The Future of Strategy

Author: Colin S. Gray
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745687970
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 115

Book Description
Strategy is not a modern invention. It is an essential and enduring feature of human history that is here to stay. In this original essay, Colin S. Gray, world-renowned scholar of strategic thought, discusses the meaning of strategy and its importance for politicians and the military as a means of achieving desired outcomes in complex, uncertain conditions. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the Great Peloponnesian War to the Second World War, Vietnam, and the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gray ably shows how great military thinkers of the past and present have acted strategically in their various ideological, political, geographical and cultural contexts. Looking to the future, he argues that strategy will continue to provide a vital tool-kit for survival and security, but that the global threat posed by nuclear weapons remains an on-going challenge without obvious practical solutions. As Gray boldy asserts, there is no promised land ahead, only hard and dangerous times that will require us to master the theory and practice of strategy to secure our own future.

The Future of Competitive Strategy

Author: Mohan Subramaniam
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262046997
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
How legacy firms can combine their traditional strengths with the power of data and digital ecosystems to forge a new competitive strategy for the digital era. How can legacy firms remain relevant in the digital era? In The Future of Competitive Strategy, strategic management expert Mohan Subramaniam explains how firms can leverage both their traditional strengths and the modern-day power of data and digital ecosystems to forge a new competitive strategy. Drawing on the experiences of a range of companies, including Caterpillar, Sleep Number, and Whirlpool, he explains how firms can benefit from data’s enlarged role in modern business, develop digital ecosystems tailored to their unique business needs, and use new frameworks to harness the power of data for competitive advantage. Subramaniam presents digital ecosystems as a combination of production and consumption ecosystems, which can be used by legacy firms to unlock the value of data at various levels—from improving operational efficiencies to creating new data-driven services and transforming traditional products into digital platforms. He explores the ways sensors and the Internet of Things provide new kinds of customer data; presents the concept of digital competitors—other firms that have access to similar data; discusses the new digital capabilities that firms need to develop; and addresses privacy and security issues associated with data sharing. Who needs this book? Any firm that wants to revitalize traditional business models, offer a richer customer experience, and expand its competitive arena into new digital ecosystems.

The Future of Strategy: A Transformative Approach to Strategy for a World That Won’t Stand Still

Author: Johan Aurik
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071848754
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Own the Future of Your Industry with a Transformational Strategy Designed for Today's Business World Leaders today are inundated with strategic opportunities, besieged by business disruptions, andpressured to innovate--to do things better, faster, or differently. The CEO of a Fortune 500 firm explains it best: "I am looking at 23 different strategic initiatives. Trying to develop and implement so many strategies is like trying to change the driver, tires, the oil, and the bumpers; paint the body; and tune the engine. And doing all of this on a car that's running at full speed." The answer used to be found in strategy. But in thepast decade, the commonly deployed large-scale strategic exercises were largely discredited. They were slow and elaborate and did not deliver the expected returns, let alone help make sense of a glut of initiatives or cope with an increasingly unpredictable future. The Future of Strategy brings strategy back fromthose big top-down plans. It answers the questions of executives facing tumultuous business conditions and rapidly shifting markets: Is strategy still possible? Yes. Aren't strategies outdated before they can be implemented? Not if they are done right. Rather than developing strategy, aren't we better off being agile and able to capitalize on emerging trends faster than our peers? Agility complements strategy; it cannot replace it. This book is about reversing course and repositioningstrategy in its rightful place as the overarchingmanagement system. The authors introduce their core methodology, designed to future proof companies against the friction and "fog of war" that inexorably accompany changing times. They synthesize three fundamental principles that, when combined, provide the means to reclaim strategy: Take direct cues from fundamental trends affecting the company going forward Engage people across the company to translate these cues into strategy and effectively eliminate the handover hurdle between formulation and execution, a major reason for strategy failure Capture the output as competitive opportunities and manage their life cycles--when some have run their course, others are ready to take over Strategy today requires stepping over the shadows of one's own ingrained beliefs to capture new opportunities.This book reveals the inner workings of transformational strategies developed by leaders who gradually become more successful by advancing winning combinations of attitudes, values, habits, and practices.

The Strategy Book ePub eBook

Author: Max Mckeown
Publisher: Pearson UK
ISBN: 0273757113
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
Thinking strategically is what separates managers and leaders. Learn the fundamentals about how to create winning strategy and lead your team to deliver it. From understanding what strategy can do for you, through to creating a strategy and engaging others with strategy, this book offers practical guidance and expert tips. It is peppered with punchy, memorable examples from real leaders winning (and losing) with real world strategies. It can be read as a whole or you can dip into the easy-to-read, bite-size sections as and when you need to deal with a particular issue. The structure has been specially designed to make sections quick and easy to use – you’ll find yourself referring back to them again and again.

