Strategy (from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general
plan
A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal.
...
to achieve one or more long-term or overall
goal
A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.
A goal is roughly similar to a purpose or ...
s under conditions of
uncertainty
Uncertainty refers to epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown. Uncertainty arises in partially observable ...
. In the sense of the "
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
of the general", which included several subsets of skills including
military tactics,
siegecraft
A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterize ...
,
logistics
Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...
etc., the term came into use in the 6th century C.E. in
Eastern Roman
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
terminology, and was translated into Western
vernacular languages
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
only in the 18th century. From then until the 20th century, the word "strategy" came to denote "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills" in a
military conflict
War is an intense armed conflict between State (polity), states, governments, Society, societies, or paramilitary groups such as Mercenary, mercenaries, Insurgency, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violenc ...
, in which both adversaries interact.
Strategy is important because the resources available to achieve goals are usually limited. Strategy generally involves setting goals and priorities, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions.
A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources). Strategy can be intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes.
It involves activities such as
strategic planning and
strategic thinking
Strategic thinking is a mental or thinking process applied by an individual in the context of achieving a goal or set of goals. As a cognitive activity, it produces thought.
When applied in an organizational strategic management process, strate ...
.
Henry Mintzberg
Henry Mintzberg (born September 2, 1939) is a Canadian academic and author on business and management. He is currently the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, ...
from
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...
defined strategy as a pattern in a stream of decisions to contrast with a view of strategy as planning,
while Henrik von Scheel defines the essence of strategy as the activities to deliver a unique mix of value – choosing to perform activities differently or to perform different activities than rivals.
[Henrik von Scheel and Prof Mark von Rosing. Importance of a Business Model (pp. 23–54). Applying real-world BPM in an SAP environment. ] while
Max McKeown (2011) argues that "strategy is about shaping the
future" and is the human attempt to get to "desirable ends with available means".
Vladimir Kvint
Vladimir L’vovich Kvint ( Russian: Владимир Львович Квинт) is a Russian-American economist and strategist, and President of the International Academy of Emerging Markets. In parallel, since 2007, he has been the Chair of the ...
defines strategy as "a system of finding, formulating, and developing a doctrine that will ensure long-term success if followed faithfully." Complexity theorists define strategy as the unfolding of the internal and external aspects of the organization that results in actions in a socio-economic context.
Components
Professor
Richard P. Rumelt described strategy as a type of problem solving in 2011. He wrote that good strategy has an underlying structure he called a ''kernel''. The kernel has three parts: 1) A ''diagnosis'' that defines or explains the nature of the challenge; 2) A ''guiding policy'' for dealing with the challenge; and 3) Coherent ''actions'' designed to carry out the guiding policy.
President
Kennedy illustrated these three elements of strategy in his
Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation of 22 October 1962:
# Diagnosis: "This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites are now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a
nuclear
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the nucleus of the atom:
* Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
*Nuclear space
*Nuclear ...
strike capability against the Western Hemisphere."
# Guiding Policy: "Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere."
# Action Plans: First among seven numbered steps was the following: "To halt this offensive buildup a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back."
Rumelt wrote in 2011 that three important aspects of strategy include "premeditation, the anticipation of others' behavior, and the purposeful design of coordinated actions." He described strategy as solving a design problem, with trade-offs among various elements that must be arranged, adjusted and coordinated, rather than a plan or choice.
Formulation and implementation
Strategy typically involves two major processes: ''
formulation'' and ''
implementation
Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy.
Industry-specific definitions
Computer science
In computer science, an implementation is a real ...
''. ''Formulation'' involves analyzing the environment or situation, making a diagnosis, and developing guiding policies. It includes such activities as
strategic planning and
strategic thinking
Strategic thinking is a mental or thinking process applied by an individual in the context of achieving a goal or set of goals. As a cognitive activity, it produces thought.
When applied in an organizational strategic management process, strate ...
