Strategy Test 1

Front 1

Are you sure you have a strategy?

Back 1

-Strategos
-Elements of Strategy

Front 2

Are you sure you have a strategy? Elements of strategy:

Back 2

Arenas, vehicles, differentiators, staging, economic logic

Front 3

CEO as a strategist

Back 3

-Strategy is about being different
-Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving different sets of activities
-It involves trade-offs and fit

Front 4

Have you tested your strategy yet?

Back 4

10 Tests
1. Will your strategy beat the market
2. Does your strategy tap a true source of advantage
3. Is your strategy granular about where to compete
4. does your strategy put you ahead of trends
5. Does your strategy rest on priveleged insights
6. Does your strategy embrace uncertainty
7. Does your strategy blanace commitment and flexibility
8. Is your strategy contaminated by bias
9. Is there conviction to act on your strategy?
10. Have your translated your strategy into an action plan

Front 5

Closing the gap between strategy and execution

Back 5

-Iterative process

Front 6

Iterative process

Back 6

Make sense of situation, make choices (trade-offs), make things happen (promises) , make revisions

Front 7

Becoming more strategic: Three tips for any executive

Back 7

1. Understand what strategy really means in your industry
2. Become expert at identifying potential disrupters
3. Develop communication strategies that can break through

Front 8

Insight deficit

Back 8

Strategic Insight: something your company sees that no one else does. One of the foundations of competitive advantage

Front 9

Profit Pools

Back 9

Total profits earned in an industry at all points along the industry's value chain
-Can be illuminating in industries undergoing rapid structural change
Ex. Dell with direct shipment and Anhaueser bush with cans

Front 10

Which strategy when?

Back 10

First step: Look at your industry and determine if its stable, dynamic, or in-between
Second step: Ask where do products fit in terms of product life-cycle
-Three archetypes of frameworks

Front 11

Three archetypes of frameworks

Back 11

-Strategies of position: Stable industry. Make defenses. Five forces
-Strategies of Leverage: Market change is moderate. Have valuable pieces and make smart moves. Common mistake = forgetting to reassess importance of resources
-Strategies of opportunity: create series of temporary competitive advantage. Catch right wave at right time. Requires focal strategic processes and developing simple rules. Built on process loosely connected

Front 12

Delivering desired outcomes

Back 12

Focus on both internal and external outcomes. Lexus and Kmart examples.
-Competitive advantage comes from unique resources and outcomes associated with them
-Value frontier

Front 13

Manuever warfare

Back 13

-Not attacking defense systems-cutting off supply lines
-Seven guiding concepts of manuever warfare

Front 14

4 things that can lead to deteriorating strategy

Back 14

Friction, uncertainty, fluidity, disorder

Front 15

Seven guiding concepts of manuever warfare

Back 15

1. Targeting vulnerabilities
2. Boldness: wanting breakthroughs
3. Surprise
4. Focus
5. Decentralized decision making: copes with uncertainty, disorders, and fluidity
6. Rapid Tempo
7. Combined arms

Front 16

Types of surprise

Back 16

Stealth, ambiguity, and deception

Front 17

Getting in your compeititors head?

Back 17

Looking at what others are doing.

Symmetric and assymetric. Sony and xbox, and nintendo. Look at stakholders and decision makers.
Also look at front-line staff.

Scenario Planning

Front 18

Simplicity Minded Management

Back 18

-Causes of Complexity
-Simplification as a strategy

Front 19

Causes of complexity

Back 19

-Structural mistosis
-Product proliferation
-Process evolution
-Managerial habits

Front 20

Simplification as strategy

Back 20

-They need to be implemented together
-Streamline organizational structure
-Prune products and services
-Build disciplined processes
-Improve managerial habits

Front 21

"Simple Rules for a complex world"

Back 21

-Purpose is to align decisions (front-line employees)
-Align activities with objectives
-Foster coordination
-Make better decisions

Rules

Front 22

Rules for developing simple rules

Back 22

-Identify bottleneck
-Let data trump opinion
-Let users make the rules
-Rules should be concrete
-Rules should evolve
-Iteration

Front 23

Active inertia

Back 23

Managers make five types of commitments
-Frames (blinders)
-Processes (routines)
-Resources
-Relationships
-Values

Front 24

Blue ocean

Back 24

Reduce, eliminate, create, add

-Look across insutries: Home Depot and DIY Jobs
-Across chain of buyers: Phillips lightbulbs
-Across Complimentary products/services: Barnes and noble