Strategic Analysis and Choice

Chapter 1

Strategy as Process and Product, or, How to Build a Business Strategy Without Too Much Pain

Introduction

Every firm needs a strategy for competing and surviving (if not succeeding) in its market, and this is no less true for small shops than it is for large, diversified firms. Firms lacking strategy wander without direction, spending resources on initiatives and projects that often conflict with other firm efforts. Often spasmodically reacting to the latest crisis, they introduce products and services that imitate those of more successful firms—but weakly so, without the cachet or the cost efficiency of the leaders. Employees don’t know the “right” thing to do, and neither do managers. In short, firms without a strategy fail. Yet, ...