Competition occurs at the business-unit level and it is essential that a firm uses the tools of competitive strategy in order to create a competitive advantage for its business units. Many firms have more than one business unit and compete in multiple industries. That being said, a multi-business firm must have a corporate strategy that…

Dozens of schools of thought claim to have the most widely applicable and useful framework for strategy development and implementation. The purpose of the table below is to show how an organization can choose the most appropriate fine-tuning school of thought in order to make for a compelling argument to proceed in one direction versus…

A main benefit of strategic thinking is that it creates a strategic mindset that is cognizant of several principles: All organizational members contribute to strategic thinking and have a means to contribute to what to do and what not to do. Organizational leaders do their best strategy work by finding ways to involve as many…

I’ve organized this material to take account of inevitable uncertainties, proven principles, and the connection between strategy content (what is or should be the strategy of the organization) and strategy process (how to determine the strategy and how to best implement it). Strategy content and strategy process are treated with equal importance as two sides…

Most effective strategies begin with a compelling diagnostic analysis of the organization’s challenges. This diagnosis involves both internal and external analyses that lead to a judgement about the meaning of the facts. This judgment is just that– your best ideas of what you learned about your organization, its challenges, and potential avenues to create value….

Strategic thinking is a focus on analyzing an organization’s past and current situations to make decisions for future actions. Most of the analytical techniques managers use to think strategically are frameworks that allow them to identify, clarify, and understand relevant factors in setting an organization’s future course. Such frameworks are invaluable to help one come…

In the past few months I published several blogs related to entrepreneurship: Advice for Entrepreneurial Success:  Opportunity Seeking, Feasibility Studies, and a Viable Mindset What is Entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, and Impact Investing. Serving Entrepreneurs in Distressed Communities. Ecosystems Have Powerful Lessons for Supporting Entrepreneurs. What Makes for a Healthy Entrepreneurial Ecosystem? Learn from the…

In Quirky, NYU Stern School of Business professor Melissa Schilling embraces the “great person” view of innovation, which focuses more on the individual rather than the organization. Yet, her work has implications for organizational practices to become more innovative. Many recent studies of innovation have focused on the importance of collaboration and social setting, and…

In my last newsletter, I discussed entrepreneurial ecosystems. Related to the ecosystems is the idea of using a geographic location as a source of competitive advantage. Some location issues are overcome by clusters, innovation hubs, and economic agglomerations (terms that are used interchangeably). These location solutions derive from thick labor markets (with plenty of skilled…

Businesses must frequently make decisions about where to locate operations, home offices, and sales locations. These decisions impact the design of supply chains and the ability of companies to reach important customers, attract and retain employees, improve their environmental outcomes, and to manage their cost structures. Many firms must decide whether to centralize operations to…