. ''Implementation'' refers to the action plans taken to achieve the goals established by the guiding policy.
Bruce Henderson
Bruce Doolin Henderson (April 30, 1915 – July 20, 1992) was an American businessman and management expert. He founded Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts and headed the firm as the president and CEO until 1980. He c ...
wrote in 1981 that: "Strategy depends upon the ability to foresee future consequences of present initiatives." He wrote that the basic requirements for strategy development include, among other factors: 1) extensive knowledge about the environment, market and competitors;
2) ability to examine this knowledge as an interactive dynamic system; and
3) the imagination and logic to choose between specific alternatives. Henderson wrote that strategy was valuable because of: "finite resources, uncertainty about an adversary's capability and intentions; the irreversible commitment of resources; necessity of coordinating action over time and distance; uncertainty about control of the initiative; and the nature of adversaries' mutual perceptions of each other."
Military theory
In military theory, strategy is "the utilization during both peace and war, of all of the nation's forces, through large scale, long-range planning and development, to ensure security and victory" (''Random House Dictionary'').
[
The father of Western modern strategic study, ]Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...
, defined military strategy as "the employment of battles to gain the end of war." B. H. Liddell Hart's definition put less emphasis on battles, defining strategy as "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy". Hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals. U.S. Naval War College instructor Andrew Wilson defined strategy as the "process by which political purpose is translated into military action." Lawrence Freedman
Sir Lawrence David Freedman, (born 7 December 1948) is a British academic, historian and author with specialising in foreign policy, international relations and strategy. He has been described as the "dean of British strategic studies" and wa ...
defined strategy as the "art of creating power."
Eastern military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
philosophy dates back much further, with examples such as ''The Art of War
''The Art of War'' () is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (roughly 5th century BC). The work, which is attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu ("Master Sun"), is com ...
'' by Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu ( ; zh, t=孫子, s=孙子, first= t, p=Sūnzǐ) was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who lived during the Eastern Zhou period of 771 to 256 BCE. Sun Tzu is traditionally credited as the author of '' The ...
dated around 500 B.C.[ ''The Art of War by Sun Tzu''. Special Edition Books. 2007.]
Management theory
Modern business strategy emerged as a field of study and practice in the 1960s; prior to that time, the words "strategy" and "competition" rarely appeared in the most prominent management literature.
Alfred Chandler wrote in 1962 that: "Strategy is the determination
Determination is a positive emotional feeling that involves persevering towards a difficult goal in spite of obstacles.Kirby, L.D., Morrow, J., & Yih, J. (2014). The challenge of challenge: Pursuing determination as an emotion. In M. M. Tugade, ...
of the basic long-term goals of an enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterpris ...
, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals." Michael Porter
Michael Eugene Porter (born May 23, 1947) is an American academic known for his theories on economics, business strategy, and social causes. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, and he was one of t ...
defined strategy in 1980 as the "...broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals" and the "...combination of the ''ends'' (goals) for which the firm is striving and the ''means'' (policies) by which it is seeking to get there."
Henry Mintzberg
Henry Mintzberg (born September 2, 1939) is a Canadian academic and author on business and management. He is currently the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, ...
described five definitions of strategy in 1998:
* Strategy as plan – a directed course of action to achieve an ''intended'' set of goals; similar to the strategic planning concept;
* Strategy as pattern – a consistent pattern of past behavior, with a strategy ''realized'' over time rather than planned or ''intended''. Where the realized pattern was different from the intent, he referred to the strategy as ''emergent'';
* Strategy as position – locating brands, products, or companies within the market, based on the conceptual framework of consumers or other stakeholders; a strategy determined primarily by factors outside the firm;
* Strategy as ploy – a specific maneuver intended to outwit a competitor; and
* Strategy as perspective – executing strategy based on a "theory of the business" or natural extension of the mindset or ideological perspective of the organization.
