by Anne-Maria Yritys, Featured Contributor
As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest challenges you will face will be building your brand. The ultimate goal is to set your company and your brand apart from the crowd. If you form a strategy without doing the research, your brand will barely float – and at the speed industries move at today, brands sink fast. (Ryan Holmes)
Unbiased or not, but working and reflecting upon strategies from various perspectives, I have learned that there are huge differences between creating and executing strategies, depending upon the setting, organization, and surroundings you are operating in.
To simplify; the gap between creating a sustainable, long-term strategy as an entrepreneur is very different from developing and executing a strategy within a large organization, or a well-known brand. Business-owners and entrepreneurs will definitely understand the point here, and those people who actually have created their strategies from scratch, rather than operated with a “security” backup from a large organization. Both involve risks, but failing in the execution of a strategy probably have more severe consequences for a business owner who has sacrificed his/her whole life into building a successful business, than it has for a strategist of a large organization who, perhaps, will “only” risk losing his/her job (and, an X amount of value for the organization in question) if the thought-out, and executed strategy won´t lead to desired results. Nevertheless, failure in strategy should never be underestimated regardless of the operational settings.
Swift as The Wind, Quiet as The Forest, Conquer like The Fire, Steady as The Mountain (Sun Tzu)
Creating and executing a long-term strategy/multiple strategies requires long-term, processed thinking, continuous work, and persistence. There is no simple answer to how to create, and how to live out, a strategy, as it depends upon the desired outcome, and upon the complexity of the strategy.
Strategic vision, on the other hand, can be developed, and maintained through a number of regular activities, including the capability of handling complex thinking-processes, long-term planning, a vision of the desired future state, persistent work and efforts towards the goals, and flexibility.
Our world knows, and has known, a number of strategists, some more successful than others. From my educational background I can refer to author Michael Porter, University Professor at The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness based at the Harvard Business School, whose work became familiar to me through my MBA studies a few years ago. Furthermore, entrepreneurs especially, may be interested in learning more about the Blue Ocean Strategy.
Michael Porter speech upon Why Business Can be Good at Solving Social Problems:
There is no development strategy more beneficial to society as a whole – women and men alike – than the one which involves women as central players. (Kofi Annan)A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all. (Michael LeBouef)
Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men. (Miyamoto Musashi)
Success doesn’t necessarily come from breakthrough innovation but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won’t win a game or a battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling. (Naveen Jain)
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you. (Leon Trotsky)
The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy. (Michael Porter)
