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5. Strategic Management

Video Resources 1 2 4

  • A good strategy is:
    • Simple, consistent, and long-term.
    • Deep analysis of the competitive environment.
    • Objectively and effectively exploit the firm’s resources.
    • People responsible for it as good decision-makers and have the will to execute it.
  • SWOT Analysis:
Internal External
Helpful Strengths Opportunities
Harmful Weaknesses Threats
Element Description
Strengths Areas where the organization excels.
Weaknesses Areas where the organization needs improvement.
Opportunities External chances to improve the organization.
Threats External elements that could cause trouble for the organization.

Strategy 3

5.7 Formulating Organizational and Personal Strategy With the Strategy Diamond

  • The strategy diamond was developed by strategy researchers Don Hambrick and Jim Fredrickson as a framework for checking and communicating a strategy.
  • Strategy diamond
  • Strategy matches up market needs and opportunities (located in arenas) with unique features of the firm (shown by its differentiators) to yield positive performance (economic logic).
  • While performance is typically viewed in financial terms, it can have social or environmental components as well.
  • Arenas:
    • Focuses on the needs and opportunities in the market that the firm will address.
    • Where the firm will be active?
    • Where are our product markets (geographic, product, customer)?
    • What are the value chain steps (R&D, production, sales, service)?
  • Differentiators:
    • Focuses on what sets the firm apart from its competitors (unique features of the firm).
    • How our processes and products are different?
  • Economic logic:
    • How the firm will deliver value to the market at a profit?
    • How the firm will make money?
  • Vehicles:
    • How the firm will get to the arenas?
    • How the firm will deliver value to the market?
    • How you might pursue a new arena through internal means, through help from a new partner or some other outside source, or even through acquisition?
  • Staging:
    • Focuses on the timing and next steps instead of thinking of strategy as a static and monolithic plan.

The Strategy Diamond and Your Personal Growth and Development Strategy

  • Personal arenas are the areas of your life where you will be active.
  • Personal differentiators are the unique features of your personality that set you apart from others.
  • Personal vehicles are how you will get to your arenas.
  • Personal staging and pacing are the timing and next steps in your personal growth, that is, the implementation of your strategy.
  • Personal economic logic is how you will deliver value to your life at a profit.

Athlete’s Warehouse (A) SWOT Analysis 5

References

  1. 365 Careers. (2017, July 4). Business strategy - SWOT analysis [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9-NWhwskTO4 ↩

  2. 365 Careers. (2017, December 24). Porter’s five forces - A practical example [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/OCnlArFuU-E ↩

  3. Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2010). Management principles, v. 1.1. https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/management-principles-v1.1/s09-strategizing.html ↩

  4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2013, December 18). Strategic leadership in a VUCA world: Jonathan Woodson | Decision-making: Voices from the field. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/72AzCY45fKU ↩

  5. Howse, B. (1992). Athlete’s warehouse (A). Atlantic Entrepreneurial Institute (pdf). ↩