Quotes About Strategy

Remember, Sarah, any plan is better than no plan.

The strongest competitive force or forces determine the profitability of an industry and become the most important to strategy formulation. The most salient force, however, is not always obvious. P. 26

Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.

Strategy is about making choices; it's about deliberately choosing to be different.

Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities.

As important as the dimensions of rivalry is whether rivals compete on the same dimensions. When all or many competitors aim to meet the same needs or compete on the same attributes, the result is zero-sum competition. P. 33

General management is more than the stewardship of individual functions. Its core is strategy: defining and communicating the company's unique position, making trade-offs, and forging fit among activities.

If the forces are intense, (..) almost no company earns attractive returns on investment. If the forces are benign, (..) many companies are profitable. P. 25

Indeed, one of the most important functions of an explicit, communicated strategy is to guide employees in making choices that arise because of trade-offs in their individual activities and in day-to-day decisions. Improving

Understanding industry structure is also essential to effective strategic positioning P. 26

If a firm can spot an industry in which the fragmented structure does not reflect the underlying economics of competition, this can provide a most significant strategic opportunity. A company can enter such an industry cheaply because of its initial structure. Since there are no underlying economic causes of fragmentation, none of the investment costs or risks of innovations to change underlying economic structure need be borne.

It is more useful to think in terms of themes that pervade many activities, such as low cost, a particular notion of customer service, or a particular conception of the value delivered.

One implication is that strategic positions should have a horizon of a decade or more, not of a single planning cycle. Continuity fosters improvements in individual activities and the fit across activities, allowing an organization to build unique capabilities and skills tailored to its strategy. Continuity also reinforces a company's identity. Conversely

Hay que contar siempre con lo peor, y luego hay que hacer contra ello todo lo que se pueda.

Ad agencies continue to believe that improved creativity is the answer for agency and client problems.

This is an industry that no longer reflects strategically how to create value in the face of disruptive change.

When all the projections of intent and strategy twist and turn back on you, tracking team blood, 'sorry' just won't cover it. There's nothing so embarrassing as when things go wrong in a war.

I'm a firm believer in goal setting. Step by step. I can't think of any other way of accomplishing anything.

Whoever is the team leader of the team, I'm going to be going after him. And I'm not going to do it with my voice.' Because I had no voice. I had no status. I had to do it with the way that I played.

Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market.

If you've got a dozen pitchers, you need to speak 12 different languages.

Wall Street investment banks are like Las Vegas casinos: They set the odds. The customer who plays zero-sum games against them may win from time to time but never systematically, and never so spectacularly that he bankrupts the casino.

It is the nature of being the general manager of a baseball team that you have to remain on familiar terms with people you are continually trying to screw.

Baseball is a soap opera that lends itself to probabilistic thinking. [Dick Cramer]