It’s a good bet that your firm approaches strategic planning the same way each time the strategy is revisited. Does it employ completely different strategic approaches for different business units and product lines or is the same approach that is used at the corporate level used at the business line level as well?
A new business book makes a compelling case for the value of applying differing strategic approaches or combining elements from varying approaches, depending on the set of circumstances facing the company or specific business unit. Boston Consulting Group refers to this as a “strategy palette” which addresses business environments such as predictability, malleability and harshness. These are combined into a matrix of five core strategic approaches: classical, adaptive, visionary, shaping and renewal.
BCG asserts that nearly all large firms are composed of multiple businesses, each with its own distinct strategic charter and thus requires a different approach to its strategy to be successful.
It’s a solid read and it appears to be supported by Google’s recent move to its umbrella organization Alphabet, which allows each business unit to deploy the best approach to its strategy and execution. Find a supporting article by the author on that topic here.
Download the first chapter of the book Your Strategy Needs a Strategy: How to Choose and Execute the Right Approach here: The first chapter contains a useful high-level overview of the various strategic models.
Cheers.
