¡Descarga What is strategy? y más Apuntes en PDF de Administración de Empresas solo en Docsity!
Are you sure you have a
strategy?
Donald C. Hambrick and James W. Fredrickson
Executive Overview After more than 30 years of hard thinking about strategy, consultants and scholars have provided an abundance of frameworks for analyzing strategic situations. Missing, however, has been any guidance as to what the product of these tools should be— or what actually constitutes a strategy. Strategy has become a catchall term used to mean whatever one wants it to mean. Executives now talk about their “service strategy,” their “branding strategy,” their “acquisition strategy,” or whatever kind of strategy that is on their mind at a particular moment. But strategists—whether they are CEOs of established firms, division presidents, or entrepreneurs—must have a strategy, an integrated, overarching concept of how the business will achieve its objectives. If a business must have a single, unified strategy, then it must necessarily have parts. What are those parts? We present a framework for strategy design, arguing that a strategy has five elements, providing answers to five questions—arenas: where will we be active? vehicles: how will we get there? differentiators: how will we win in the marketplace? staging: what will be our speed and sequence of moves? economic logic: how will we obtain our returns? Our article develops and illustrates these domains of choice, particularly emphasizing how essential it is that they form a unified whole.
Consider these statements of strategy drawn from actual documents and announcements of several companies:
“Our strategy is to be the low-cost provider.” “We’re pursuing a global strategy.” “The company’s strategy is to integrate a set of regional acquisitions.” “Our strategy is to provide unrivaled customer service.” “Our strategic intent is to always be the first- mover.” “Our strategy is to move from defense to in- dustrial applications.”
What do these grand declarations have in com- mon? Only that none of them is a strategy. They are strategic threads, mere elements of strategies. But they are no more strategies than Dell Comput- er’s strategy can be summed up as selling direct to customers, or than Hannibal’s strategy was to use elephants to cross the Alps. And their use reflects an increasingly common syndrome—the catchall fragmentation of strategy. After more than 30 years of hard thinking about
strategy, consultants and scholars have provided executives with an abundance of frameworks for analyzing strategic situations. We now have five- forces analysis, core competencies, hypercompeti- tion, the resource-based view of the firm, value chains, and a host of other helpful, often powerful, analytic tools.^1 Missing, however, has been any guidance as to what the product of these tools should be— or what actually constitutes a strategy. Indeed, the use of specific strategic tools tends to draw the strategist toward narrow, piecemeal con- ceptions of strategy that match the narrow scope of the tools themselves. For example, strategists who are drawn to Porter’s five-forces analysis tend to think of strategy as a matter of selecting industries and segments within them. Executives who dwell on “co-opetition” or other game-theoretic frame- works see their world as a set of choices about dealing with adversaries and allies. This problem of strategic fragmentation has worsened in recent years, as narrowly specialized academics and consultants have started plying their tools in the name of strategy. But strategy is not pricing. It is not capacity decisions. It is not
Academy of Management Executive , 2005, Vol. 19, No. 4 Reprinted from 2001, Vol. 15, No. 4
51
setting R&D budgets. These are pieces of strate- gies, and they cannot be decided— or even consid- ered—in isolation. Imagine an aspiring painter who has been taught that colors and hues determine the beauty of a picture. But what can really be done with such advice? After all, magnificent pictures require far more than choosing colors: attention to shapes and figures, brush technique, and finishing processes. Most importantly, great paintings depend on artful combinations of all these elements. Some combi- nations are classic, tried-and-true; some are inven- tive and fresh; and many combinations— even for avant-garde art—spell trouble. Strategy has become a catchall term used to mean whatever one wants it to mean. Business magazines now have regular sections devoted to strategy, typically discussing how featured firms are dealing with distinct issues, such as customer service, joint ventures, branding, or e-commerce. In turn, executives talk about their “service strategy,” their “joint venture strategy,” their “branding strat- egy,” or whatever kind of strategy is on their minds at a particular moment. Executives then communicate these strategic threads to their organizations in the mistaken be- lief that doing so will help managers make tough choices. But how does knowing that their firm is pursuing an “acquisition strategy” or a “first- mover strategy” help the vast majority of manag- ers do their jobs or set priorities? How helpful is it to have new initiatives announced periodically with the word strategy tacked on? When execu- tives call everything strategy, and end up with a collection of strategies, they create confusion and undermine their own credibility. They especially reveal that they don’t really have an integrated conception of the business.
