Hidden Flaws in Strategy

According to (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013), overconfidence bias, relates to our tendency to be over-confident about estimates or forecasts. This bias is particularly strong when you are asked moderate to extremely difficult questions rather

There are a gazillion companies out there, but some stand out. Whether it is because of their popularity, affiliations, history, profile or service, one factor simply makes or breaks a company; it’s strategy management process.

There has been a large amount of research into what strategy is, since Michael Porter’s perennial work in the 1980s. Studies done on the execution of strategy have been far less numerous. However, there is one major understanding about the execution of strategy. The execution of strategy is a vital part of success in business. A summary of many myths surrounding various strategic executions will be outlined, along with their subsequent analyses.

Strategy is a set of complicated tactics formulated by the executives of a company directed towards the achievement of company’s goal (Salmela, 2002). It is about all the path ways that a company would follow to reach its ultimate goal. It is a company’s strategy which helps to identify what it does better than the other companies in the industries, which may be different from what it does best. For successful strategy formulation and implementation, a company should know the needs of customers and should have knowledge of its competitors. Through a good strategy a company would identify that opportunity which makes it different from the others (Thompson, 2005).

Mintzberg, H. Research . (1972) On strategy-making', Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Academyo f Management,N Minneapolis.

Chapter 2 of the text book begins with an exercise designed to test the reader’s knowledge. The reader is to have a bounded range where a 98% confidence level is reached. I failed miserably in this exercise, which is probably why the chapter led with it. Bazerman writes that overconfidence is “the most robust finding in the psychology of judgment.” (p. 14) It is appears to be an innate characteristic for much of the population. Overconfidence has been studied by psychologists and three characteristics of overconfidence commonly appear: overprecision, overestimation, and overplacement. I am glad to know that I am a part of much of the population.

According to Slack et al. The corporate strategy or business strategy is the guide lines for the whole corporation’s businesses in relation to its markets, customers, and the competitors (2007). In the same context, the same authors discussed the link between the corporate strategy and

Strategy formulation has been acknowledged as one of the most crucial factors of ensuring the long-term growth of the business. However, the manner in which strategy is formulated, and most importantly, the nature of the strategy chosen for the company determines its future position in the marketplace (Grant, 2005).

In order for a business or corporation to grow and expand at a calculated pace, they must be able to strategize the proper business plan to get there. A strategy is a set of analytic techniques for understanding and influencing the firm 's position in the marketplace (Raimundo, 2001). Having a business

a. Self-attribution bias: Online investors outperform the market before going online. People tend to ascribe their successes to their personal abilities and their failures to bad luck or the actions of others [Langer and Roth (1975), Miller and Ross (1975)], and self-enhancing attributions following success are more common than self-protective attributions following failures [Fiske and Taylor (1991), see also Miller and Ross (1975)]. Gervais and Odean (2000) demonstrate that this self-attribution bias will cause successful investors to grow increasingly overconfident about their general trading prowess. [Daniel, Hirshleifer, and Subrahmanyam(1 998) further argue that self-attribution bias can intensify overreactions and lead to short term momentum and long-run reversals in stock prices.] Investors whose recent successes have increased their overconfidence will trade more actively and more speculatively. Because they anticipate that the effort of switching to online trading will be amortized over more trades, these investors are more likely to go online. If self-attribution-induced overconfidence triggers investors to go online, online investors will tend to be more overconfident than phone-based investors and more overconfident subsequent to going online than in the period before.

Alfred Chandler(1963) defines strategy as ‘ the determination of the long-run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals’. And Michael porter(1996) sees it as ‘Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value’.

Strategy can be defined as being different from one’s competitors, finding the race to operate and accomplished it. According to Michael Porter (1996), while becoming better at what you do is desirable, it will not benefit you in the long run because it is something other competitors can also do. Strategies for organizations are originally developed by Michael E. Porter in 1979 by introducing the five forces model. A company can identify the industry profitability and attractiveness by analyzing the five forces of Porter (Johnson et al., 2008). And then a reasonable strategy can be set up in line with the strengths and the weakness of an organization is able to create a plan for a stronger position for the organization within its

In the book “Good Strategy and Bad Strategy”, Richard Rumelt illustrates examples of success and failure of business management to explain the true meaning of the strategy, and tells companies how to develop a correct strategy and adhere to core of management strategy. He also emphasizes the central role of strategic management as to remind the readers to understand the huge difference between a good strategy and bad strategy. This book has three sections: good and bad strategy, sources of power, and thinking like a strategist. I will be evaluating strengths and weaknesses under these topics. After finish reading the book, I had gained a better understanding of what a good strategy means to the success of a company. According to Rumelt, a good strategy is coherent, where companies pursue multiple objectives that are connected with each other. Rumelt points out that a good strategy consists of three elements: diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. (71) First, diagnosis means to define the obstacles and challenges that the companies are facing, and guidelines help the people to overcome the obstacles. Lastly, coherent action is the activities or actions that company did to be consistent with its guiding policy. Today, many of us lost the focus of the strategy, which results in the downward of businesses and organizations. Rumelt has defined the strategy as acknowledging the main problems and take coherent action to overcome the problems. Moreover, he illustrates

“Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitor’s” (Porter 1980:47). A successful business plan requires first and foremost the formation of an appropriate strategy. Through the implementation of a suitable strategy, the company is able to obtain its own industry niche and gain an understanding of its customers (Porter 1985). Whichever strategy is adopted it must be adequately integrated within the firms goals and missions to achieve a competitive advantage (Parker and Helms 1992).

In this modern hypercompetitive marketplace, a company must be a powerful competitor to survive. A company must possess a powerful strategy in order to become a powerful competitor. But what makes a good strategy for the company?