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Strategy in Practice: A Practitioner's Guide to Strategic Thinking, 2nd Edition

Strategy in Practice: A Practitioner's Guide to Strategic Thinking, 2nd Edition

by George Tovstiga
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Release Date: March 2013
ISBN: 9781118519271
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Book Description

The 2nd edition of Strategy in Practice presents a practitioner focused approach to strategy. It is increasingly recognised that the ability to adapt classic formulas to changing circumstances and develop fast, sound strategic thinking is what differentiates the successful corporate leader.

Developed from experience in industry this successful text will include an instructor site with PowerPoint slides, extra examples and exercises, and links highlighting changing business practice.

While rigorously founded on current thinking and theoretical concepts in the field of strategic management it aims to:

  • provide the strategy practitioner with a systematic and insight-driven approach to strategic thinking

  • establish and translate the relevance of strategy theory to its application in the practice field

  • lead the reader through the strategic thinking process, beginning with the formulation of compelling and clearly articulated strategic questions that set the scene for practical issues

  • provide tools of strategic analysis in combination with informed intuition to understand the strategic landscape.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Preface to the First Edition
  5. Preface to the Second Edition
  6. About the Author
  7. Chapter 1: Introduction to Strategy in Practice and Strategic Thinking
    1. Strategy: A Persistent Dilemma
    2. What then is “Strategy”?
    3. Where Does this Leave “Strategic Planning”?
    4. Insight-Driven Strategy
    5. “Strategy in Practice” or “Strategy as Practice”?
    6. Summary and Structuring of the Book
  8. Chapter 2: Articulating the Strategic Question
    1. Strategic Questions
    2. Triggers
    3. Framing the Issues
  9. Chapter 3: Sense Making and Strategic Insight
    1. Perspectives on Sense Making
    2. Sense Making: A Spatial Perspective
    3. Sense Making: A Process Perspective
    4. Sense Making in Complex Environments
    5. Insight Formation
  10. Chapter 4: Insight-Driven Strategic Analysis
    1. Getting Started: High-level and Supporting-level Frameworks of Strategic Analysis
  11. Chapter 5: Strategic Analysis II: High-Level Sense Making
    1. The Strategic Value Imperative
    2. Value Proposition (VP) Concept, Framework and Analysis
    3. Unique Competing Space (UCS) Framework and Analysis
    4. Opportunity–Response (O–R) Analysis Framework
  12. Chapter 6: Strategic Analysis III: Supporting-Level Sense Making
    1. Supporting-Level Analysis: External and Internal Analysis Frameworks
    2. Externally-Focused Supporting Frameworks of Strategic Analysis
    3. Internally-Focused Supporting Frameworks of Strategic Analysis
  13. Chapter 7: Strategy Formation and Evaluation of Strategic Options
    1. Formation of Strategic Options
    2. Evaluation of Strategic Options
    3. Finally, Some Caveats
  14. Chapter 8: Insight-Driven Strategy in Perspective
    1. Multiple Possible Futures Perspective
    2. Organizational Learning Perspective
    3. A Closing Reflection on Insight-Driven Strategy in Practice
  15. Appendices: Putting Strategy to Practice
  16. Appendix A: Probing the Strategic Boundaries of the Firm's Unique Competing Space
    1. Boundary 1: The competitor interface: competitors' offerings and the competition
    2. Boundary 2: The customer interface: customers' needs
    3. Boundary 3: The firm-internal threshold
    4. Consolidation of analysis findings with a reflection on implications for the firm's unique competing space
    5. Inter-boundary analysis: scoping linked issues
  17. Appendix B: Strategy Mapping and Narrative (based on Analysis of the Relevant Strategy Building Blocks)
    1. Strategy Mapping
    2. Strategy Narrative
  18. Index