Strategies
In game theory, a ''strategy'' refers to the rules that a player
Player may refer to:
Role or adjective
* Player (game), a participant in a game or sport
** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games
** Athlete, a player in sports
** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who ...
uses to choose between the available actionable options. Every player in a non-trivial game has a set of possible strategies to use when choosing what moves to make.
A strategy may recursively look ahead
Look Ahead is a charitable housing association based in East London which was established in 1973.
It was involved in the Rough Sleepers Initiative in the 1990s and originally ran a number of large hostels. The last big hostel closed in 2012 and ...
and consider what actions can happen in each contingent state of the game—e.g. if the player takes action 1, then that presents the opponent with a certain situation, which might be good or bad, whereas if the player takes action 2 then the opponents will be presented with a different situation, and in each case the choices they make will determine their own future situation.
Strategies in game theory may be random (mixed) or deterministic (pure). Pure strategies can be thought of as a special case of mixed strategies, in which only probabilities 0 or 1 are assigned to actions.
Strategy based games generally require a player to think through a sequence of solutions to determine the best way to defeat their opponent.
Counterterrorism Strategy
Because counterterrorism involves the synchronized efforts of numerous competing bureaucratic entities, national governments frequently create overarching counterterrorism strategies at the national level. A national counterterrorism strategy is a government's plan to use the instruments of national power to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, and their networks in order to render them incapable of using violence to instill fear and to coerce the government or its citizens to react in accordance with the terrorists' goals. The United States has had several such strategies in the past, including the ''United States National Strategy for Counterterrorism'' (2018); the Obama-era ''National Strategy for Counterterrorism'' (2011); and the ''National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism'' (2003). There have also been a number of ancillary or supporting plans, such as the 2014 ''Strategy to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant'', and the 2016 ''Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States''. Similarly, the United Kingdom's counterterrorism strategy, CONTEST
Contest may refer to:
* Competition
* Will contest
* Contesting, amateur radio contesting (radiosport)
Film and television
* ''Contest'' (2013 film), an American film
* Contest (1932 film), a German sports film
* " The Contest", a 1992 season ...
, seeks "to reduce the risk to the UK and its citizens and interests overseas from terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence."
See also
* Concept Driven Strategy
A concept-driven strategy is a process for formulating strategy that draws on the explanation of how humans inquire provided by linguistic pragmatic philosophy. This argues that thinking starts by selecting (explicitly or implicitly) a set of con ...
* Consultant
* Odds algorithm The odds algorithm (or Bruss algorithm) is a mathematical method for computing optimal strategies for a class of problems that belong to the domain of optimal stopping problems. Their solution follows from the ''odds strategy'', and the importance ...
( Odds strategy)
* Strategy game
A strategy game or strategic game is a game (e.g. a board game) in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous, decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. Almost all strategy games require internal decisi ...
* Strategy pattern
In computer programming, the strategy pattern (also known as the policy pattern) is a behavioral software design pattern that enables selecting an algorithm at runtime. Instead of implementing a single algorithm directly, code receives run-time in ...
* Strategic planning
* Strategic management
* Strategist
A strategist is a person with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of a strategy. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy ...
* Strategy Markup Language
{{primary sources, date=April 2017
Strategy Markup Language (StratML) is an XML-based standard vocabulary and schema for the information commonly contained in strategic and performance plans and reports. StratML Part 1 specifies the elements of st ...
* Time management
Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves of various demands upon a person relating to work, ...
* U.S. Army Strategist
Further reading
* Burgelman, James. ''Strategy is Destiny (2002)''
Strategy Is Destiny: How Strategy-Making Shapes a Company's Future
* Freedman, Lawrence. ''Strategy: A History'' (2013)
Strategy: A History 1st Edition
* Heuser, Beatrice. ''The Evolution of Strategy'' (2010)
The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present
* Kvint, Vladimir. ''Strategy for the Global Market: Theory and Practical Applications'' (2016)
Excerpt from Google Books
References
External links
{{Authority control
Planning