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Is Strategy an Illusion?

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Submitted By kofiasante5
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ACHIEVING THE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF ANY STRATEGY IS AN ILLUSION. DISCUSS 1.0 INTRODUCTION
Every business organisation exists for the purpose of fulfilling certain goals and objectives as outlined by them. The fulfillment of these goals and objectives may bring benefits to the organisation and to various stakeholders such as shareholders, customers, the general public, the government, etc. In order to implement these goals and objectives in a systematic and orderly manner, management must evolve a game plan to do this. This game plan is known as strategy.
According to the Oxford Pocket Dictionary, strategy is defined as “the art of war especially, the planning of movements of troops and ships into favourable positions, plan of action or policy in business”
Scholes & Johnson (2001) also define strategy as “the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term; which achieves the advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing environment, to meet the needs of the markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations”
Thompson & Strickland (1998) also generally define strategy as competitive moves of business approaches to produce successful performance. It is management’s game plan for: * running the business * strengthening the firm’s competitive position * Satisfying customers * Achieving good business performance * Position a company in its chosen market
In effect, without strategy the shaping of an organisations business activities coordinated in a competitive manner will be difficult to achieve.
From the foregoing it can be deduced that strategy is management’s game plan for the entire organisation to enable the organisation gain a competitive edge over rivals.

2.0 CHARACTERISTICS OF STRATEGY
Since strategy is aimed at gaining a competitive edge over rivals, its nature must

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