In this article, I would like to include an analysis of how my
understanding about strategy has evolved through the course of this semester,
my best takeaways and what the future of strategy might look like, in my opinion.
Strategy to win:
Be better than your competitors, beat your competitors. In the
business world this would have a strong implication on your market share,
customer retention, sales growth and overall performance. Roger Martin in his
book ‘Playing to Win: How strategy really works identifies key choices in the
strategy choice cascade. For example, one of the questions he speaks of “what is our
winning aspiration?”. What does winning really mean to the organization. For
P&G, winning implied more consumers loving and using its product than
anybody else’s. Likewise, it is for the leaders to constantly challenge their
positions in the marketplace and envision what it would a “winning” outcome
look like.
Strategy with foresight:
Being mindful and clairvoyant about things that would matter the
most to the organization, what could go wrong, know your customers. Essentially,
this revolves around drawing up actionable insights in order to build the
future of the company. Being wary of upcoming changes, be it external
(market-related, economic, technological etc) or internal (organizational
structure, process-level changes, resources). For one of the most important
decisions that executives must know is when it is time to change, to adapt, and
to grow. Great leaders identify changes, experiment with new styles of working
that most closely align with sustaining what their organization has to offer,
and continuously delivering better results to stakeholders.
Foresight for potential market disrupters is another with regards
to adopting a customer-centric approach for delivering products and services,
leaders must constantly keep a check on what their customers really need, whether
they are giving customers more than they are willing to pay for? That sort of
thinking is useful because it helps you evaluate how disrupters could start
small, and claw into their market with products/services just right enough for
customers.
Strategy with (more) informed decisions:
One of the most profound learning from this course has been that
being more “informed” about a situation that competitors is significant. It
works in the favor of an organization to know something about a particular
entity say the market, customer, demand etc more than your competitors. In this
regard, it is important for leaders to understand the dynamics of how “data”
can be leveraged and translated to make strategic moves.
Moving on to how strategy is likely to continue evolving and adapting
for companies in terms of delivering value, BCG explains how that would mainly
be around the demand and supply of talent – 12 trends that will shape how
organizations operate. In the long term, for any successful organization of the
key factors that will contribute to their success as a market-leader will
depend on how effectively leaders understand their organization, their people
and strengths, market and customer behavior and deliver a value proposition
that would be hard to say no to.
References:
2. https://www.aaltoee.com/aalto-leaders-insight/2016/what-is-strategic-foresight-and-why-it-matters
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