Strategic Thinking and Strategic Leadership

Introduction

Strategy and strategic thinking and decisions basically refer to an organisation’s long term direction and planning. It touches on the scope of all activities carried out in an organisation, advantages over competition, strategic environment fit, resources and competences, as well as powerful actor’s values and expectations. Competition from rival firms within the industry and poor external business conditions, such as worsening economic conditions or unstable political conditions, are some of the uncertainties which managers have to deal with on a daily basis. Strategic thinking and leadership, thus, seeks to position the company in such a way that it may remain immune from such limiting factors and conditions. This occurs by virtue of managers making the right decisions at the opportune time to salvage the enterprise. This paper seeks to elaborately discuss the aspect of strategic thinking and leadership by making reference to real life examples and offer recommendations on ways through which improvement of the strategic process could be done. Buy

Theories of Strategy Development and Implementation

Classical Strategy Theory

The classical strategy theory particularly draws from the major works undertaken by early scholars who include A. Chandler jr., E.P. Learned, C.R. Christensen, as well as K.R. Andrews, and I. Ansoff among many others. The writings by these early theorists, together, constitute the design school according to Mintzbergs taxonomy. Ansoff is the recognised planning school founder while Porter is the founder of the position school, both of which make up classical strategy theory.

The theory mainly presupposes that knowledge needs to be looked at in a positive way, while the chief executive officer of a company undertakes the main responsibility of formulating strategy. The classical theory also emphasises on the fact that both centralised as well as planned processes produce strategies that are full blown and explicit. However, the classical strategists also differ on a number of issues about the organization; while the centralised and informal process is supported by the design school, the planning school, on the other hand, prescribes a process that is formal, and which results in the organisation having a detailed programming overly (Mintzberg, 1994).

The Design School

According to Michael Beer (2009), the design school significantly views the concept of strategy as a conception process. The formation of strategy considers a centralised structure such that strategy basically acts as the backbone of the organisation as it supports the rest of the organisation. Johnson et al (2011) points out that the design school particularly proposes the execution of action after elaborately designing the plan and confirming its viability. The leader of the firm, who is also considered the brain of the organisation, takes up the ideas first before implementation is left for the followers who are also regarded as the muscle (Mintzberg et al., 2003). The internal factors of the organisation as well as those that fall in the external environment are contrasted for the purposes of identifying opportunities with reference to the existent capabilities and constraints. The Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats analysis model, often referred to as the SWOT analysis model, is the design school’s main tool of analysis. SWOT mainly involves objective identification and specification, and the subsequent determination of factors, both within and outside the firm, which could in one way or the other lead to hindering or limiting the objective of the firm (Ryall, Sadler & Ryall, 2003).

The two appraisals discussed by the design school, that is, the internal and external audits of the firm, form the fundamental idea of the design school. The external appraisal bases on the idea that the environment in which the firm operates poses both threats and opportunities to the overall operations of the firm. This environment is also the key to success of the firm because it comprises of factors beyond which the organisation completely lacks the influence and power to manipulate (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand & Lampel, 1998). The model takes into consideration two additional factors of social responsibility and managerial values that could also affect the process of strategy formulation. The social responsibility refers to the society’s ethics within which the firm is located, while the managerial values touch on the preferences of those involved in leading the organisation.

The end of the evaluation process gives way to the actual implementation which is made up of numerous steps and possibilities. The design school, although does not have very distinct implementation steps, relies upon its main postulates as the steps for implementing a strategy. These postulates include the following: Firstly, strategy formulation needs to be a deliberate process that involves conscious thought; that is, you need to know the actual thing that you are doing (Grant, 2008). Secondly, responsibility for undertaking control measures and consciousness should be the preserve of the firm’s chief executive officer because he is the strategist who leads the firm. Thirdly, the strategy formation model needs to be kept simple and in an informal manner. Fourthly, strategies need to be of a kind, where the best result is adopted from the individualised design; that is, a particular solution for a precise or exact need. The fifth hypothesis of the school realises the fact that the design process can only be complete when strategies are fully formulated and appear as perspective. This implies, in other words, that the strategy forms the general concept of the business. The other postulate of the school considers the fact that strategies need to be explicit, and the only way this can be achieved is by keeping it simple. The final postulate portends that it is only after the unique strategies are fully formulated that the implementation process and exercise can take place. That is, the action follows after serious thinking (Senge, 1990).

