A Strategy cannot run a short distance

Strategy is the one word in Corporate that is being used & misused by individuals in their own ways. A highlight of these mis/interpretations to me is, when it is used for a plan. There are many more such examples. However, there is a catch here: Even if people use the word strategy for various other distorted reasons & meanings but still can strategize & achieve what they want to, perhaps, word meaning should not count much. But, reality is far from this?

I have come across organisations which could not distinguish between their present and future needs and; strategize around  them. Mere focusing on the present may give you short term profit; but believe me “A strategy cannot run a short distance”. The strategy has a soul and a body – something to be seen now and something to seen then - the future. Aptly defined “It’s fundamentally the movement of an organisation from its present position to a desirable but inherently uncertain future position. The path from here to there is both analytical and behavioural.”

Organisations fail on “behaviour” more often than not. Short run success, better balance sheet, squeezing the present, maximum profit is what they aim and primarily companies do; leaving no room for future and building its behaviour. It seems to me; knowingly companies are being created for ‘now’. Market is also supporting it today as e-commerce companies are created and sold routinely. Reason for this, no time and efforts are being made to make an ‘Organisational behaviour’ that gives a longer perspective and regular returns to shareholders.

While laying down a strategy, more and more emphasis is given to what to do, without giving any direction on what not to do to achieve end goals. Organisational predisposition should be around ‘what not to do’ equally as a behavioural perspective of its culture. Majority of organisations however, do it other way round. That’s the reason perhaps there are only a few companies which are in the market for a longer period.

It is well accepted notion around that behaviour is not built overnight. So, sow the seed of behaviour & water it regularly and wait patiently to get the results. Don’t, uproot the plant and check its roots.


Lastly, whenever an organisation is laying down its strategy for creating everlasting business, equal importance be given to  culture besides factors like where to play & how to play- a mere analytical in nature. Remember, analytical factors are easily copied & pasted by competitors but extremely difficult to do it for a behaviour. 

Comments

  1. Unknown31 October 2015 at 00:03

    Short run is never called strategy, its called Jugad in Lehman language which focuses only on shortcuts to achieve results.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Best Practices for Employer Branding

Amongst various trending topics in HR acreage “Employer Branding” tops the list. Employer branding is the progression of promoting a company (organization), as the employer of choice to a preferred target group whom a company needs and wants to recruit and then retain. The process of employer branding enables the company’s capability in attracting, recruiting and retaining employees (Talent) in hiring and helps to achieve company’s business objectives. Employer branding, moves in line with the growth of economy. In the Indian Job Outlook Survey 2012 conducted by TJinsite, research and knowledge arm of TimesJobs.com that recruiters have to push frontiers to construct brand attractiveness to make skilful talents contemplate on their employment opportunities. Employer Brand is the perception that emanates to the mind when someone hears about your company’s name; hence we can say that the business’s success is strongly associated with the perception of the stakeholders and applicants an...
Read more
Stress Loans: Will banks be unwilling to give loans to 'fair' companies? It is said that business is not done by 'self' investment but by 'borrowed' money from banks and individual investors. It is primarily banks & other financial institutions that extend lending facility as they are meant for this purpose. But they themselves are in a BUSINESS & business, of course, means profit. In last two decades, as the Indian economy opened up, banks & other institutions helped in achieving GDP growth by extending facility to old & new business to expand further. Bust as it is said, every coin has two sides - positive & negative. It is seen of late by published data that some seems to be taking undue advantage of this opportunity. This gets validated by many facts like when one hears that 'someone' did not pay back his loan. It becomes more serious when collateral are not worthy ensuring to recover loans given. If it is due to fai...
Read more

Pricing- a victim of IT Revolution

Businesses have undergone tremendous change due to information revolution. Pricing, which was in the hands of producers has shifted into the hands of customers. Today, marking up profit by simply jacking up prices is no longer possible. Transparency, customer awareness and easy modes to compare have changed the whole mechanism of pricing. In older days, margins were decided whimsically by different decision makers leading to various pricing techniques. I feel that pricing techniques were all depended upon who were deciding them. Cost-Plus Pricing was a long-time favorite to Finance Managers. Likewise, Customer – Driven technique was a favorite of Sales Professionals and Market-Share Pricing Technique was liked by Marketing Managers. Let’s look at, Cost Plus Pricing Technique. It was decided keeping in view primarily Unit Cost. The notion was that if ‘fixed’ cost is allocated to each unit and a margin is added to it that will give a price for a product; without realizing the f...
Read more