Management

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT?

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The term ‘strategy’ proliferates in discussions of business. Scholars and consultants
have provided myriad models and frameworks for analysing strategic choice
(Hambrick and Fredrickson, 2001). For us, the key issue that should unite all discussion
of strategy is a clear sense of an organization’s objectives and a sense of
how it will achieve these objectives. It is also important that the organization has
a clear sense of its distinctiveness. For the leading strategy guru, Michael Porter
(1996), strategy is about achieving competitive advantage through being different
– delivering a unique value added to the customer, having a clear and enactable
view of how to position yourself uniquely in your industry, for example, in the
ways in which Southwest Airlines positions itself in the airline industry and IKEA
in furniture retailing, in the way that Marks & Spencer used to. To enact a
successful strategy requires that there is fit among a company’s activities, that they
complement each other, and that they deliver value to the firm and its customers.
The three companies we have just mentioned illustrate that industries are fluid
and that success is not guaranteed. Two of the firms came to prominence by
taking on industry incumbents and developing new value propositions. The third
was extremely successful and lost this position. While there is much debate on
substance, there is agreement that strategy is concerned with the match between
a company’s capabilities and its external environment.

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INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT?

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: .,

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1-17

Language

English

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NONE

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Subject(s)

strategic Management

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