Strategy : Survival first, Creating fear next

I see many managers (Senior ones too) use the term strategy to sound grand. Most of the times they can't differentiate strategy from tactics and it disheartens me. The most abused word in corporate India is Strategy. Strategy as I see is marketing direction, tactics is competitive angle. There are in world today many good Marketers, but they see too many things at once. I see only one thing, namely the competition's main body. I strive to crush it, confident that secondary matters will then settle themselves. 

Strategy, operations, and tactics routinely affect the dimensions of any organisational fight to survive, each in a different manner. For instance, the strategist must aim at the competition's center of gravity, which often is the organisation’s will to fight, or perhaps the key resources or the delicate bond that holds key employees together. The operational manager's center of gravity is the mass of the competition's distribution/Supply chain and its ability to control its managerial force.



To cite an example, recently i caught with one of my CEO friends over coffee. The conversation went like this..

CEO : So what is the strategy for 2014?

Me : Remains same

CEO : You have had an issue and you mean to say you are making no change

Me : Issue is of perception created based on one incident, we will tackle it through some tactical responses but overall we continue on our path to be perceived as ..............., ........., ..... brand & most of the activation as well as communication continues delivering the same message

CEO :  You are talking long term, I am talking strategy for six months..

Me : Tactical response is to ..

CEO : Strategy

Me : Well life of brand is more than mine and yours, one incident needs series of tactical responses without loosing focus on consumers & brand goals... 

CEO : That is 

Me : Giving ownership of brand to Consumers is longterm objective & it drives strategy..

He was confused and looked disappointed..

1. Strategy is about survival

If consumers don't choose you, you are dead. 

Strategy may dictate whether or not to fight, but operations will determine where and when to fight and tactics how to conduct the fight

2. Strategy is about perception

Perception is reality don't rely on facts

3. Strategy is about being different

Being first, owning a USP, Heritage, First to market.. all are differentiating

4. Strategy is about knowing competition

Do you have abetter strategy than competition?

5. Strategy is about specialisation

Focus on one big idea and pursue it

6. Strategy is about being simple

So simple that everyone understands the essence may not be the words

7. Strategy is about leadership

Keep the competition guessing, Off balance..

8. Strategy is about reality

Keep feet on ground

Simple steps i undertake :

First, “a careful balancing of means and ends, efforts and obstacles” brings out the true economy of force, the careful allocation of available resources and organisational willpower to the achievement of the strategic aims. It further connotes the need to avoid keeping large reserves in pointless inactivity to the rear and, equally important, employing large resources to achieve minor, secondary objectives. It calls for the correct timing of the employment of sufficient resources/Force and above all requires the achievement of a carefully calculated balance at all stages of brand operations between ends and means, between inevitably conflicting priorities for the employment of strictly finite resources. The object of everything at the levels of both strategy and operational art is the destruction of the enemy’s state of equilibrium, ideally by means of psychological domination before the decisive battle physically opens.

Second, the need “to make war a real science ” as Napoleon said it. By real, Napoleon meant living and effective. Brand warfare must be conducted in a realistic, practical, and decisive fashion. There is no place for posturing or “phoney-war” attitudes - chessboard maneuvers designed to avoid a major battle at all costs. The attritional stage, battle, is only intended as preparation. Once you commit, no point dithering.

Third, the absolute must is to have highly motivated and regimented Operational team. They must be closely controlled. Left on their own to think or divided by many hundreds of miles from marketing, the CEO , the results could be (and frequently are) rampant indecision, rivalry, indiscipline - and failure. 

Thoughts of a conservative economist -Copyrighted work.