The organisation’s structure in this school is controlled by strategy and can also determine it. On the contrary, when a strategy develops to become too explicit, the flexibility is lost in the long run. In actual sense, a firm might surely understand whatever is required but to some level, it will be shrouded in uncertainty concerning the manner in which things will happen. In this regard, therefore, a strategy should accommodate changes whenever these changes take place.

The Planning School

The planning school’s perspective of strategy design and formulation is that of a strict formal process which aims at ensuring the firm accurately obtains its targets (Johnson, Whittington & Scholes, 2011). The conceptual development of the planning school consequently bore the terminology ‘strategic management’. The SWOT model is basically the principle idea that is proposed by the school. Significant attention is emphasised on the model’s ability to set objectives as well as create supportive budgets together with operational plans. Practically, the process of strategy formation is executed by highly trained planners within a specialised department of the firm whose main objective is to undertake strategic planning. The strategic planning model comprises of six stages which are objectives setting, external audit, and internal audit. The other stages involved include the evaluation stage and strategy operationalisation.

In the objectives setting stage, the goals of the organisation are qualified and quantified. However, the stage experiences challenge in the sense that it is difficult to formalise a value or goal. In this regard therefore, such strategies as expanding production line numbers are considered as goals. This leads to the next step, which is the evaluation and auditing of the firm’s external conditions. The planners at this stage identify factors in the external environment while focusing on future conditions. This is done with the help of numerous checklists that are of varied complexity. In essence, this makes it possible for the firm to predict the future and also carry out advanced preparations. The third stage involves internal auditing, which seeks to formalise both the strengths as well as weaknesses of the organisation through checklists. These checklists are comparatively of a lesser complexity compared to those used in the external evaluation process.

The evaluation stage, thus, is a build up of the three previous stages in which case the planners will carry out an extensive evaluation of different strategies as they seek to fit the objectives of the firm with the external and internal organisational conditions. These strategies generally derive from such financial analysis of the firm as investment return, value curve, or risk analysis, and seek to create the highest value through the assumption that it is possible to make money through managing the same money. The next step to follow after the selection of the winning strategy is the strategy operationalisation. Here, a lot of attention is paid to details as the strategy is separated into parts while the major plan is subdivided into smaller plans (De Bono, 1970). This is because it is prudent to always break down strategy into smaller parts in order to ease up the implementation process. The fragments result into new hierarchy sets that suit the firm’s operations accordingly.

The Positioning School

This school encompasses most of the ideas in the design and planning school within its constructs, although it further adds additional contents and perspectives. The significant point of departure that separates this school from the other two is the view that positioning school has very limited strategies that can fit into any given firm or organisation. Both the design and planning schools are limitless when it comes to possible strategies. However, the limited strategy numbers under the positioning school emanates from the fact that within any given firm or organisation, there are few positions of advantages that relate to it in the market. Potential new competitors together with other already existing rival firms and competitors can be kept at bay from these positions. When low defence is required to protect these positions, the implication of this is that the firm enjoying that position is highly profitable as compared to its industry rivals. Thus, the firm can comfortably keep and accumulate resources for the purposes of further consolidating the position and expand it in the long run (Matthews 2005).

Overly, the basic premises of the school include the following: Firstly, strategies are generic, exact, and target market place positions that are identifiable in the first place. This idea reflects the battle ground in military strategies. Secondly, the market place, according to the school, is identified as an economic and competitive place that also includes other players.

