Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Understanding the Difference between Strategy and Tactics

Quite often, people confuse strategy and tactics and think the two terms are interchangeable. Well, unfortunately, they're not. In the following sections, I explain the difference between strategy and tactics as well as provide the three levels of strategy.

Strategy versus tactics

According to strategy guru Michael Porter, “Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.” Strategy is the what part of the equation and helps you answer the question, “What are we trying to accomplish?” Yet your business design may not be sustainable; you may have trade-offs for how you position your business with customers and competitors. Every business has limited resources and deals with a competitive landscape. The more it does of one thing, the less it can do of another. This concept leads to tactics, or the how part of the equation. Your tactics help you answer the question, “How are we going to accomplish our goal?” Ultimately, a good way to think about the difference between the two is that strategy acts as a guide to a set of actions that various departments or teams will undertake. Figure 11-1 further illustrates the difference between strategy and tactics.

Figure 11-1: The difference between strategy and tactics.

Keep this thought in mind: ...