1
Summary Book: Exploring
Strategy
R. Whittington, P. Regnér, D. Angwin, G. Johnson, K.
Scholes (12e edition) – Business Strategy and Alignment
CH 1: Introducing Strategy...........................................................................2
CH 2: Macro-environment Analysis............................................................12
CH 3: Industry and Secor Analysis.............................................................21
CH 4: Resources and Capabilities Analysis.................................................32
CH 5: Stakeholders and Governance..........................................................43
CH 6: History and Culture...........................................................................52
CH 7: Business Strategy and Models..........................................................62
CH 8: Corporate Strategy...........................................................................74
CH 9: International Strategy.......................................................................87
CH 11: Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances...............................................99
CH 12: Evaluating Strategies...................................................................112
CH 14: Organising and Strategy...............................................................124
CH 15: Leadership and Strategic Change.................................................135
CH 16: The Practice of Strategy...............................................................146
, 2
CH 1: Introducing Strategy
Learning outcomes:
- Summarise the strategy of an organisation in a ‘strategy statement’.
- Distinguish between corporate, business, and functional strategies.
- Identify key issues for an organisation’s strategy using the Exploring
Strategy Framework.
- Understand different people’s roles in strategy work.
- Appreciate the importance of different organisational contexts,
academic disciplines and theoretical lenses to practical strategy
analysis.
1.1 Introduction
As strategists we believe that one of strategy’s distinctive features is that
it draws upon many other perspectives, including economics, finance,
marketing, operational management, organisational behaviour,
psychology, etc.
Exploring Strategy: is distinctive in emphasising a comprehensive view of
strategy, and will enable you to explore the insights of many disciplinary
perspectives including both the economics of strategy and the people side
of managing strategy in practice.
Through exploration you will widen your awareness of practical issues
relevant to strategy, recognising the difficulties of interconnectedness, and
probe each option carefully before making informed choices.
1.2 What is Strategy?
Strategy: the long-term direction of an organisation.
To advantages of this definition:
- The long-term direction of an organisation can include both
deliberate, logical strategy and more incremental, emergent
patterns of strategy.
, 3
- Long-term direction can include both strategies that emphasise
difference and competition, and strategies that recognise the roles
of cooperation and even imitation.
Three elements of the strategy definition:
- The long term: the importance of long-term perspective on strategy
is emphasised by the ‘three horizons’ framework: suggests
organisations should think of their businesses or activities in terms
of different ‘horizons’, defined by time. Basic point of this is that
managers need to avoid focusing on the short-term issues of their
existing activities.
o Horizon 1: businesses are basically the current core activities.
Businesses need defending and extending but the expectation
is that in the long term they risk becoming flat or declining in
terms of profits (or whatever else the organisation values).
o Horizon 2: businesses are emerging activities that should
provide new future sources of profits.
o Horizon 3: these possibilities are more open and for which
outcomes are even more uncertain. These are typically risky
research and development projects, start-up ventures, test-
market pilots or similar.
- Strategic direction: sometimes a strategic direction only emerges as
a coherent pattern over time. Typically, however, managers and
entrepreneurs try to set the direction of their strategy according to
long-erm objectives. Profits do not always set strategic direction.
o Public-sector and charity organisations may set their strategic
direction according to other objectives.
, 4
o Even in the private sector profit is not always the sole criterion
for strategy. Family businesses may sometimes sacrifice the
maximisation of profits for family objectives.
- Organisation: involve many relationships, both internally and
externally. Organisations typically have many internal and external
stakeholders: people and groups that depend on the organisation
and upon which the organisation itself depends. Organisations are
filled with people, typically, with diverse, competing and more or
less reasonable views of what should be done. For strategy,
therefore, important to look inside organisations and consider the
people involved and their different interests and views. Also,
strategy is vitally concerned with an organisation’s external
boundaries: questions about what to include within the organisation
and how to manage important relationship with what is kept outside.
Strategic management: term for strategy as it involves managing people,
relationships and resources.
The core of a strategist’s job: defining and expressing a clear and
motivating purpose for the organisation. The stated purpose should
address two questions:
- How does the organisation make a difference?
- For whom does the organisation make the difference?
Four ways in which organisations define their purpose:
- Mission statement: aims to provide employees and stakeholders with
clarity about what the organisation is fundamentally there to do. Two
questions that can clarify an organisation’s business:
o What would be lost if the organisation did not exist?
o How do we make a difference?
- Vision statement: concerned with the future the organisation seeks
to create. Expresses an aspiration that will enthuse, gain
commitment and stretch performance.
o What do we want to achieve?
- Statements of corporate values: communicate the underlying and
enduring core ‘principles’ that guide an organisation’s strategy and
define the way that the organisation should operate.
o Would these values change with circumstance? If yes, then
they are not ‘core’ and not ‘enduring’.
- Objectives: statements or specific outcomes that are to be achieved.