Thirdly, the process of formulating strategy is only a concept of selecting from the numerous existing generic positions after undertaking analytical calculations. Fourthly, the top manager of the firm assumes control over the strategy choices and results achieved although the process of analysis is significant in determining the strategy choices in the first place. The fifth and final premise of the school suggests that strategy implementation should follow analysis and choice. Overly, the market structure is what derives the position strategies adopted and, therefore, the organisation structure is subsequently driven by the structure of the organisation.

The positioning school’s main model as identified by Michael Porter is the Competitive Advantage. This model determines five forces which operate in the surrounding environment of the organisation, and which are capable of influencing the overall capability of the organisation to effectively compete with its industry rivals. The forces identified include the threat posed by entry into the market of new players, the extent at which the industry suppliers can bargain, as well as the extent at which customers of the firm can bargain. Other important forces include the threat posed by substitute products which the customers can resort to, and the rivalry intensity that exists amongst the competing firms in the industry (Schermerhorn 2010).

These forces will characteristically determine the right strategy to be eventually adopted by the company. Despite the fact that the five forces combined could result into numerous potential strategies, only a limited number of generic strategies could, in the long run, end up surviving and thus sustaining the company to competition. In Porter’s assumptions, two additional factors of low cost and differentiation are identified as the determinants of a firm’s competitive advantage.

Porter further introduces a new strategic outlook of this school which is referred to as the Value Chain. This view basically divides the operations of a firm to activities that are mutually supportive. These activities are identified as Primary Activities on the one hand and Support Activities on the other hand. Primary Activities mainly involve products flow towards the customer, such as inbound logistics, operations, marketing, sales, as well as outbound logistics and other relevant services. The Support Activities, on the other hand, mainly involves activities that provide support to primary activities, including such activities as procurement, human resource management, technology development, firm infrastructure, among many other similar activities. The value chain coordinates the primary activities and secondary activities and determines the obtainable margin of profit for the firm.

Both the planning school and the design school draw attention to the uniqueness of a viable strategy to the organisation. This is, however, contrary to what Porter’s position school advocates for in the sense that the latter recognises only three generic strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, as well as focusing (Johnson et al, 2011). The position school views strategy as an attractive industry choice which is also supported by good positioning within the industry. The Classical theory of strategy, in sum, places much confidence in the overall capacity and readiness of the managers to adopt strategies that seeks to optimise on profit through a long term planning that is rationally deduced. In other words, strategy development and implementation under the classical theorists places all the responsibilities and roles under the chief executive officer (French, 2009).

Evolutionary Theory of Strategy

Unlike the Classical theory of strategy, the evolutionary perspective to strategy places less confidence on the ability of the top management to solely plan and consequently act rationally. Instead, higher expectations are placed on the markets to be able to secure optimisation of profits. The Evolutionary theorists particularly stress on the significance of competitive natural selection processes. Thus, the theorists do not overly prescribe strategy formulation through rational planning methods, but rather argue that managers may ultimately adopt methods which will only be suitable for the best performers and not necessarily everyone on board (Duran, 2006). The underlying argument for these theorists is the fact that managers do not need to be rational optimisers due to the fact that nature’s cost-benefit analysis is actually reflected by evolution.

Evolutionary theorists continuously attempt to draw a distinction between economic competition on the one hand and the jungle’s natural law on the other hand. The theorists point out that the Classical competition economic theories are so sterile and simplistic to the extent that the overall contributions to understanding have been fewer as compared to the obstacles (Whittington, 2001). The evolutionary theorists particularly note that the Classical theories hypothesize rational and self-interested behaviour by those individuals whose interactions is via market exchanges, and which happens in a fixed as well as static legal system. The static and legal system mainly comprises of contracts and property.

