Developing Business Strategies

"All six elements of the strategy concept can be capsulated into three core elements."

"Several distinct characteristics and trends have emerged in the strategy field."

"An important role of the system is to precipitate as well as make strategic decisions."

"If you could know the answer to one question prior to making a strategic commitment, what would that question be?"

"One approach to identifying competitor sets is to look at competitors from the perspective of customers—what choices are customers making?"

"One of the primary objectives of a market analysis is to determine the attractiveness of a market to current and potential participants."

"Most strategic planning efforts are constrained by an existing mental model of the business and its environment. Strategies that emerge tend to be extrapolations of the past."

"The common goal is to identify organizational strengths, weaknesses, constraints, and, ultimately, to develop responsive strategies, either exploiting strengths or correcting or compensating for weaknesses."

"Business portfolio analysis provides a structured way to evaluate business units on two key dimensions: the attractiveness of the market involved and the strength of the firm's position in that market."

"An effective SCA should be substantial, sustainable, and leveraged."

"A firm can wake up one morning and find that it is in a set of businesses for which it lacks the needed assets and competencies and that provide few synergies."

"A reputation for quality was the most frequently mentioned sustainable competitive advantage."

"Although there is a tendency to think of low cost as a single approach, such as scale economies, low-cost labor, or production automation, it is important to recognize that there are many methods of obtaining a low-cost advantage."

"Because a focus strategy avoids strategy dilution or distraction it is thus more likely to lead to a sustainable advantage."

"The first-mover advantage is not automatic, but requires active and continuing investment and management."

"The road to improved performance must involve a renewed emphasis on growth."

"An important issue to consider in any diversification decision is whether, in fact, there is a real and meaningful area of commonality that will affect the ultimate ROI."

"A strong survivor may be profitable, in part because there may be little competition and in part because the investment might be relatively low."

"A global strategy is different from a multidomestic or multinational strategy, in which separate strategies are developed for different countries and implemented autonomously."

"What is the strategic vision? What are the key assets and competencies to be maintained or developed?"