Copyright Interactive Design Labs 2005 - 2017
Introduction - Concept of strategy
The term “strategy” is an overloaded in everyday conversations because most people including professional practitioners do not bother to explicitly establish their point of view into what is essentially a layered concept. Essentially, when people use the word “strategy”, they are expressing concerns/interest in one of the layers of a layered concept; strategic intent, competitive strategy operational strategy, or “functional” strategy.
What is a Strategy?
Conceptually, a strategy in any of its myriad interpretation and manifestations in any of these layers is about decision making, Regardless of the person using the term, and the “type” of strategy being pursued the fundamental meaning of the word with respect to strategy type remains the same.
Modeling a Strategy
A corporate and/or competitive strategy must be formulated to ensure it is good and acceptable to the organization; successfully implemented and executed for it to have value to the organization. The actual strategy emerges from good formulation, and successful implementation and execution. The different types of strategies described above can be represented through goal models as follows:
Corporate strategy model is concerned with the strategic decisions of CEOs and top executives on the following basic questions:
Answers to these questions help frame and guide the decisions executives, functions, and staff make every day including how they run operations, what they buy, what markets they enter, how they measure success, etc.
Business (competitive) strategy model is concerned with strategic decisions business unit managers on the following basic choices:
Answers to these questions are the choices that comprise a business strategy and they drive the decisions of business unit management team, functions, and staff in their everyday activities including pricing, R&D, where to manufacture, etc.
I am a serial technology entrepreneur and computer scientist interested in model-driven analysis and evaluation of strategy, its formulation, implementation and execution, to better inform strategic decision-making, and improve organization performance and ensure sustainable growth.