According to Bruce Henderson, Boston Consulting Group founder, the above hypotheses are both unrealistic and too abstract. Competition is an aspect of constant struggle in pursuance of survival in a jungle that is dense, steamy, and over-populated. It is not in any way concerned with a detached calculation as appears to be suggested by the classical theorists. The evolution theory within organisations focuses more on the existing dynamics between environments on the one hand, and ‘communities’ or ‘populations’ on the other hand over some period of time. The evolutionary perspective comprises of three significant processes which are variation, selection, as well as retention. The concepts mainly derive from the principles of biology together with ecology.

In the organisational context, variation process produces deviation in both structure and strategy, while selection involves a process of selectively eliminating specific variations which are considered inappropriate or of less effectiveness (De Witt & Meyer, 2005). The retention process on its part represents the variations’ preservation and propagation, which had not been eliminated in the first instance. Overly, proper evolution may never be attained if any one of the above three processes lacks or misses. Additionally, variation is a process that takes place in an erratic manner and operates ‘blind’ or by chance. This is what remarks the role played by uncertainty in the whole process of evolution.

Resource-based Theory of Strategy

Among the initiators of the resource-based theory of strategy include Penrose and Chamberlin through their early works on the same. The basis of this theory is the argument that firms are made up of unique capabilities and resources, and the appropriate strategy is to make the most of these unique skills. In making the resources of the firm together with its capabilities as the foundation of its strategy in the long-term, two main premises are deduced; firstly, the internal resources together with the overall capabilities of the firm offer its basic direction of strategy, and secondly, a firm’s resources and capabilities form its basic source of profit (Armstrong, 2008).

Internal resources and capabilities as strategy’s basic direction

Strategy formulation has its basis or starting point on some statement that identifies the firm’s purpose and identity. This statement basically seeks to provide an answer that describes what the business is all about. Conventionally, this assumes the form of mission statements which is a common practise in virtually all organisations and enterprises. The statements that define the business mention the served market on the basis of detailing who the customers are and their actual needs intending to be served. However, the contemporary business world is characterised by continuously evolving customer requirements and technologies and thus, an orientation that is externally focused fails to offer a secure foundation for the formulation of long-term business strategy (De Wit & Meyer, 2004).

For these reasons, the resource-based strategy theorists propose that enterprises need to broadly define their overall served markets rather than do it narrowly (Henry, 2008). However, it is also important that in addition to the broadening of the intended target market, the enterprise should develop capabilities that are necessary for serving the requirements of the customer across a wider front. It is also challenging for businesses, nevertheless, to serve a broadened customer need because of the additional requirements that come with it.

Internal resources and capabilities as the basis for profitability

Two factors determine the ability of a firm to earn excess revenues relative to the cost of capital: Firstly, the industry’s attractiveness in as far as its location is concerned, and secondly, the establishment of its competitive advantage relative to other industry rivals. The industrial organisation economics places emphasis on industry attractiveness as the main basis for higher profitability, with the resultant implications being that the concerns of strategic management mainly target the seeking of industry environments that are favourable, locating of attractive segments as well as strategic industry groups, and finally, moderating of competitive pressures through the influence of competitors’ behaviour and industry structure (Jansson, 2007). Although resource-based theory of strategy has emphasised more on strategic positioning issues on the basis of choice between differentiation advantage and cost, and between narrow and broad market scope, the significance of these choices lies in the firm’s position relative to the resource conditions and availability.

Resource-based Strategy View: Coca Cola Company

The Coca Cola Company is a global leader in the manufacture and marketing of nonalcoholic soft-drinks and fruit juices. The Company’s operations cover virtually all the countries of the world, with its success and growth particularly being sustained by its resource-based strategy formulating process through out the many years of its operations.

