Strategy poem
Introduction
After Principles of Management, look at how
Some among the companies though do better
To know what they differently do
Is indeed for us a truly great matter
Environmental View
and Resource Based View
Long term planning they do
Forces they map of the outside
But some say something else they do
They look at resources they have inside
These two we term the environmental view
As of the opportunities and threats that lurk around
And the Resource based view
Along the strengths and weaknesses that they have inside
Generic Strategies
Differentiate, cost lead or focus
So said Michael Porter
We know them as generic strategies
For all MBAs to master
Set company, product, or service
And design integrated action to produce and deliver
Thereby customers perceive for them relevant difference
That’s Differentiation as they desire
Whereas, cost
leadership is such business strategy
Basically a low cost approach.
With the lowest cost of operation in the
industry
And excess frills they ever reproach
Focus though comes in two varieties
Cost focus and differentiation focus
Offering a specialized service in a cost concerned niche
market
Or offering a specialized service in a premium niche market
Porter’s Five Forces
/ Structural Analysis
More on the environmental view
Porter saw the five forces
As playing much more than a few
Called the structural analysis of industries
Bargaining power of buyers
Such as the government in some industries that beckon
Meant that over the other forces
Was a powerful element to reckon.
Bargaining power of suppliers
Such as a dominant vendor
Meant that they were by many means
To be considered a major power
When something else can take its place
That’s Threat of substitutes
Like when coffee becomes too expensive
The switch to tea being pensive
Where there are players many
We have intensity of rivalry
Though entry is relatively easy
Staying on becomes squeezy
That makes the last one barriers to entry
Hurdles many such as capital largely
Over long term all companies try
To keep other aspirers at bay
What is Strategy? Porter
Okay but Porter says efficiency is not strategy
Over time all reach a frontier, though necessary
Make a position that one can preserve over the other
More the benchmarking, the more you look like one another
Choose a different set of tailored activities
The essence is unique activities
Variety, Need or Access based
Are the ways strategy is belaboured
Do one set of processes
But keep away from others
Strategy is uniquely made of
Activities thus traded off
Fit is how one’s activities configure
And how they relate to one another
Drives away others with such a chain thick
With as strong a chain as the strongest link
