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THE NEED FOR SMART STRATEGY

Why Strategy?

Without a goal in life, it is tough to achieve much. Mindless wandering rarely delivers great results. As the Cheshire Cat said in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”1

The goal of any business is to deliver superior sustainable performance. “Performance” means return on investment; firms are in business to make a profit. “Sustainable” means profit over the long term rather than to meet the next quarterly earnings targets. It's easy to deliver a short-term burst of profits by failing to invest for tomorrow and stealing from future performance. Delivering a sustainable stream of income is much harder. “Superior” means ...

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