Session 2 : Foundations of strategic marketing
Can you say what your strategy is?
Companies that don’t have a simple and clear statement of strategy are likely to fall into the category of those that have failed to execute their strategy or those that never had one.
Often many employees are frustrated that no clear strategy exists for the company.
Leaders of firms assume that the initiatives described in the documentation that emerges from an annual budget or a strategic planning process will ensure competitive success; they fail to appreciate the necessity of having simple and clear strategy statement that everyone can internalize and use.
A well understood statement of strategy aligns behaviour within the business: it allows everyone in the organization to make individual choices that reinforce one another.
With a clear definition an executives know what they’re trying to create and implementation becomes simpler as the strategy can be communicated and easily internalised.
Most executives don’t actually know what all the elements of strategy statements are, which make it impossible for them to develop one.
Mike Rukstad identified three components (objective, scope and advantage) of a good strategy statement and believed that executives should be forced to be clear about them.
Any strategy statement must begin with a definition of the ends that the strategy is designed to achieve; the definition of the objective should include not only an end point but also a time frame for reaching it.
It is also crucial to define the scope of the business: the part of the landscape in which the firm will operate. The competitive advantage is the essence of the strategy: what your business will do differently from or better than others defines the important means by which you will achieve your stated objective. That advantage has complementary external or internal