Apple

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

Good morning! Hope your New Year is going well for you.

Last time we looked at the phenomenal success of Apples’ iPhone strategy. If you remember I mentioned that I’d go a little deeper and answer the question: “What does it take to develop a unique strategic position?”

Well, you may be surprised to know, research that we’ve gained from working with hundreds of companies over the past 10 years, shows that all successful superior strategies share the same underlying principles – despite their surface differences.

My argument is that by understanding these basic principles, any director, manager or business owner can use them to design a successful strategy.

And here’s another observation…

If you’ve ever looked closely at strategic innovators, you will have noticed that formulating successful strategies is a never-ending job. Just because companies like Easy Jet or Tescos have superior strategies today it doesn’t mean to say that they will be successful tomorrow!

Far from it! Tomorrow’s success is dependent on a strategy that will be superior in tomorrow’s market; and to continue to achieve that means applying the same fundamental principles yet again to craft another winning strategy once the current strategy has run its course.

Best wishes

May we wish you the best of new years in 2008! And welcome to the first of a series of posts on business strategy – starting with something that may have been a stocking-filler!

Why mention the iPhone?

Apple has said that it’s on the way to selling 1 Billion iPhones in the next few months. Judging by the news and hype (and the ecstasy I saw on a friend’s face who bought one recently) that quest seems to me to be distinctly achievable.

What’s also staggering is that Apple has muscled its way into one of the world’s most brutally competitive markets, rattling the mobile phone industry’s most dominant players by producing the No. 1 ‘must-have mobile phone on the market’.

Ever since Apple unveiled the Macintosh computer in 1984, it has become the standard-bearer of how to market consumer products.

It has transformed into an increasingly commanding force in the new digital universe by combining innovation and design in ‘got-to-have-it’ gadgets. Firstly with the iPod (which changed how we listen to music) and latterly with the iPhone (which has re-invented how use a mobile phone), Apple has achieved technological dominance.

For this reason Apple has shown us what a superior strategy based on a unique strategic position is all about.

The Secret?

What Apple shows us – and other businesses like it – is that strategy is as much about insight and vision as it is about being simultaneously in tune with customers and two steps ahead of competition.

Think about it for a moment. How many businesses do you know who have created and occupied a unique strategic position? And how many of them do you know who have actually gone on to find another one – and another – consistently offering their customers even more value?

A handful probably.

Yet such superior, and successful, strategies share the same underlying principles. Thus the principles behind Apple’s successful iPhone strategy are essentially the same as those that took Marks and Spencer to market leadership 100 years ago!!

What are these principles? Well that’s for next time. See you then.

Best wishes