When executives call everything
strategy, and end up with a collection of
strategies, they create confusion and
undermine their own credibility.
Many readers of works on the topic know that strategy is derived from the Greek strategos , or “the art of the general.” But few have thought much about this important origin. For example, what is special about the general’s job, compared with that of a field commander? The general is respon- sible for multiple units on multiple fronts and mul- tiple battles over time. The general’s challenge— and the value-added of generalship—is in orchestration and comprehensiveness. Great gen-
erals think about the whole. They have a strategy; it has pieces, or elements, but they form a coherent whole. Business generals, whether they are CEOs of established firms, division presidents, or entre- preneurs, must also have a strategy—a central, integrated, externally oriented concept of how the business will achieve its objectives. Without a strategy, time and resources are easily wasted on piecemeal, disparate activities; mid-level manag- ers will fill the void with their own, often parochial, interpretations of what the business should be do- ing; and the result will be a potpourri of disjointed, feeble initiatives. Examples abound of firms that have suffered because they lacked a coherent strategy. Once a towering force in retailing, Sears spent 10 sad years vacillating between an emphasis on hard goods and soft goods, venturing in and out of ill- chosen businesses, failing to differentiate itself in any of them, and never building a compelling eco- nomic logic. Similarly, the once-unassailable Xe- rox is engaged in an attempt to revive itself, amid criticism from its own executives that the company lacks a strategy. Says one: “I hear about asset sales, about refinancing, but I don’t hear anyone saying convincingly, ‘Here is your future.’”^2 A strategy consists of an integrated set of choices, but it isn’t a catchall for every important choice an executive faces. As Figure 1 portrays, the company’s mission and objectives, for example, stand apart from, and guide, strategy. Thus we would not speak of the commitment of the New York Times to be America’s newspaper of record as part of its strategy. GE’s objective of being number one or number two in all its markets drives its strategy, but is not strategy itself. Nor would an objective of reaching a particular revenue or earn- ings target be part of a strategy. Similarly, because strategy addresses how the business intends to engage its environment, choices about internal organizational arrange- ments are not part of strategy. So we should not speak of compensation policies, information sys- tems, or training programs as being strategy. These are critically important choices, which should reinforce and support strategy; but they do not make up the strategy itself.^3 If everything im- portant is thrown into the strategy bucket, then this essential concept quickly comes to mean nothing. We do not mean to portray strategy development as a simple, linear process. Figure 1 leaves out feedback arrows and other indications that great strategists are iterative, loop thinkers.^4 The key is not in following a sequential process, but rather in achieving a robust, reinforced consistency among the elements of the strategy itself.
52 Academy of Management Executive November
tries with per-capita GDP over $5,000. But in all cases, the challenge is to be as specific as possible. In choosing arenas, the strategist needs to indicate not only where the business will be active, but also how much emphasis will be placed on each. Some market segments, for instance, might be identified as centrally important, while others are deemed sec- ondary. A strategy might reasonably be centered on one product category, with others—while necessary for defensive purposes or for offering customers a full line— being of distinctly less importance.
Vehicles
Beyond deciding on the arenas in which the busi- ness will be active, the strategist also needs to decide how to get there. Specifically, the means for attaining the needed presence in a particular prod- uct category, market segment, geographic area, or value-creation stage should be the result of delib- erate strategic choice. If we have decided to ex- pand our product range, are we going to accom- plish that by relying on organic, internal product development, or are there other vehicles—such as joint ventures or acquisitions—that offer a better means for achieving our broadened scope? If we are committed to international expansion, what should be our primary modes, or vehicles— green-
field startups, local acquisitions, licensing, or joint ventures? The executives of the biotechnology company noted earlier decided to rely on joint ven- tures to achieve their new presence in Europe, while committing to a series of tactical acquisitions for adding certain therapeutic products to comple- ment their existing line of diagnostic products. The means by which arenas are entered matters greatly. Therefore, selection of vehicles should not be an afterthought or viewed as a mere implemen- tation detail. A decision to enter new product cat- egories is rife with uncertainty. But that uncer- tainty may vary immensely depending on whether the entry is attempted by licensing other compa- nies’ technologies, where perhaps the firm has prior experience, or by acquisitions, where the company is a novice. Failure to explicitly consider and articulate the intended expansion vehicles can result in the hoped-for entry’s being seriously delayed, unnecessarily costly, or totally stalled.
