Many executives realize that to prosper in the coming decade, they need to turn to the fundamental issue of strategy. What is strategy? To use a simple yet powerful definition from The Economist, strategy answers two basic questions: “Where do you want to go?” and “How do you want to get there?”1
Traditional approaches to strategy focus on the first question. They involve selecting an attractive market, choosing a defensible strategic position, or building core competencies. Only later, if at all, do executives address the second question. Yet in today’s high-velocity, hotly competitive markets, these approaches are incomplete. They overemphasize executives’ ability to analyze and predict which industries, competencies, or strategic positions will be viable and for how long, and they underemphasize the challenge of actually creating effective strategies.
Many managers of successful corporations have adopted a different perspective on strategy that Shona Brown and I call “competing on the edge.”2 At the heart of this approach lies the recognition that strategy combines the questions of “where” and “how” to create a continuing flow of temporary and shifting competitive advantages. Executives from a variety of firms echo this perspective. John Browne, CEO of British Petroleum, stated, “No advantage and no success is ever permanent. The winners are those who keep moving.”To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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