What is a Strategy?

What is a  Strategy? 
The term "strategy" is an overloaded in everyday conversations because most people including professional practitioners do not bother to explicitly establish their point of view into what is essentially a layered concept that exists at three (3) levels such as corporate, business and competitive and functional layers. Essentially, when people use the word “strategy”, they are expressing concerns/interest in one of the layers of a layered concept; corporate strategy, business and competitive strategy, or “functional” strategy; and operations strategy .  

A strategy is an integrated and externally oriented concept of how a firm will achieve its objectives - how it will successfully compete against rivals. A strategy consists of an integrated set of choices related to elements from the corporate strategy, business and competitive strategy, and implementation method choices (M&A or “functional” strategy) layers.  

Levels/Layers of Strategy
The levels/layers at which strategy may exist in the organization include:

• Corporate Strategy - Corporate” strategy is concerned with the direction and scope of the organization in the long-term, Corporate strategy provides long range guidance for the whole organization by the choice of answers to the question - what business should we be in?.

 

• Business and Competitive strategy - Business strategy is concerned with decisions on the products and services that should be offered in the markets in the scope of the business context established by the corporate strategy. Competitive strategy is concerned with gaining sustainable advantage to successfully compete. it involves answers to the question, how do we compete in this business?This interpretation is consistent with all usage of the term in areas such as game plays/theory (i.e., in chess, football, soccer, etc.), military strategy, business competitive strategy, personal growth/development strategy, etc.

 

• Functional strategy - Functional strategies are concerned with how the functional areas defined by the Operations Strategy design contribute to business strategy.  Functional strategy  define where the functions of a business make long-term plans which support the competitive strategy being pursued by the business strategy. Functional strategies specify outcomes to be achieved from the daily operations of specific departments or functions. A Functional Strategy, for any business, large or small, focuses (the achievement of a goal) on the skills and abilities of individual departments and their employees.

 
Regardless of the person using the term, and the “type” of strategy being pursued the fundamental meaning of the word with respect to strategy type remains the same. Conceptually, a strategy in any of its myriad interpretation and manifestations, in any of these layers, is about decision making,
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Operational Strategy - Operations strategy binds the various operations decisions and actions in functional areas into a cohesive consistent response to competitive forces by linking firm/organization policies, programs, systems, and actions into a systematic response to the competitive/strategic priorities chosen and communicated by the corporate or business strategy. Operations strategy is the collective concrete actions chosen, mandated, or stimulated by corporate strategy. Operations strategy defines how an entire business will allocate its resources to support operations and its strategic goals. Operations strategies focus on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of production while minimizing operating costs.

Actual/Realized Strategy
The actual strategy of an organization is a combination of the parts of the deliberate and intended strategy that is successfully implemented and executed, and emergent strategy - "realized pattern" that was not "expressly intended" that emerged. (Mintzberg, 1994;25). 

Deliberate Strategy
This is intended and planned strategy which is a result of the rational planning approach of strategy development. The rational planning approach (e.g., Ansoff, 1979) defines an objective in advance, describes "where we are now," and uses a prescriptive approach in which "the three (3) core areas - strategic analysis, strategy development, and strategy implementation - are linked together sequentially" (Lynch, 2000; 24).

Emergent Strategy
Emergent strategy is realized pattern that was not expressly intended or planned that emerged from execution Emergent strategy is undertaken by an organization that analyzes its environment constantly and implements its strategy simultaneously (Lynch, 2000; 26).