Failure to explicitly consider and
articulate the intended expansion
vehicles can result in the hoped-for
entry’s being seriously delayed,
unnecessarily costly, or totally stalled.
FIGURE 2
The Five Major Elements of Strategy
54 Academy of Management Executive November
There are steep learning curves associated with the use of alternative expansion modes. Research has found, for instance, that companies can de- velop highly advantageous, well-honed capabili- ties in making acquisitions or in managing joint ventures.^6 The company that uses various vehicles on an ad hoc or patchwork basis, without an over- arching logic and programmatic approach, will be at a severe disadvantage compared with compa- nies that have such coherence.
Differentiators
A strategy should specify not only where a firm will be active (arenas) and how it will get there (vehicles), but also how the firm will win in the marketplace— how it will get customers to come its way. In a competitive world, winning is the result of differentiators, and such edges don’t just hap- pen. Rather, they require executives to make up- front, conscious choices about which weapons will be assembled, honed, and deployed to beat com- petitors in the fight for customers, revenues, and profits. For example, Gillette uses its proprietary product and process technology to develop supe- rior razor products, which the company further dif- ferentiates through a distinctive, aggressively ad- vertised brand image. Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, provides customers unparalleled service by maintaining close relationships with client executives and coordinating the array of ser- vices it offers to each client. Southwest Airlines attracts and retains customers by offering the lowest possible fares and extraordinary on-time reliability. Achieving a compelling marketplace advantage does not necessarily mean that the company has to be at the extreme on one differentiating dimen- sion; rather, sometimes having the best combina- tion of differentiators confers a tremendous mar- ketplace advantage. This is the philosophy of Honda in automobiles. There are better cars than Hondas, and there are less expensive cars than Hondas; but many car buyers believe that there is no better value— quality for the price—than a Honda, a strategic position the company has worked hard to establish and reinforce. Regardless of the intended differentiators—im- age, customization, price, product styling, after- sale services, or others—the critical issue for strat- egists is to make up-front, deliberate choices. Without that, two unfortunate outcomes loom. One is that, if top management doesn’t attempt to cre- ate unique differentiation, none will occur. Again, differentiators don’t just materialize; they are very hard to achieve. And firms without them lose.
The other negative outcome is that, without up- front, careful choices about differentiators, top management may seek to offer customers across- the-board superiority, trying simultaneously to outdistance competitors on too broad an array of differentiators—lower price, better service, supe- rior styling, and so on. Such attempts are doomed, however, because of their inherent inconsistencies and extraordinary resource demands. In selecting differentiators, strategists should give explicit preference to those few forms of superiority that are mutually reinforcing (e.g., image and product styling), consistent with the firm’s resources and capabilities, and, of course, highly valued in the arenas the company has targeted.
