Summary
- There is no one-size-fits-alls strategy process, rather you need to determine your "strategy on how to strategize"
- Firms in market environment, which are predictable, will run a different process than companies in highly unpredictable environments
- The authors discretely match the type of strategy process with a 2x2 matrix with the axis "predictablity of market" and as a second axis "influence on industry" (called Malleability)
- Depending on the quadrant you end up in, you should align you strategizing process and style (Classical, adaptive, shaping, or visionary)
My Take Aways
- Most people will consider their market as little predicable, as they will not be able to judge the degree of predicability in terms of absolute terms. It might help to say, that industries, which experience regular cycle (Airline industry, oil industry) should be considered predictable. Most likely these industry require large investments, resulting in high sunk cost.
- I would also argue that most companies would not consider themselves in a position to change the industry (most likely because the lack magnitude/size). Here it might be useful to rank your company in terms of innovative power, e.g. how many market leading innovation have you been able to introduce lately/ how many innovations do you aspire to introduce-
- Last and once you know which strategizing strategy is required for you company, you will still need to determine which strategic style is currently in place in your company. And how transformation into a new style could potentially happen. Here, my suggestion would be to benchmark / gain insights how similar companies or companies in the same quadrant organize the strategy process.
