Most useful cliché in strategy: The value-proposition.
I often tease the overly liberal use of businesses terms like competitive advantage and disruptive technology. My mischief is an attempt to draw attention to the missed opportunity to use…
Most useful process in strategy: Category Design.
In a separate article, I listed some popular strategy development tools. Many of them leave the user to wrap their own process around them. (I wrote about how I’ve built…
Most useful tool in strategy: McKinsey’s Three Horizons.
Business students, from teenagers to executives on an MBA course, are taught many strategy tools: SWOT, PESTLE, Porter’s 5-Forces, Boston Matrix etc. And all have their value in specific situations.…
Most useful phrase in strategy: Big enough to matter, small enough to win, and a good fit with your crown jewels.
John Chambers, the legendary long-time CEO of Cisco, once said that Geoffrey Moore is “the master at creating a vocabulary for management strategy”. It’s easy to see the reason when…
Most useful quote in strategy: “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
This quote is from Harvard’s Professor Michael Porter. He is author of the Five Forces Model and the world’s leading authority on strategy. It’s a really valuable statement. First, the…
Most useful concern in strategy: The social side of strategy.
In my ‘Most useful….in strategy’ series of articles, I cover a range of timeless, repeatedly proven, growth strategy fundamentals. But why do firms need to follow them carefully when making…
Most useful decision in strategy: The allocation and re-allocation of resources.
Understandably, many of today’s technology headlines focus on AI platforms like ChatGPT. But there is a parallel AI hardware story that gets less ‘newspaper inches’. Nvidia is the most exciting…
Most useful word in strategy: Choices.
If I was only allowed one word to define the mindset of strategy development and execution, I’d always start with the word ‘choices’ (and its derivatives like choice and choosing).…