Crafting and Executing
Strategy: Concepts and
Cases, 16th Edition
I. Concepts and
Techniques for Crafting and Executing Strategy
1. What Is Strategy and
Why Is It Important?
chapter one
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008
1
What Is Strategy and
Why Is It Important?
Strategy means making clear-cut choices about how to compete.
—Jack Welch
Former CEO, General Electric
A strategy is a commitment to undertake one set of actions rather than another.
—Sharon Oster
Professor, Yale University
The process of developing superior strategies is part planning, part trial and error, until you hit upon something that works.
—Costas Markides
Professor, London Business School
Without a strategy the organization is like a ship without a rudder.
—Joel Ross and Michael Kami
Authors and Consultants
Thompson−Strickland−Gamble:
Crafting and Executing
Strategy: Concepts and
Cases, 16th Edition
M
I. Concepts and
Techniques for Crafting and Executing Strategy
1. What Is Strategy and
Why Is It Important?
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2008
anagers face three central questions in evaluating their company’s business prospects: What’s the company’s present situation? Where does the company need to go from here? How should it get there? Arriving at
a probing answer to the question “What’s the company’s present situation?” prompts managers to evaluate industry conditions and competitive pressures, the company’s current performance and market standing, its resource strengths and capabilities, and its competitive weaknesses. The question “Where does the company need to go from here?” pushes managers to make choices about the direction the company should be headed—what new or different customer groups and customer needs it should endeavor to satisfy, what market positions it should be staking out, what changes in its business makeup are needed. The question “How should it get there?”