Ricardo Diaz Professor Sean Jasso BUS 109 Book Review: The Strategist The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW In the book The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs by Cynthia A. Montgomery discusses the topic of being an elusive and a rigorously effective strategist. The purpose of the author is to give us a new understanding of what a strategy really is and the components needed to be a strategist. The author through all her pages help us to understand some of the most fundamental questions that the manager must ask themselves when it comes to strategy such as what is strategy, why it is important, and what you have to do in order to effectively execute them. The final and most fundamental …show more content…
For the second point that I, personally, extracted from The Strategist is the sense of purpose in which Montgomery arguments that “every concept of strategy that has entered the conversation of a manager—sustainable competitive advantage, positioning, differentiation, added value, even if the firm effect—flows from purpose” (p.34). The author develops even further her discussion by arguing that a good strategy has purpose, and a good purpose is ennobling. By ennobling, the author refers to the fact that strategy must serve an unmet need. In retrospect, a good purpose according to Montgomery is ennobling, puts a stake in the ground, it makes you distinct, and it sets value creation for the organization. The third point is understanding why your company exists in the parameters of meeting the needs from customers, or from Montgomery’s perspective—having purpose. When it comes to surviving in the business environment, it is important to structure the most essential strengths of your company has and exploit that differentiation to capture a greater market capitalization. The fourth step into the creation of executable strategies relies in the alignment of resources, purposes, and strategical thinking contemplations into reality. The rationale of this step is to create
(2001). Are you sure you have a strategy?. The Academy of Management Executive. 15 (4), 53.
the difficulty of strategy execution and the tools managers can use to make strategy happen. As the title
The fourth step in the strategic process will include the implementation of strategies by forming projects. “The conceptual framework for strategy implementation lacks the structure and discipline found in strategy formulation. Implementation requires action and completing tasks” (Gray, Larson, 2008).
* Complete all housing design and renovation projects no more than 8% over the established baseline cost or schedule
There has been a large amount of research into what strategy is, since Michael Porter’s perennial work in the 1980s. Studies done on the execution of strategy have been far less numerous. However, there is one major understanding about the execution of strategy. The execution of strategy is a vital part of success in business. A summary of many myths surrounding various strategic executions will be outlined, along with their subsequent analyses.
Strategy is a set of complicated tactics formulated by the executives of a company directed towards the achievement of company’s goal (Salmela, 2002). It is about all the path ways that a company would follow to reach its ultimate goal. It is a company’s strategy which helps to identify what it does better than the other companies in the industries, which may be different from what it does best. For successful strategy formulation and implementation, a company should know the needs of customers and should have knowledge of its competitors. Through a good strategy a company would identify that opportunity which makes it different from the others (Thompson, 2005).
When working with companies, an employee has to wonder from time to time what makes management tick. What is the source of their decision-making practices? Why should people strategize in business or in war? Well first let’s define what is strategy? “It is a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.” (dictionary.com, 2012) The main purpose of this article is to enhance our ability to think strategically. In addition, identifying how as managers and leaders of all organizational levels can
A central part in developing your competencies will be active and thoughtful contributions to the class discussion. Your contributions will be critical to your learning and the learning of your classmates. EVERYONE is expected to participate in each class session. I usually ask for volunteers, but I also cold call people throughout the class session.
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There are various schools of strategy that have been vigorously debated on and after a consolidated effort; three schools of strategy were produced. They are the planning school, the positional school, and the resource based school of strategy (Ritson, 2013). All these strategies will be described with examples to buttress each.
In order to develop the “right strategy” to succeed in business, managers must make the right decisions; and in order to make the right decisions, they must have objective, accurate, and timely : E. information about market trends and changes.
Strategy can be defined as being different from one’s competitors, finding the race to operate and accomplished it. According to Michael Porter (1996), while becoming better at what you do is desirable, it will not benefit you in the long run because it is something other competitors can also do. Strategies for organizations are originally developed by Michael E. Porter in 1979 by introducing the five forces model. A company can identify the industry profitability and attractiveness by analyzing the five forces of Porter (Johnson et al., 2008). And then a reasonable strategy can be set up in line with the strengths and the weakness of an organization is able to create a plan for a stronger position for the organization within its
In the book “Good Strategy and Bad Strategy”, Richard Rumelt illustrates examples of success and failure of business management to explain the true meaning of the strategy, and tells companies how to develop a correct strategy and adhere to core of management strategy. He also emphasizes the central role of strategic management as to remind the readers to understand the huge difference between a good strategy and bad strategy. This book has three sections: good and bad strategy, sources of power, and thinking like a strategist. I will be evaluating strengths and weaknesses under these topics. After finish reading the book, I had gained a better understanding of what a good strategy means to the success of a company. According to Rumelt, a good strategy is coherent, where companies pursue multiple objectives that are connected with each other. Rumelt points out that a good strategy consists of three elements: diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. (71) First, diagnosis means to define the obstacles and challenges that the companies are facing, and guidelines help the people to overcome the obstacles. Lastly, coherent action is the activities or actions that company did to be consistent with its guiding policy. Today, many of us lost the focus of the strategy, which results in the downward of businesses and organizations. Rumelt has defined the strategy as acknowledging the main problems and take coherent action to overcome the problems. Moreover, he illustrates
‘Strategic Management’ is a very complex term as many eminent researchers and scholars have had different views and conclusions on strategy. According to White (2004), “Strategic Management involves both systematically developing an idea together with its implications and testing the empirical validity & usefulness of that idea against the real world.” Thus strategy is not only about planning for future but also about confirming the validity of the hypothesis considered and implementing it successfully. Strategy formation may take various forms such as implicit, explicit or emergent. Implicit strategy is a strategy formed by intuitions of an individual. As per implicit strategists, strategic management is about reading the environment
A strategy is said to be a plan that is made for the long term success of a product or brand. It is extremely important to have a strategy in order to figure out a direction towards which any company is able to focus all its resources efficiently and achieve desired outcomes. Formulating effective strategies is a considerably long process in itself that combines analysing several factors, situations and issues that are already present in a company and looking to improve on them alongside trying to implement various innovations and ideas to collectively create a direction towards which they can move and direct the resources available to them.