Schools of Strategy and Example for Each Strategy The three “schools” of strategy There are various schools of strategy that have been vigorously debated on and after a consolidated effort; three schools of strategy were produced. They are the planning school, the positional school, and the resource based school of strategy (Ritson, 2013). All these strategies will be described with examples to buttress each. Describing the three schools of thought and provides an example of each. The planning school of thought is a strategy that emphasizes the need for an organization to ensure that its business strategy is in alignment with the environment that it operates. In other words, an organization’s strategy must ‘fit’ the environment that it chooses …show more content…
When Apple saw that the iPhone market was mature and stable, the organization introduced other innovative products to create a new market (Ritson, 2013). This is the philosophy of the planning school of strategy and it is all about engaging an existing market while forecasting the future market. The positioning school of strategy emphasizes making a strategy based on proper market analysis and logic so that organization’s product would have a dominant position in the market against other competitors. Furthermore, the positional school of strategy encourages competitive advantage over competitors while using decision-making and performance measurement tools such as the Porter’s five forces and the Boston Consulting Group Matrix to determine how to maintain dominance in the …show more content…
This strategy emphasizes the use of an organization’s resources and capabilities to achieve a core competence that cannot be imitated by competitors. Furthermore, the resource based school argues that if an organization distinctively improves its internal capability; that is being able to have effective inside machinery to deliver products and services to customers, the organization will enjoy a massive advantage in the market. This school also argues that in order to have a competitive advantage, an organization must have resource and capabilities that are sophisticated to those of competitors (QuickMBA, 2010). A typical example of the resource based school is an organization that has patented its products so that competitors are under obligations not to copyright these products. Additionally, having an installed customer base is a resource of an organization coupled with its brand equity. Apple Inc. is an organization whose resources and capabilities cannot be easily and effectively copyrighted in the technology industry. This is the source of Apple’s competitive dominance in the market in general. In conclusion, the three schools of thought-the planning, the positioning, and the resource based school of thoughts effectively highlights how an organization can improve and sustain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. It is, however,
Selecting a business strategy that details valuable resources and distinctive competencies, strategizing all resources and capabilities and ensuring they are all employed and exploited, and building and regenerating valuable resources and distinctive competencies is key. The analysis of resources, capabilities and core competencies describes the external environment which is subject to change quickly. Based off this information a firm has to be prepared and know its internal resources and capabilities and offer a more secure strategy. Furthermore, resources and capabilities are the primary source of profitability. Resources entail intangible, tangible, and human resources. Capabilities describe environment and strategic environment. Core competencies include knowledge and technical capability. In this section we will attempt to describe in detail the three segments which are resources, capabilities, and core competencies.
Wit, BD & Meyer, R 2010, Strategy: process, content, context : an international perspective, Cengage Learning EMEA, London.
Internal resource is the first consideration that can lead to sustainable competitive advantage and Resource –Based View (RBV) is a theory that usefully helps a firm focus on internal resources (Kraaijenbrink, Spender & Aard, 2010). According to RBV (Valuable, Rare, hard to imitate and non-substitutable), companies have different tangible and intangible resources, these resources can be transformed into unique ability, this special ability cannot flow between firms and rival firms and difficult to reproduce. These unique resources and abilities are the source of enterprise sustainable competitive advantage. In this part, Starbucks and Apple are worth to be analyzed by RBV.
Pitts and Koufopoulos (2012) argue that resources and capability are highly important internal factors that should be taken into account by the organization in order to obtain the successful performance in the long run.
Thompson, A. A., Strickland, A. J., & Gamble, J. E. (2008). Crafting & executing strategy: The quest for competitive advantage (16th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
The novel Good Strategy/ Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt was published in 2011 as a response to the lack of strategy the author witnessed around him. In the introduction, Rumelt explains that strategy is not limited to businesses, but is a course of action that all entities should be accountable for. This lack of accountability and awareness of true strategy urged Rumelt to discuss the difference between good strategy and bad strategy (hence the title), and how the ladder of the two causes inefficiency and stunted growth in all aspects of society.
Many theorists (Lynch, 2003, Mintzberg, 1990, Ansoff, 1991) will argue that the two main schools of strategic planning are the prescriptive, also known as intended, and emergent approaches. Both are debated widely about which is the better approach; recognised best by Idenburg (1993). Prescriptive strategies focus on planning; where predictions of the future are made, leading to long term decisions where the main elements of the strategy have been specially planned before being commenced and as stated by Mintzberg, 1990 "Strategy formation should be a controlled, conscious process of thought". The emergent approach relies on the fact that the outcome of the objective is not known; in contradiction to the prescriptive approach it is not a 'controlled, conscious process of thought' and has been described by Downs, et al (2003) as a trial and error process. The importance of strategy within organisations has been discussed as early as the 1950's with ...
Apple has made reasonable management of its human and material resources since its innovational approach demands effective strategic allocation of its resources to the development and utilization of its productive resources to support its innovative investment strategies. Effective strategic control brings power to Apple’s decision-makers to allocate its resources to confront the technological, market, and competitive uncertainties which are inherent in the innovation
Thompson, A.A., Strickland, A.J., & Gamble, J. E. (2010). Crafting and executing strategy: The quest for competitive advantage: Concepts and cases: 2009 custom edition (17th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill-Irwin
It is also perhaps not feasible to evaluate the attractiveness of an industry independent of the resources a firm brings to that industry. It is thus argued that this theory be coupled with the Resource-Based View (RBV) in order for the firm to develop a much more sound strategy. It provides a simple perspective for accessing and analysing the competitive strength and position of a corporation, business or organisation.
According to Doyle, (1983) positioning strategy refers to the selection of a marked market segment that shows all the customers a type of business that could seek out to serve and the option of choosing the differential advantage that explains the way it is going to compare against all its competitors in the same segment. It could be said from this definition that a positioning strategy applies mainly at a certain product’s level or/and service, working in the limits of a particular market and the fact that it should not really be mistaken with a wider concept of “corporate” strategy, or with any other concepts that are more specifically related to strategy such due to the fact that it could be related to every individual matter in the marketing mix, such as a “pricing” or “promotional” strategy.
Resources are organization’s productive assets and capabilities are what an organization is capable of doing. The relationship between resources and capabilities of a company forms a competitive advantage. Capabilities and resources help in gaining value and competitive advantage over competitors.
...M. E. (2008). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Simon and Schuster.
It tells a layman business person or a person interested in setting up a business soon that a strategy is about planning for the future. It is to plan the future in a way that makes it easy for the managers to set up objectives and for the employees to follow those objectives (McKeown, 2012). The book gives examples of successful business persons and how they made their business strategy when they came into the business field. There are examples of people, who found success instantly, and there are also examples of business persons who struggled at first, but then after reshaping the strategy they were able to effectively conduct their business. It is very helpful for new entrepreneurs to know about these strategies so that they could also learn and implement it in their
Product positioning is to use certain features of the product to position against the product of competitor. With the help of this marketing activity, marketers can attract more customers by focusing of special features of their product.