The Company’s Resources

The Coca Cola Company boasts of numerous resources which play a significant role in the manufacture of its array of beverages. The company’s resources can be analysed into two broad categories of tangible as well as intangible resources:

Tangible resources

The tangible resources owned by Coca Cola include financial resources, human resources, as well as physical resources. Coca Cola’s stable finances particularly ensure that the company boasts of very strong financial position to support its production process without any limitations like cash shortages. From its stable cash flows, Coca Cola is always in a position to undertake numerous programmes and activities that require huge sums of funding (Lawton, 2006). As a result of this, the company often manages to avoid debt financing from seeking external financing in order to pursue its plans. The workforce at Coca Cola is also always motivated, a fact that has played a significant role in sustaining Coca Cola brands within retailer shelves. Much of its financial resource revenue is used in training the workers such that their skills could be efficient in enabling them deliver high quality products and services to their clientele and the general market. The human resource at Coca Cola, which involves all the employees at the company, thus, feel attached to the company and optimise their energies and efforts in order to ensure that the company reaps maximum benefit.

A number of physical resources are also owned by the company as part of its tangible resources. The physical resources include equipment, such as the manufacturing plants that are available in the company’s headquarters in the USA, as well as in numerous other countries throughout the world. Several buildings are also owned by the company in form of staff offices, warehouses and stores, and factory buildings in virtually all the global regions where the company has set operations. The self-owned production plants of the company imply that Coca Cola is capable of maintaining its cost of production at very low levels. In essence, the company is in a position to offer its high quality range of products at comparatively low prices that consequently enhance its competitive advantage. Equally, the self owned equipments of the company further ensures that Coca Cola, unlike its industry rivals and competitors, does not spend capital in leasing or renting equipment. This maintains the production costs at very minimum levels.

Intangible Resources

Coca Cola’s main intangible resources include its technical resources, goodwill, as well as intellectual capability. It is the technical resources of the company that has consequently helped Coca Cola develop and sustain technical expertise in the production of products with the company’s brand name. These products have fostered Coca Cola’s goals and further promise a brighter future for the company in the overall. In this context, Coca Cola has derived numerous flavours in the range of their soft drink brands, including the Orange flavour, Lemon, Black Currant, Ginger, among many others. These developments clearly underscore the great expertise used by the company to create competitive advantage over competitors in the same beverage industry (Ireland, Hoskisson & Hitt, 2008).

Similarly, Coca Cola enjoys intellectual property as pertains to the brands offered under their trade name. In particular, the company undertakes extensive product research which culminates in the announcement of, and subsequent release into the market of unique products. These products are patented and, thus, only Coca Cola enjoys the exclusive right of supplying them (Edvinsson & Malone 1997). Throughout its years of existence, Coca Cola has particularly been synonymous with customer loyalty and goodwill. These two factors have played a key role in enhancing the internal strength of the company. The visibility of the Coca Cola brand has further ensured that the product is accessed by as many people as possible in real good time.

Distinctive Capabilities of the Coca Cola

The distinctive capabilities enjoyed by the Coca Cola Company have as a result enabled it to undertake productions in a superior manner, compared to the performances of rival companies in the industry. Some of the distinctive capabilities enjoyed by Coca Cola include high level innovation, reputation, as well as architecture (Birchall & Tovstiga, 2005). New products, as a result of the listed capabilities, have been introduced into the market. In turn, this has been a key competitive edge over industry rivals since their innovation capabilities to introduce new products into the market do not match what Coca Cola has. The production methods pursued by Coca Cola together with the ingredients mixture remain to be a very strong contributor to the brand’s unique, as well as high quality products. The combination of the above factors has enabled the company to eventually command very strong reputation with reference to its competitors. The resultant goodwill is what continues to sustain Coca Cola’s favourite brand position amongst its consumers. The architecture plans adopted by the company also ensure that the daily activities remain congruent with the selected and identified objectives. In particular, the structure system of the company supports the outsourcing of its product distribution mainly from individual distributors, a fact that has enabled it to deal with numerous market dynamics.

