What is Strategy?
One Good Way to Look at it is to Ask: What Do We Need to Do to Win in Our Market?
The Mind Tools Content Team
Strategy is a word that gets mentioned a lot in business.
But what is strategy? And what does it have to do with the work you do every day?
There isn't really a definitive answer to what strategy is, because everyone has their own opinion.
However, one good way to look at it is to ask: "What do we need to do to win in our market?"
This is the key question that you need to answer when you develop a strategy.
This question also demonstrates that developing a strategy doesn't involve analyzing just one thing.
Rather, it involves understanding your world in detail, and then mapping out your best possible route to success.
It can take a lot of thought and analysis to do this properly. Strategy development needs to happen on three levels.
The first level is corporate strategy.
For organizations with many different business units, this determines how the organization, as a whole, supports and enhances the value of the business units within it.
The next level is business unit strategy.
This describes how individual business units compete and win in their own, individual markets.
The objectives in the business unit strategy must be in line with the objectives of the corporate strategy.
The last level of strategy is team strategy.
Each team within a business unit has its own contribution to make, which means that it needs its own strategy to accomplish the larger goals and objectives of the organization.
No matter what your role, your work contributes to your team strategy, which contributes to the business unit strategy, which then contributes to the larger corporate strategy.
Each level is necessary, and important, to the success of your organization.
References
The Mindtools Content Team. (n.d.). What is Strategy?
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