What’s Wrong with Strategy Formulation Today?

What companies like Apple, Starbucks, Dyson, Virgin, Amazon.com and even Skoda – and many businesses like them – have shown us, is that a superior strategy is as much about being simultaneously in tune with customers as it is with being two steps ahead of competition.

Should we question conventional strategizing processes?
Yes we should! For the most part I don’t think it’s too much to say that what really characterises the pursuit of these goals today is, alas, superficial strategy formulation – a judgement based on contemporary observation in the light of what successful businesses have achieved.

Why is this? There are several reasons; a preference for the status quo, inadequate relationships, poor processes and a general lack of creativity are but a few. But one stark fact stands out. It’s this; we are told WHAT to do to strategize but not HOW to strategize in practice!  

And why is this, you may ask? Because of the dubious nature of conventional strategic formulation, and its application, I would answer.

The character of conventional strategic planning
The structures and frameworks taught by most business schools, consultancies and training organisations are too rigid. They analyse the past to death and prescribe the future through bifocals based on 4-box matrices. However, the future is not contained in the ‘Boston Box’, Porter’s 5-Force Model or even a S.W.O.T – or anything like these models.

Such processes can not possibly help managers invent new and lead the way in how things are done to create value for customers and stakeholders 

Increasingly the really overwhelming competition for a company or a product does not appear from the expected and anticipated sources – the traditional ‘me-too’ competitor – it comes from someone you’ve never even heard of, let alone dreamt that they could take your business away from you.

So where do we go from here…?

I’ll tell you in my next post

Best wishes

Andrew Pearson