Staging Choices of arenas, vehicles, and differentiators constitute what might be called the substance of a strategy—what executives plan to do. But this sub- stance cries out for decisions on a fourth element— staging, or the speed and sequence of major moves to take in order to heighten the likelihood of suc- cess.^7 Most strategies do not call for equal, bal- anced initiatives on all fronts at all times. Instead, usually some initiatives must come first, followed only then by others, and then still others. In erect- ing a great building, foundations must be laid, followed by walls, and only then the roof. Of course, in business strategy there is no uni- versally superior sequence. Rather the strategist’s judgment is required. Consider a printing equip- ment company that committed itself to broadening its product line and expanding internationally. The executives decided that the new products should be added first, in stage one, because the elite sales agents they planned to use for interna- tional expansion would not be able or willing to represent a narrow product line effectively. Even though the executives were anxious to expand geographically, if they had tried to do so without the more complete line in place, they would have wasted a great deal of time and money. The left half of Figure 3 shows their two-stage logic. The executives of a regional title insurance com- pany, as part of their new strategy, were commit- ted to becoming national in scope through a series of acquisitions. For their differentiators, they planned to establish a prestigious brand backed by aggressive advertising and superb customer service. But the executives faced a chicken-and- egg problem: they couldn’t make the acquisitions on favorable terms without the brand image in place; but with only their current limited geo- graphic scope, they couldn’t afford the quantity or
2005 Hambrick and Fredrickson 55
themselves through their in-flight meals, ARAMARK dropped that segment. In some instances, the economic logic might reside on the cost side of the profit equation. ARAMARK— adding to its pricing leverage—uses its huge scale of operations and presence in multiple market seg- ments (business, educational, healthcare, and cor- rectional-system food service) to achieve a sizeable cost advantage in food purchases—an advantage that competitors cannot duplicate. GKN Sinter Met- als, which has grown by acquisition to become the world’s major powdered-metals company, benefits greatly from its scale in obtaining raw materials and in exploiting, in country after country, its leading- edge capabilities in metal-forming processes. In these examples the economic logics are not fleeting or transitory. They are rooted in the firms’ fundamental and relatively enduring capabilities. ARAMARK and the New York Times can charge premium prices because their offerings are supe- rior in the eyes of their targeted customers, custom- ers highly value that superiority, and competitors can’t readily imitate the offerings. ARAMARK and GKN Sinter Metals have lower costs than their competitors because of systemic advantages of scale, experience, and know-how sharing. Granted, these leads may not last forever or be completely unassailable, but the economic logics that are at work at these companies account for their abilities to deliver strong year-in, year-out profits.
The Imperative of Strategic Comprehensiveness
By this point, it should be clear why a strategy needs to encompass all five elements—arenas, ve- hicles, differentiators, staging, and economic logic. First, all five are important enough to require in- tentionality. Surprisingly, most strategic plans em- phasize one or two of the elements without giving any consideration to the others. Yet to develop a strategy without attention to all five leaves critical omissions.
Surprisingly, most strategic plans
emphasize one or two of the elements
without giving any consideration to the
others.
Second, the five elements call not only for choice, but also for preparation and investment. All five require certain capabilities that cannot be gener- ated spontaneously. Third, all five elements must align with and sup- port each other. When executives and academics
think about alignment, they typically have in mind that internal organizational arrangements need to align with strategy (in tribute to the maxim that “structure follows strategy”^9 ), but few pay much attention to the consistencies required among the elements of the strategy itself. Finally, it is only after the specification of all five strategic elements that the strategist is in the best position to turn to designing all the other support- ing activities—functional policies, organizational arrangements, operating programs, and process- es—that are needed to reinforce the strategy. The five elements of the strategy diamond can be con- sidered the hub or central nodes for designing a comprehensive, integrated activity system.^10
Comprehensive Strategies at IKEA and Brake Products International IKEA: Revolutionizing an Industry So far we have identified and discussed the five elements that make up a strategy and form our strategy diamond. But a strategy is more than sim- ply choices on these five fronts: it is an integrated, mutually reinforcing set of choices— choices that form a coherent whole. To illustrate the importance of this coherence we will now discuss two exam- ples of fully elaborated strategy diamonds. As a first illustration, consider the strategic intent of IKEA, the remarkably successful global furniture retailer. IKEA’s strategy over the past 25 years has been highly coherent, with all five elements rein- forcing each other. The arenas in which IKEA operates are well de- fined: the company sells relatively inexpensive, contemporary, Scandinavian-style furniture and home furnishings. IKEA’s target market is young, primarily white-collar customers. The geographic scope is worldwide, or at least all countries where socioeconomic and infrastructure conditions sup- port the concept. IKEA is not only a retailer, but also maintains control of product design to ensure the integrity of its unique image and to accumulate unrivaled expertise in designing for efficient man- ufacturing. The company, however, does not man- ufacture, relying instead on a host of long-term suppliers who ensure efficient, geographically dis- persed production.
IKEA is not only a retailer, but also
maintains control of product design to
ensure the integrity of its unique image
and to accumulate unrivaled expertise in
designing for efficient manufacturing.
