about indirect corporate strategies when Sun Tzu asserted that winning without fighting is the acme of skill on the battlefield. Sun Tzus thoughts about the factor of terrain, if we were to take that into the context of companies competing today, translates to markets, industry structures, market positions, and competitive forces.

There are several key components to strategy execution design. We should design the organizational context under which the business should operate. Under the category of strategic initiatives, we should evaluate the companys project portfolio, championing and management, and political tactics. organizational context includes activities such as governance, org structure, performance metrics, rewards and incentives, in addition to managements capabilities and cognitive frames. Under strategy execution, a critical element is developing the strategy planning/budgeting process. Strategy planning activities can include growth scenario planning, growth strategy design, and innovation management. Strategic engagements need to be diligently managed.

There are several types of strategy development challenges that can be ascertained from the teachings of Mintzberg and Bower. One noteworthy challenge to strategy development is the existence of ambiguity, as it relates to the challenge and strategy development approach. Defining a strategic intent involves defining objectives, defining business battlefields, and defining the relevant core competencies. One important strategic challenge is developing top down intervention driven by revised strategic intent. In strategy development, framing the type of strategic challenge is the most critical tasks. There is the strategic challenge of aligning execution context, so that strategy can materialize and eventually realized.

Right now, there are two pillars around strategic management. Mintzberg also advocates a transformation of business practices, where management recognizes the need and has the ability to conduct organizational business operational transformation. In organizational configuration, the organization takes on behaviors based on adoption to business surroundings. Mintzberg proposes for an organization, bottom-ups strategy to drive strategy development that hinges upon organizational configuration.
Strategy Development Process

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