What is Strategy? And importantly what it isn't
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What is Strategy? (And what it isn’t) Learning from Michael Porter and HBR Subhadeep Bhattacharyya
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My learning from Michael E. Porter and HBR on what is strategy and importantly what it is not. Tried to keep this simple and pithy. Hope this helps. To know more, do buy from the Harvard Press ... can assure every moolah would be totally well-spent
Transcript of What is Strategy? And importantly what it isn't
What is Strategy? (And what it isn’t)
Learning from Michael Porter and HBR
Subhadeep Bhattacharyya
What Strategy is not?
Strategy/Strategic positioning is not ‘Operational Effectiveness’
And the root problem is that organizations and managers are often unable to differentiate between what’s Strategy and what’s merely Operational Effectiveness
What is Strategic positioning?
Strategic positioning attempts to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by preserving what’s unique to the company. It means performing different activities from the rivals or performing similar activities in different ways
What is Operational Effectiveness?
- Every company undergoes the same building blocks of creating, producing, selling and delivering products/ services
- Operational Effectiveness means doing these activities better, faster or cheaper than rivals
Strategic positioning
means performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities incompletely different ways
Operational effectiveness
means performing similar activities better than rivals
To simply contrast …
Key 3 principles underlying Strategic positioning
Strategy involves a distinct separate set of activities
3 principles …
Consider a marketing-strategy consultancy that’s specialized in advising SMEs on growth with a compensation model that’s 100% tied to performance
Strategy involves trade-offs
A sustainable strategic positioning is as much about saying ‘no’ to activities & positions as much it is about dogmatically being focused . Consider the positioning of Dettol around ‘protection’ for decades
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Creating fit among a company’s activities
For e.g. A company that wants to be lowest cost provide of financial services has to march all it’s functions around the precise proposition. And that permeates all across … from staffing- strategy to the choice of marketing channels
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11 solid Brand positions that have stood the test of time
In no particular order
Apple. Disruptive design and Innovations
Starbucks. A ‘premium’ coffee experience
In no particular order
Nike. The ‘higher ground’ of athleticism
Volvo. Safety
Walt Disney. Create ‘magic’
In no particular order
Godrej. Superior Products
TATA. Trust
Pepsi. Being ‘Youth’
In no particular order
Walmart. Value for money
Harley Davidson. Ultra-machoism
Google. Intelligence. High product reliability
Thank You
Suggested further readings:
1) HBR’s top 10: The Essentials2) Competitive Strategy. Michael E. Porter
Subhadeep Bhattacharyya. [email protected]
