The Strategy Concept 1: Five Ps For Strategy

* Human nature insists on a definition for every concept * Strategic management cannot rely on a single definition of strategy * The word strategy has long been used indirectly in different ways * Clearly recognizing multiple definition of strategy can help practitioners and researches operate through this difficult field * Strategy is defined as 5 things in this article: * Plan * Ploy * Pattern * Position * Perspective

Plan * Views strategy as some sort of consciously intended course of action and a guideline to deal with a situation * Under this definition, strategy is made in advance of the actions to which they apply, and they are developed consciously and purposefully * Ducker: Strategy is purposeful action * Moore: Design for action/conception preceding action * In the military: Strategy is concerned with “drafting the plan of war… shaping the individual campaigns and within these, deciding on the individual engagements”. * In management: Strategy is unified, comprehensive, and integrated plan… designed to ensure that the basic objectives of the enterprise are achieved. * In the dictionary: “A plan, method or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result”.

Ploy * As plan, a strategy can be a ploy too, a maneuver intended to outwit an opponent or competitor * For example, a corporation may threaten to expand plant capacity to discourage a competitor from building a new plant. Here the strategy is the threat, not the expansion and this is a ploy.

Pattern * Defining strategy as a plan is not sufficient, we also need a definition that encompasses the resulting behavior. * Under strategy as a pattern, it is defined as consistency in behavior, whether or not intended. * Some might go further