The Engagement of Coca Cola Employees in Contributing to the Strategy

The Coca Cola Company, despite being regarded as the quintessential global corporation, basically operates on the strategic premise of thinking in a global way but acting locally. This basically implies that the company allows its local employees to play a leading role in assisting in the shaping of its overall business strategy. In particular, the Coca Cola considers its employees with high regard as they form part of the company’s leading resources. Although the company’s head offices are located in the USA, national businesses are granted the freedom to conduct their operations in a suitable manner that fits their respective market situations (Hooijberg, 2007). This freedom to operate is, however, moderated by the establishment of a common mindset across the entire company’s workforce.

The corporate human resource department has the main responsibility of binding workers in all the company’s divisions so as to achieve a united Coca Cola family. The human resource function particularly achieves this through the propagation of a common HR policy within the entire company, and through the development of mid-level executives with an international focus purposely for senior management responsibilities in the future. The main target of the corporate HRM function is to develop the employees and support them with underlying philosophy that can support the development of the local businesses (Aswathappa, 2005).

Coca Cola’s resource-based strategy has seen the company center much of its efforts and focus on its employees, where it has particularly designed effective mentoring programmes to develop the human resource. The company has a strong belief that is centred towards building competitive advantage through the development of its human resources and skills. In seeking to optimise the company’s human resource development towards business success, the company has adopted a specific approach that is mainly divided into three folds.

Firstly, it seeks to strengthen the existing link between its human resource development focus and the business strategy as a whole. Secondly, it attempts as much as possible to involve the company’s leadership with all the aspects that relate to development. Finally, it uses several developmental tools for the purposes of matching the personal as well as organisational needs. However, the mentoring and coaching strategies of the firm particularly aim at building the human resources capabilities, and in essence sustain its growth and development. The mentoring strategy seeks to help the employees understand even better the overall operations of the company. The mentoring imparts knowledge about the culture, mission, and the general context within which things get done. Once these employees get to understand clearly how the company functions and operates, they definitely also get involved in contributing towards giving strategy suggestions to their leaders (Veale & Wachtel, 1996).

Coaching is also utilised extensively by the company as it seeks to increase employee accountability, renew their commitments, as well as facilitate a continual learning process. This increases the skills of the human resource and enhances their capabilities to perform as per the expectations of the company. With such levels of the human expertise and skills, Coca Cola involves its workforce in directly serving their customers with sufficient satisfaction. The satisfaction levels of the customers, apart from sustaining repeat business and growth in profitability, also ensure that the company builds goodwill which is necessary for growth and development (Meiners, Ringleb & Edwards, 2008).

Recommendations on ways of Improving the Strategic Process

Although human resource development through such strategies as mentoring and coaching programmes produces positive results in building the capabilities of the employees at Coca Cola, these strategies have loopholes which could derail the company’s overall target and focus. Coaching, for instance, may end up even limiting the accountability and the learning commitments of the employees if the styles being used in the coaching and the general perceptions fail to tally with what the company targets in the long run. Equally, the mentoring process adopted and preferred by the company could end up achieving the opposite for the company. These threats can be eliminated by establishing a communication environment that is specifically focused on problem solving and change oriented (Lawler & Worley, 2006).

Conclusion

Strategy refers to a plan or series of plans mainly undertaken by organisations as they seek to determine their future existence in the business world. The environment within which organisations conduct their operations is not regular and can limit the overall productivity of an organisation. In essence, strategy seeks to lay out advance plans that put into consideration all the possible environment effects that could affects operations. When these factors come into play, the alternative strategies can be implemented to mitigate or cushion against the adverse effects. Several schools of thoughts have been postulated by early scholars in the field and remain relevant even today as organisations seek for ways of enhancing their activities and general performance. The classical theory encompasses a number of schools of thoughts, including the design school, the planning school, and the positioning school, which attempted to give an insight into the general aspect of strategy in the business world. The Classical theories of strategies pioneered the concept of strategy in the business world after borrowing it from military operations. Other strategies that were postulated apart from the classical theories include the resource-based strategy view, and the evolution theory of strategy. The Coca Cola Company has adopted the resource-based strategy theory and consequently builds on its overall resources and capabilities to enhance and sustain competitive advantage over its rivals.

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