The strategy
accelerator
Strategies for sustainable
competitive advantage
By Alfred Griffioen
There is only a limited number
of models that give direction how to make a profit, these models focus
on differentiators or on portfolio management. However, the increasing
availability of all kinds of knowledge through the internet and the
globalisation of the financial markets are not taken into account in
these models. This article investigates how a company can make a profit
in the current market. It proposes a directive framework based on market
relevancy and whether the company has a unique product. Based on these
parameters, a company should either consolidate its position, aim to
excel more and more in its products, effectively combine products or
ally with another company to differentiate or profile itself more.
Problems and barriers to strategic planning and proposals for solutions
by Oliver Recklies
This paper analyses and summarizes existing problems and barriers
related to the strategic planning process. Strategy execution and
monitoring of success have been indentified by the author as
characteristic problem areas in organizational practice. Based on
literature review the paper also presents ideas to overcome those
barriers. To analyse the topic the author uses a three step approach.
The first part discusses existing problems and barriers in brief. The
second part summarizes and discusses ideas to overcome these problems
and barriers. The third part gives an overview about the benefits of a
customized and improved strategic planning process. The author argues
that in particular progress monitoring and bundling of strategic measure
to “strategic campaigns” can help organizations to focus and to improve
communication.
Strategic Leadership
Part 1: Applying Lessons Learned from Research about Strategic
Leadership Development
Robert M. Fulmer, PhD, and Jared L. Bleak, EdD
Leadership has never been an easy proposition. Throughout history
observers have wondered if there were enough capable leaders to manage
the challenges facing all types of organizations. Today, business and
governmental organizations face something of a "perfect storm" of
problems that have profound implications for current and future leaders.
The Trader Joe’s Experience - The impact of corporate culture on
business strategy
Mark Mallinger, PhD, and Gerry Rossy, PhD
The success of Trader Joe’s (TJ) markets is the result of a unique
business model that has built a national chain of neighborhood grocery
stores. The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship
between organizational culture and business strategy that has propelled
TJ to extraordinary success. The article also offers a model for readers
to consider in creating a culture within their own organization that
provides a defensible competitive position by incorporating value,
rareness, inimitability, and non-substitutability.
The
Surprising Secret of Successful Differentiation
By Dan Herman, PhD
A successful differentiation is not imitated by your competitors,
even though it brings you unmistakable success with consumers. It
seems impossible? Not quite so. I am about to reveal to you the
unexpectedly simple and wonderful secret of successful
differentiation: you must think beyond the core benefits of your
product category. Think: Off-Core Differentiation.
pdf-file (67 KB)
The
Strategy IS the Brand Or: How Can You Create Your Very Own Monopoly?
Dr. Dan Herman
So, what really is a strategy? By definition, a strategy is the way
by which you are planning to obtain your goals. In a competitive
environment, your goal is that the consumer will prefer you to your
competition. That is why the strategy is, in fact, the way by which
you plan to achieve an advantage over your rivals – in the eyes of
your consumers. Almost always, preference can be achieved only by
differentiation, by either doing something other than what your
competitors are doing or by doing things in a markedly dissimilar
manner.
The
What’s Next? Process For Developing Your Strategy
By Dr. Dan Herman
The old customary procedure of strategy development has a pure and sound
logic. It has been designed in order to answer the question: What is it
that we should do in order to achieve our goals?
What is the alternative to the old brick road to strategy? Dan proposes
that we move from wish-oriented management to opportunity-oriented
management. He hereby offers a new process leading to successful
strategizing
Beyond
Porter - A Critique of the Critique of Porter
by Dagmar Recklies
The writings of the American management-guru and Harvard-Professor
Michael E-Porter are considered to be among the most influential of
their subject – and among the most critiqued ones. Porter had a
lasting influence on strategic management with his books about
competitive advantages on industry level and on global level, which
were written in the eighties. Porter’s ideas became more and more
subject of critique under the impression of the developing Internet
economy during the last decade. Critics point out that economic
conditions have changed fundamentally since that time.
This article discusses Larry Downes' critique of Porter and explains
why Porters thoughts are not obsolete.
Strategy
in Turbulent Times
by Dagmar Recklies
Management theory and practice widely accept today that businesses
operate in a more and more complex, dynamic, less predictable
environment. This new situation requires managers to develop new
ways of thinking and acting. Basing on the weaknesses of traditional
strategic planning, this article discusses new approaches in
management. They direct companies towards more flexibility and more
strategic innovativeness; but they do not present ready-to-use
solutions though. Rather they are intended to provide ideas for new
thinking and acting as a starting point to give all processes in the
organization a new strategic direction.
