Quotes About Strategy

Thus, the Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created.

the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what's done in a business and more to do with how it's done. The commodity isn't what's important—the way it's delivered is.

most businesses are operated according to what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs.

Many strategy errors emanate from mistaking the relevant industry, defining it too broadly or too narrowly p.37

Although external changes can be the problem, the greater threat to strategy often comes from within. A sound strategy is undermined by a misguided view of competition, by organizational failures, and, especially, by the desire to grow. Managers

Competitive forces = the underlying drivers of profitability P.25

High rivalry limits the profitability of an industry P.32

The challenge of developing or reestablishing a clear strategy is often primarily an organizational one and depends on leadership. With so many forces at work against making choices and tradeoffs in organizations, a clear intellectual framework to guide strategy is a necessary counterweight. Moreover, strong leaders willing to make choices are essential. In

Managers at lower levels lack the perspective and the confidence to maintain a strategy. There will be constant pressures to compromise, relax trade-offs, and emulate rivals. One of the leader's jobs is to teach others in the organization about strategy—and to say no. Strategy

Programs in operational effectiveness produce reassuring progress, although superior profitability may remain elusive. Business publications and consultants flood the market with information about what other companies are doing, reinforcing the best-practice mentality. Caught up in the race for operational effectiveness, many managers simply do not understand the need to have a strategy. Companies

Some managers mistake "customer focus" to mean they must serve all customer needs or respond to every request from distribution channels.

Managers must clearly distinguish operational effectiveness from strategy.

MOST COMPANIES OWE THEIR INITIAL success to a unique strategic position involving clear trade-offs. Activities once were aligned with that position.

Strategy becomes the particular array of activities aligned to deliver a particular mix of value to a chosen array of customers.

Good industry analysis does not just list pluses and minuses but sees an industry in overall, systemic terms. P.29

Approaches to differentiating can take many forms: design or brand image, technology, features, customer service, dealer network, or other dimensions.

Strategy can be viewed as building defenses against the competitive forces or finding a position in the industry where the forces are weakest. P.35

El valor es la capacidad de satisfacer o rebasar las necesidades de los clientes, y también de hacerlo eficientemente.

From a strategic perspective, however, the issues in health care can be divided into three broad areas. The first is the cost of and access to health insurance. The second is standards for coverage, or the types of care that should be covered by insurance versus being the responsibility of the individual. The third is the structure of health care delivery itself.

quality differentials have a tendency to erode as an industry matures

The only way to truly reform health care is to reform the nature of competition itself.

At the most basic level, competition in health care must take place where value is actually created.

Strategists should be particularly alert to changes in other industries that may make them attractive substitutes when they were not before p.31

Competition in the current system is at the same time too broad, too narrow, and too local.