New book-opening
Just updated the revised opening for chapter 1 of Strategic Management Dynamics, which you can download from www.strategydynamics.com/smd-new-start. This includes an important correction to the explanation of free cash-flow on p.27 that was unfortunately introduced when the document was laid out – apologies.
Reminder – This document reviews through some well-known cases the current philosophy and some basic tools of business strategy to make the case for a continuous, holistic approach to strategic management, i.e. strategy dynamics.
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What is strategy? … and the strategy life-cycle
Just working on the first chapter of the textbook 2nd edition, and thought it needed a bit more on this question – found the only way to explain to newbies was to go through an organization’s life and track what ’strategic management’ actually does over that time-horizon. Main messages are:
- The choice of strategic ‘position’ [what to provide, to whom and how, relative to rivals] is a very rare activity.
- Substantial strategic initiatives [acquisition, new market entry etc] occur occasionally.
- By far the majority of the task is steering [a.ka. implementing] the strategy from period to period.
So – how come the attention in all the textbooks and journals is in precisely the opposite priority? Read more