Strategy That Works

Author: Paul Leinwand
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 1625275218
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
How to close the gap between strategy and execution Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don’t have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego. These companies: • Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities • Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others • Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it • Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board • Shape the future instead of reacting to it Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.

Smart Business

Author: Ming Zeng
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1633693309
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Book Description
How Strategy Works in an Interconnected, Automated World Leaders already know that the classic approach to strategy--analyze, plan, execute--is losing relevance. But they don't yet know what replaces it. As everyone and everything becomes more interconnected and digitized, how do you operate, compete, and win? Ming Zeng, the former Chief of Staff and strategy adviser to Alibaba Group's founder Jack Ma, explains how the latest technological developments, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, the mobile internet, and cloud computing are redefining how value is created. Written especially for those outside the technology industry or the startup arena, this book introduces a simple, overarching framework to guide strategy formulation and execution in this data-rich and highly interactive environment. Revealing the revolutionary practices that he and his team have developed at Alibaba, Zeng shows how to: Automate decisions through machine learning Create products informed by real-time data from customers Determine the right strategic positioning to maximize value from platforms and suppliers Repurpose your organization to further human insight and enable creativity Lead your company's transformation into a smart business With insights into the strategies and tools used by leaders at Alibaba and other companies such as Ruhan and Red Collar, in a variety of industries from furniture making to banking to custom tailoring, Smart Business outlines a radically new approach to strategy that can be applied everywhere.

Using Trends and Scenarios as Tools for Strategy Development

Author: Ulf Pillkahn
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 3895786292
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
Is my enterprise really prepared for future business? What can I do to become more competitive? Ulf Pillkahn's book is directed at all of those seeking answers to these questions: executives in strategic positions, business analysts, consultants, trend scouts, marketing and product managers and research engineers. The book presents the two most powerful tools for future planning: environmental analysis, based on the use of trends, as well as the development of visions of the future through the use of scenarios. While scenarios are generally regarded as a classical management tool, it is expected that the importance of trends will gain tremendously in the coming years. Pillkahn demonstrates how to build robust strategies by aligning the results of environmental and enterprise scenarios, thereby offering entirely new insights. "Using Trends and Scenarios as Tools for Strategy Development" convincingly illustrates why efficient observation of the environment of an enterprise is an absolutely essential factor for strategy development, and why strategy development only works if it is institutionalized as a permanent enterprise process. It also addresses the issue of what information is needed to keep both processes running. The book further describes how trends can be categorized, and offers advice on how to glean the essential information from the vast variety of trends. Information is provided on how scenarios are used as a holistic instrument for creating visions and pictures of the future, and how the results of trend research and scenario techniques find their way into entrepreneurial strategy development. An optimized strategy development process is also outlined. Practical examples and real-life pictures of the future round off Pillkahn's insightful discussion of future business planning.

Strategy Is Destiny

Author: Robert A. Burgelman
Publisher: Free Press
ISBN: 1982146516
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
How did a pioneering company in the semiconductor industry not only survive but thrive in the face of the explosive change and upheavals that forced it to transform itself twice in the course of its thirty-year history? The answer lies in the quality of its strategy-making process, contends leading strategic management scholar Robert A. Burgelman in this extraordinary book based on an exhaustive twelve-year study he conducted inside Intel Corporation. At once a history of strategy-making at Intel as well as a strategy-making field manual that any high-technology manager will need to consult frequently, Strategy Is Destiny truly describes strategy-in-action as the way of life of senior executives in the corporation of the future.

Your Strategy Needs a Strategy

Author: Martin Reeves
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 1625275870
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.

Lead from the Future

Author: Mark W. Johnson
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 163369755X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Book Description
Gold Medal Winner for Best Leadership Book in the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards Named one of the "Top Ten Technology Books Of 2020" — Forbes Named one of the "10 Best New Business Books of 2020" by Inc. magazine "Johnson and Suskewicz have raised a battle cry for the kind of leadership we need in these uncertain times." -- Sandi Peterson, Member, Board of Directors, Microsoft We all know a visionary leader when we see one. They're bold and prophetic and at the same time pragmatic. They don't just promote change--they drive it, while inspiring and mobilizing others to do the same. Visionaries like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos possess a host of innate qualities that make them extraordinary, but what truly sets them apart is their ability to turn vision into action. In Lead from the Future, Innosight's Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz introduce a new way of thinking and managing, called "future-back," that enables any manager to become a practical visionary. Addressing the many barriers to change that exist in established organizations, they present a systematic approach to overcoming them that includes: The principles and mind-set that allow leadership teams to look beyond typical short-term planning horizons A method for turning emerging challenges into the growth opportunities that can define an organization's future A step-by-step approach for translating a vision into a strategic plan that teams can align around and commit to Ways to ensure that visionary thinking becomes a repeatable organizational capability As practical as it is inspiring, Lead from the Future is the guide you and your team need to develop a vision and translate it into transformative growth.