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Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
by Jim Collins
Some years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company
become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins,
the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but
finds there are no silver bullets.
Strategic
Management: Concepts and Cases
by Fred David
The tenth edition of Strategic Management is a current, well-written
strategic management book with the most up-to-date compilation of
cases available. It offers a practitioner-oriented perspective,
focuses on skill-building in all major areas of strategy formation
and implementation, and evaluation.
E-Book
The
McKinsey Mind: Understanding and Implementing the Problem-Solving
Tools and Management Techniques of the World's Top Strategic
Consulting Firm
by Ethan M. Rasiel, Paul N. Friga
Structured around interviews and frontline anecdotes from former
McKinsey consultantsas well as the authors, themselves McKinsey
alumniThe McKinsey Mind explores how McKinsey tools and
techniques can be applied to virtually any business problem in any
setting.
Seeing
What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change
by Clayton M. Christensen, Erik A. Roth, Scott D. Anthony
The authors present a groundbreaking framework for predicting
outcomes in the evolution of any industry. Based on proven theories
outlined in
E-Book
Organization
Design: Fashion or Fit?
by Henry Mintzberg
The characteristics of organizations fall into one of five natural
configurations, each a combination of certain elements of structure
and situation. The five configurations are the simple structure,
machine bureaucracy, professional bureaucracy, divisionalized form,
and adhocracy. These five configurations serve as an effective tool
in diagnosing the problems of organizational design.
The
Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through
Profits
by C. K. Prahalad
The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It's where
you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the
world's billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial
capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and
help millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty.
Read an interview
with C. K. Prahalad on this book
This book as
E-book
Beyond
the Core: Expand Your Market Without Abandoning Your Roots
by Chris Zook
Beyond the Core, by Bain's Chris Zook, has been selected as one of
the five best business books of 2003 by The Economist
In Beyond the Core, Zook outlines an expansion strategy based on
putting together combinations of adjacency moves into areas away
from, but related to, the core business, such as new product lines
or new channels of distribution. These sequences of moves carry less
risk than diversification, yet they can create enormous competitive
advantage, because they stem directly from what the company already
knows and does best.
Harvard
Business Review [MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION]
Harvard Business Review is the world's acknowledged authority on
business leadership for managers responsible for success in the
global economy. Now published monthly times a year, HBR delivers
entrepreneurial ideas and insights that help managers strengthen
their leadership power. Every issue shows how to use technology for
competitive advantage. Guides strategic decision making in times of
change. Profiles innovative leaders. Tells how to motivate today's
workers. Shares the details of successful online alliances, and
more.
The
Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership
by Mike Freedman, Benjamin B. Tregoe
Written by a leading consultant at Kepner-Tregoe, one of the world's
most respected strategy consulting groups, The Art and Discipline of
Strategic Leadership goes far beyond most other strategy books to
offer business strategists an integrated five-phase model for
setting and implementing strategy.
Proven effective at a diverse range of organizations worldwide, the
model provides executives with a powerful framework for assessing
and tweaking current strategy, or charting a bold new strategic
course.
Managing
for the Short Term: The New Rules for Running a Business in a
Day-To-Day World
by Chuck Martin
As managers, senior executives, and CEOs all over have painfully
discovered, if you don’t manage for the short term, you won’t be
around for the long term. Bestselling business author Chuck Martin
found that nothing consumes business managers more than how to
manage a company in the weeks and months immediately ahead.
Hidden
Champions: Lessons from 500 of the World's Best Unknown Companies
by Hermann Simon
In Hidden Champions Professor Hermann Simon refers to a group of
companies of medium to small size that are low profile and highly
profitable. They are typically durable but wary of trumpeting their
own success. And yet, most impressively, they are often a leader in
a narrow or niche market sector.
Hidden Champions reveals the strategies and practices of hundreds of
low-profile super-performers. While most of our role models for
excellence are large or growing companies that create highly visible
products and services, behind the headlines lies a group of global
competitors-unknown even to the general business community-that have
attained global market share of over 70 percent.
E-Book
From
Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy
by Michael E. Porter
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E-Book
Strategy
as Simple Rules (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
by Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Donald Sull
In this article--the third in an HBR series by Kathleen Eisenhardt
and Donald Sull on strategy in the new economy--the authors ask,
what are the sources of competitive advantage in high-velocity
markets? The secret, they say, is strategy as simple rules. The
companies know that the greatest opportunities for competitive
advantage lie in market confusion, but they recognize the need for a
few crucial strategic processes and a few simple rules. In
traditional strategy, advantage comes from exploiting resources or
stable market positions. In strategy as simple rules, advantage
comes from successfully seizing fleeting opportunities. |
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