2005 Hambrick and Fredrickson 57
As its primary vehicle for getting to its chosen arenas, IKEA engages in organic expansion, build- ing its own wholly owned stores. IKEA has chosen not to make acquisitions of existing retailers, and it engages in very few joint ventures. This reflects top management’s belief that the company needs to fully control local execution of its highly inno- vative retailing concept. IKEA attracts customers and beats competitors by offering several important differentiators. First, its products are of very reliable quality but are low in price (generally 20 to 30 percent below the com- petition for comparable quality goods). Second, in contrast to the stressful, intimidating feeling that shoppers often encounter in conventional furniture stores, IKEA customers are treated to a fun, non- threatening experience, where they are allowed to wander through a visually exciting store with only the help they request. And third, the company strives to make customer fulfillment immediate. Specifically, IKEA carries an extensive inventory at each store, which allows a customer to take the item home or have it delivered the same day. In contrast, conventional furniture retailers show floor models, but then require a 6- to 10-week wait for the delivery of each special-order item. As for staging, or IKEA’s speed and sequence of moves, once management realized that its ap- proach would work in a variety of countries and cultures, the company committed itself to rapid international expansion, but only one region at a
time. In general, the company’s approach has been to use its limited resources to establish an early foothold by opening a single store in each targeted country. Each such entry is supported with aggres- sive public relations and advertising, in order to lay claim to the radically new retailing concept in that market. Later, IKEA comes back into each country and fills in with more stores. The economic logic of IKEA rests primarily on scale economies and efficiencies of replication. Al- though the company doesn’t sell absolutely iden- tical products in all its geographic markets, IKEA has enough standardization that it can take great advantage of being the world’s largest furniture retailer. Its costs from long-term suppliers are ex- ceedingly low, and made even lower by IKEA’s proprietary, easy-to-manufacture product designs. In each region, IKEA has enough scale to achieve substantial distribution and promotional efficien- cies. And each individual store is set up as a high- volume operation, allowing further economies in inventories, advertising, and staffing. IKEA’s phased international expansion has allowed exec- utives to benefit, in country after country, from what they have learned about site selection, store design, store openings, and ongoing operations. They are vigilant, astute learners, and they put that learning to great economic use. Note how all of IKEA’s actions (shown in Figure
- fit together. For example, consider the strong alignment between its targeted arenas and its
FIGURE 4
IKEA’s Strategy
58 Academy of Management Executive November
Asia—BPI executives concluded that they had a potential advantage—what they referred to as “global reach”—that was well suited to the global consolidation of the automobile industry. If BPI did a better job of coordinating activities among its geographically dispersed operations, it could pro- vide the one-stop, low-cost global purchasing that the industry giants increasingly sought.
If BPI did a better job of coordinating
activities among its geographically
dispersed operations, it could provide the
one-stop, low-cost global purchasing that
the industry giants increasingly sought.
BPI’s executives approached decisions about staging very deliberately. They felt urgency on various fronts, but also realized that, after several years of lackluster performance, the firm lacked the resources and credibility to do everything all at once. As is often the case, decisions about staging were most important for those initiatives where the gaps between the status quo and the strategic
intent were the greatest. For example, executives decided that, in order to provide a clear, early sign of continued commitment to the major global auto manufacturers, a critical first step was to establish the joint ventures with brake manufacturers in Asia. They felt just as much urgency to gain a first-mover advantage as a suspension-system in- tegrator. Therefore, management committed to promptly establish alliances with a select group of manufacturers of other suspension components, and to experiment with one pilot customer. These two sets of initiatives constituted stage one of BPI’s strategic intent. For stage two, the executives planned to launch the full versions of the systems- integration and global-reach concepts, complete with aggressive marketing. Also in this second stage, expansion into the off-road vehicle market would commence. BPI’s economic logic hinged on securing pre- mium prices from its customers, by offering them at least three valuable, difficult-to-imitate bene- fits. First, BPI was the worldwide technology leader in braking systems; car companies would pay to get access to these products for their new
FIGURE 5
BPI’s Strategy
60 Academy of Management Executive November
high-end models. Second, BPI would allow global customers an economical single source for braking products; this would save customers considerable contract administration and quality-assurance costs—savings that they would be willing to share. And third, through its alliances with major suspen- sion-component manufacturers, BPI would be able to deliver integrated-suspension-system kits to customers—again saving customers in purchasing costs, inventory costs, and even assembly costs, for which they would pay a premium. BPI’s turnaround was highly successful. The sub- stance of the company’s strategy (shown in Figure
- was critically important in the turnaround, as was the concise strategy statement that was com- municated throughout the firm. As the CEO stated:
We’ve finally identified what we want to be, and what’s important to us. Just as impor- tantly, we’ve decided what we don’t want to be, and have stopped wasting time and effort. Since we started talking about BPI in terms of arenas, vehicles, differentiators, staging, and economic logic, we have been able to get our top team on the same page. A whole host of decisions have logically fallen into place in support of our comprehensive strategic agenda.
