p.3 A strategy is a set of related actions that managers take to increase their company's performance...
This book identifies and describes the strategies that managers can pursue to achieve superior performance
and provide their company with a competitive advantage. One of its central aims is to give you a thorough understanding
of the analytical techniques and skills necessary to identify and implement strategies successfully.
p.6 A business model is a manager's conception of how the set of strategies his company pursues
should mesh together into a congruent whole, enabling the company to gain a competitive advantage... a business model
is a kind of mental model, or gestalt, of how the various strategies and capital investments made by a company should fit
together to generate above-average profitability and profit growth.
p.15 The vision of a company lays out some desired future state; it articulates,
often in bold terms, what the company would like to achieve.
p.25 Mintzberg maintains that emergent strategies are often successful and may be more appropriate
than intended strategies.
p.25 The strategy that emerged did so not through planning but through unplanned
action in response to unforeseen circumstances... The critical point demonstrated by the Honda example is that successful
strategies can often emerge within an organization without prior planning and in response to unforeseen circumstances...
In practice, the strategies of most organizations are probably a combination of the intended (planned) and the emergent...
managers must be able to judge the worth of emergent strategies.
p.26 One reason that strategic planning may fail over the long run is that strategic managers,
in their enthusiasm for planning techniques, may forget that the future is inherently unpredictable. Even
the best-laid plans can fall apart if unforeseen contingencies occur
p.26 Scenario planning involves formulating plans that are based on what-if scenarios about the
future... A set of indicators is chosen as signposts to track trends and identify the probability
that any particular scenario is coming to pass. The idea is to get managers to understand the dynamic and complex
nature of their environment, to think through problems in a strategic fashion, and to generate a range of
strategic options that might be pursued under different circumstances.
p.26 The great virtue of the scenario approach to planning is that it can push
managers to think outside the box, to anticipate what they might have to do in different situations, and to
learn that the world is a complex and unpredictable place that places a premium on flexibility rather than on inflexible
plans based on assumptions about the future that may turn out to be incorrect.
p.74 The primary objective of strategy is to achieve a sustained competitive advantage
p.110 Learning effects are cost savings that come from learning by doing.