Strategy statement: should have three main themes: the fundamental
goals (mission, vision or objectives) that the organisation seeks; the scope
Summary Book: Exploring
Strategy
R. Whittington, P. Regnér, D. Angwin, G. Johnson, K.
Scholes (12e edition) – Business Strategy and Alignment
CH 1: Introducing Strategy...........................................................................2
CH 2: Macro-environment Analysis............................................................12
CH 3: Industry and Secor Analysis.............................................................21
CH 4: Resources and Capabilities Analysis.................................................32
CH 5: Stakeholders and Governance..........................................................43
CH 6: History and Culture...........................................................................52
CH 7: Business Strategy and Models..........................................................62
CH 8: Corporate Strategy...........................................................................74
CH 9: International Strategy.......................................................................87
CH 11: Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances...............................................99
CH 12: Evaluating Strategies...................................................................112
CH 14: Organising and Strategy...............................................................124
CH 15: Leadership and Strategic Change.................................................135
CH 16: The Practice of Strategy...............................................................146
, 2
CH 1: Introducing Strategy
Learning outcomes:
- Summarise the strategy of an organisation in a ‘strategy statement’.
- Distinguish between corporate, business, and functional strategies.
- Identify key issues for an organisation’s strategy using the Exploring
Strategy Framework.
- Understand different people’s roles in strategy work.
- Appreciate the importance of different organisational contexts,
academic disciplines and theoretical lenses to practical strategy
analysis.
1.1 Introduction
As strategists we believe that one of strategy’s distinctive features is that
it draws upon many other perspectives, including economics, finance,
marketing, operational management, organisational behaviour,
psychology, etc.
Exploring Strategy: is distinctive in emphasising a comprehensive view of
strategy, and will enable you to explore the insights of many disciplinary
perspectives including both the economics of strategy and the people side
of managing strategy in practice.
Through exploration you will widen your awareness of practical issues
relevant to strategy, recognising the difficulties of interconnectedness, and
probe each option carefully before making informed choices.
1.2 What is Strategy?
Strategy: the long-term direction of an organisation.
To advantages of this definition:
- The long-term direction of an organisation can include both
deliberate, logical strategy and more incremental, emergent
patterns of strategy.
, 3
- Long-term direction can include both strategies that emphasise
difference and competition, and strategies that recognise the roles
of cooperation and even imitation.
Three elements of the strategy definition:
- The long term: the importance of long-term perspective on strategy
is emphasised by the ‘three horizons’ framework: suggests
organisations should think of their businesses or activities in terms
of different ‘horizons’, defined by time. Basic point of this is that
managers need to avoid focusing on the short-term issues of their
existing activities.
o Horizon 1: businesses are basically the current core activities.
Businesses need defending and extending but the expectation
is that in the long term they risk becoming flat or declining in
terms of profits (or whatever else the organisation values).
o Horizon 2: businesses are emerging activities that should
provide new future sources of profits.
o Horizon 3: these possibilities are more open and for which
outcomes are even more uncertain. These are typically risky
research and development projects, start-up ventures, test-
market pilots or similar.
- Strategic direction: sometimes a strategic direction only emerges as
a coherent pattern over time. Typically, however, managers and
entrepreneurs try to set the direction of their strategy according to
long-erm objectives. Profits do not always set strategic direction.
o Public-sector and charity organisations may set their strategic
direction according to other objectives.
, 4
o Even in the private sector profit is not always the sole criterion
for strategy. Family businesses may sometimes sacrifice the
maximisation of profits for family objectives.
- Organisation: involve many relationships, both internally and
externally. Organisations typically have many internal and external
stakeholders: people and groups that depend on the organisation
and upon which the organisation itself depends. Organisations are
filled with people, typically, with diverse, competing and more or
less reasonable views of what should be done. For strategy,
therefore, important to look inside organisations and consider the
people involved and their different interests and views. Also,
strategy is vitally concerned with an organisation’s external
boundaries: questions about what to include within the organisation
and how to manage important relationship with what is kept outside.
Strategic management: term for strategy as it involves managing people,
relationships and resources.
The core of a strategist’s job: defining and expressing a clear and
motivating purpose for the organisation. The stated purpose should
address two questions:
- How does the organisation make a difference?
- For whom does the organisation make the difference?
Four ways in which organisations define their purpose:
- Mission statement: aims to provide employees and stakeholders with
clarity about what the organisation is fundamentally there to do. Two
questions that can clarify an organisation’s business:
o What would be lost if the organisation did not exist?
o How do we make a difference?
- Vision statement: concerned with the future the organisation seeks
to create. Expresses an aspiration that will enthuse, gain
commitment and stretch performance.
o What do we want to achieve?
- Statements of corporate values: communicate the underlying and
enduring core ‘principles’ that guide an organisation’s strategy and
define the way that the organisation should operate.
o Would these values change with circumstance? If yes, then
they are not ‘core’ and not ‘enduring’.
- Objectives: statements or specific outcomes that are to be achieved.
Strategy statement: should have three main themes: the fundamental
goals (mission, vision or objectives) that the organisation seeks; the scope
