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