Building Strategy & Performance Through Time: The Critical Path (Strategic Management Collection) - Softcover

Kim Warren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1606490370 ISBN 13: 9781606490372

Publisher: Business Expert Press, 2009

Synopsis

The fundamental challenge facing business leaders is how to drive performance into the future - the 'dynamics' of strategy. To tackle this effectively, they need a clear understanding of what causes performance to improve or deteriorate, and what power they have to change this trajectory for the better. Without this understanding, they risk making poor choices about their future - failing to exploit promising opportunities, pursuing unachievable aims, or falling victim to competitive and other threats. The existing strategy tools most widely used help guide management's choices about where to compete, which customers to serve, with what products and services, and how to deliver those products and services to those customers effectively and profitably. Whilst these choices are important, the direction that results from these decisions is not often changed in any fundamental way - having found a reasonably strong and profitable position on these issues, few firms will, or should, set off in a new direction. But there is still much to be done to deliver that strategy, powerfully and sustainably over time. Many decisions need to be made, continually and holistically, across all functions of the business and adapted as conditions change from month to month, and year to year. Pricing, product development, marketing, hiring, service levels and other decisions cannot be made in isolation, but must take into account other choices being made, elsewhere and at different times.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

This book uses a balanced blend of frameworks and illustrations to teach you how to tackle the challenge of driving performance into the future. Existing strategy tools are no longer enough as they do not explain how to deliver your strategy powerfully over a sustained period. This book shows you where the levers are that you control and how to choose what to do, when, and how much to achieve your specific goals. This book effectively outlines the dynamics of strategy, how you drive performance - past, today and into the future. It shows what causes performance to improve or deteriorate and what you can do to change this trajectory for the better. Without an understanding of the dynamics of strategy, you risk making poor choices about the future such as failing to exploit promising opportunities, pursuing unachievable goals, or falling victim to your competitors and other outside threats. The author weaves a logical process for the reader to follow, using situations to explain how an enterprise works and delivers performance. It shows you the levers that management controls and how to choose what to do, when, and how much to accomplish your goals. Examples prove that departmental decisions cannot be made in isolation but must take into account other choices being made elsewhere and at other times. For instance, a fictional restaurant chain conducts a massive marketing campaign with the result of bringing more customers in the door. However, within a few short months, the number has trickled back down to pre-campaign levels. Was the campaign a failure? No, but its success was wiped out because staffing levels (another department) were not changed to make up for the increased customer levels and poor service resulted in the loss of customers. Building Strategy and Performance Through Time sets the agenda for building your business strategy in powerful, actionable, and accessible terms. Copious illustrations back up each part of the logic and you will learn not only how to create a dynamic strategy; you will learn how to sustain it over time. Case examples lead you toward "action checklists" that help you plot out the things you need to properly take advantage of the resources you have, as well as those you need to acquire. The result will be better decisions about this important and much greater confidence in your ability to deliver the outcomes your organization desires.

About the Author

Kim Warren has been teaching Strategic Management in MBA and Executive programs at London Business School since 1990. There he has developed powerful frameworks for strategy analysis and strategic management that go beyond the simple, static tools that are more commonly used. Known as 'Strategy Dynamics', this method focuses on improvements to the time-path of business performance that is so crucial to the concerns of investors and other stakeholders. The method also provides a sound basis for strategy development in public-service and non-commercial organizations.

Edition details

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1606490370
• ISBN 13: 9781606490372
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160