Strategy in Practice: A Practitioner's Guide to Strategic Thinking, 3rd Edition

Appendix AProbing the Strategic Boundaries of the Firm's Unique Competing Space

In Appendix A, We:

• derive practical guidance for putting questions for reflecting on the dynamics and their strategic implications at the boundaries of the firm's unique competing space;
• provide templates for summarizing the analyses at the three boundaries;
• extend this analysis to examine interdependencies between the firm's strategic boundaries and their strategic implications.

Strategic issues relevant to the firm's competitive position, we argued in Chapter 5, invariably present themselves at the boundaries of its unique competing space. The firm's unique competing space, after all, represents the core of what really matters to the firm in competitive terms. Firms therefore need to continually monitor and scrutinize conditions as they evolve for their potential impact on the boundaries of their unique competing space. The need for strategic thinking arises as a result of events that trigger potential strategic challenges. Strategic thinking, as elaborated on in Chapter 2, then provides systematic guidance on how to proceed with a framing of the relevant issues, the derivation of strategic questions, and, ultimately, clarification regarding the insights required for reconstruction of the relevant “bigger picture.” Real business contexts, however, are complex. As has been argued in Chapter 5, issues emerging at one boundary are often coupled to issues that present themselves at one or both ...