Bain Lessons: Business Strategy in against 5 Industry Forces ...

Business strategy includes the topics of corporate strategy, marketing strategy, sales strategy, among other areas. When we speak about growth strategy, we include both organic growth and inorganic growth, namely mergers and acquisitions. Marketing strategy includes branding strategy, go-to-market strategy, and digital strategy. Marketing strategy and sales strategy are usually discussed in unity, but are distinct in actuality. Sales strategy includes channel strategy, distribution strategy, and business development. Business strategies are often done within a bi-annual strategic planning session, typically conducted in a 3 day remote conference space with executives and key stakeholders, both within and external to the company.

Business strategy development has evolved through 5 key phases since the early 1900s. Strategy development started with a focus on financial planning in the 1950s, moving to sustainable business planning in the 1960s, to strategic planning in the 1970s and eventually to a focus on strategic management in the present day. Shifts in strategic mindset represent an ever evolving, new business leaders, and emergence of disruptive technologies and trends. A lot of growth strategy is also hinged on ideas in the 1970s, where the focus of what business leaders devote their efforts to was around thinking strategically to out maneuver competition and the business frameworks of alternative strategies, portfolio analysis, and the BCG Growth Share Matrix were actively used for the first time. In the current day, the strategic development theme is on integrating strategic planning and execution with a stress on the primary notions of core competencies, strategy planning and execution, and balance scorecard analysis.

Structured business communication is oftentimes framed under a business framework. Crawl Walk Run is a popular framework for illustrating the progression of organizational change, from an early crawl stage eventually to walk-type activities and ultimately to the run phase of technology-enabled processes. Well known ones include Pintos Pyramid Principle, which is widely practiced by management consultants and management executives in structuring business presentations. The Pyramid Principle is intertwined into the presentation storyboarding process.

The way business leaders evaluate and analyze strategy within that of contemporary businesses has been shaped by military strategists since 400BC when Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War. Sun Tzu hinted at indirect business strategies when he said winning without fighting is the pinnacle of skill on the battlefield. Sun Tzus thoughts about the factor of terrain, in todays business landscape, translates to markets, industry structures, market positions, and industry forces. Sun Tzu preached to know and attack the enemys strategy. In Sun Tzus Art of War, he spoke about five fundamental factors in military strategy and each of these factors can be directly translated to terms of business strategy.

To develop a rigorous corporate strategy, businesses all must conduct strategy development that starts with a agreed upon set of beliefs around its business positioning and identified strategic barriers to growth. In order to understand your strategic challenges, you must begin with a comprehensive current state understanding of your situation. The next steps include defining what the future vision of the company is and then going into the details of strategically planning how to achieve that state. Proper strategy development involves more than a focus on maximizing profitability. Strategy is about value creation, strategy is about focus, and strategy is about flexibility.

Today, there are two primary schools of thought around strategic management. Mintzberg opts for an organization, bottom-ups process to drive strategy development that adheres to organizational configuration. In organizational configuration, the organization engages in behaviors based on adaptation to business surroundings. Henry Mintberg also advocates a transformation of business processes, where management recognizes the need and has the ability to conduct organizational business operations transformation.

Different size organizations naturally experience different challenges and thus, undertake different approaches to managing their business strategy. Some companies may be in the nascent growth stages, whereas more established Fortune 500 companies are in the sustain phase. A SME may be more entrepreneurial in its approach to business growth and its operations are often much more lean and agile. A global company may employ a more structured tactically sound management model, due to its greater size and scope of both business.
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Source: http://wp7development.org/2011/bain-lessons-business-strategy-in-against-5-industry-forces/

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