Of Strategy, Better Strategy, and No Strategy
Our purpose in this article has been elemental—to identify what constitutes a strategy. This basic agenda is worthwhile because executives and scholars have lost track of what it means to engage in the art of the general. We particularly hope to counter the recent catchall fragmentation of the strategy concept, and to remind strategists that orchestrated holism is their charge. But we do not want to be mistaken. We don’t believe that it is sufficient to simply make these five sets of choices. No—a business needs not just a strategy, but a sound strategy. Some strategies are clearly far better than others. Fortunately, this is where the wealth of strategic-analysis tools that have been developed in the last 30 years becomes valuable. Such tools as industry analysis, technol- ogy cycles, value chains, and core competencies, among others, are very helpful for improving the soundness of strategies. When we compare these tools and extract their most powerful central mes- sages, several key criteria emerge to help execu- tives test the quality of a proposed strategy. These criteria are presented in Table 1.^11 We strongly encourage executives to apply these tests through- out the strategy-design process and especially when a proposed strategy emerges.
There might be those who wonder whether strat- egy isn’t a concept of yesteryear, whose time has come and gone. In an era of rapid, discontinuous environmental shifts, isn’t the company that at- tempts to specify its future just flirting with disas- ter? Isn’t it better to be flexible, fast-on-the-feet, ready to grab opportunities when the right ones come along? Some of the skepticism about strategy stems from basic misconceptions. First, a strategy need not be static: it can evolve and be adjusted on an ongoing basis. Unexpected opportunities need not be ignored because they are outside the strategy. Second, a strategy doesn’t require a business to become rigid. Some of the best strategies for to- day’s turbulent environment keep multiple options open and build in desirable flexibility—through alliances, outsourcing, leased assets, toehold in- vestments in promising technologies, and numer- ous other means. A strategy can help to intention- ally build in many forms of flexibility—if that’s what is called for. Third, a strategy doesn’t deal only with an unknowable, distant future. The ap- propriate lifespans of business strategies have be- come shorter in recent years. Strategy used to be equated with 5- or 10-year horizons, but today a horizon of two to three years is often more fitting. In any event, strategy does not deal as much with
Table 1 Testing the Quality of Your Strategy
Key Evaluation Criteria
- Does your strategy fit with what’s going on in the environment? Is there healthy profit potential where you’re headed? Does your strategy align with the key success factors of your chosen environment?
- Does your strategy exploit your key resources? With your particular mix of resources, does this strategy give you a good head start on competitors? Can you pursue this strategy more economically than competitors?
- Will your envisioned differentiators be sustainable? Will competitors have difficulty matching you? If not, does your strategy explicitly include a ceaseless regimen of innovation and opportunity creation?
- Are the elements of your strategy internally consistent? Have you made choices of arenas, vehicles, differentiators, and staging, and economic logic? Do they all fit and mutually reinforce each other?
- Do you have enough resources to pursue this strategy? Do you have the money, managerial time and talent, and other capabilities to do all you envision? Are you sure you’re not spreading your resources too thinly, only to be left with a collection of feeble positions?
- Is your strategy implementable? Will your key constituencies allow you to pursue this strategy? Can your organization make it through the transition? Are you and your management team able and willing to lead the required changes?
2005 Hambrick and Fredrickson 61
