Strategic Examples

Question: 

What are some examples of strategic decision in business?

Gary's Answer: 

This top-down view of “strategic decisions” reflects the vision of consultants selling their form analysis more than it does real-world strategic activity.

Harvard professors Joseph Bower and Clark Gilbert examined a number of studies into corporate strategy and made an interesting discovery:

'"What we have found in one research study after another is that how business really gets done has little connection to the strategy developed at corporate headquarters.

"Rather, strategy is crafted, step by step, as managers at all levels of a company - be it a small firm or a large multinational - commit resources to policies, programs, people, and facilities.

"Crafting strategy is an iterative, real-time process; commitments must be made, then either revised or stepped up as new realities emerge."

Harvard Business Review, February, 2007

The real strategic decisions are made on the front-lines of business: by salespeople deciding which customers and products to focus their time upon; by technical support people working with customers to solve problems, by product development people having a cool idea and making it work.

For more about this concept, you might want to read this article