What is Strategy?

What is Strategy?
Bayissa Milkessa, Business Consultant, Ethiopia, Member
Strategy is not an objective nor a goal.
Rather, strategy is an instrumental process that helps the users (strategists) to exploit any resources available to them to benefit from current and future opportunities.
A strategist is a person that develops effective and efficient means of exploiting current and future opportunities.
One of the main function of top management is developing a strategy for their firm, so that opportunities may not pass by without being exploited.
Therefore, strategy is a fundamental instrument developed by strategists and/or top management in order to exploit current and future opportunities in a dynamic environment.

What is Strategy?
Karl Christensen, Strategy Consultant, Mexico, Member
We define strategy as: "the framework which guides those choices that determine the nature and direction of an organization"
Benjamin B. Tregoe and John Zimmerman have provided me with this definition I can work with in my interventions as strategy consultant.
Every organization has a momentum or direction. It is headed somewhere. Top managers who do not consciously set strategy, risk having their organization´s momentum or direction developed implicitly, haphazardly or by others inside or outside the organization.
This point is critically important and frequently overlooked. Having your direction set by default can mean that it is set by those down the line, or by government, banks, competition, labor unions and so on.

What is Strategy
Andrew Blaine, Business Consultant, South Africa, Member
When planning a business venture, it is imperative that the entrepreneur develops a clear and definite vision/image/understanding of the end state of the venture.
Having completed this essential task, the next step is to determine the process that will take the entrepreneur and their business to their end state.
This process is Strategy. The implementation of each little "step" and avoiding the pitfalls is tactics. Anyway, that is my opinion!

What is Strategy
Mackinnon, Entrepreneur, United Kingdom, Member
Strategy is simply a predictive theory. It can be turned into a plan for testing and subsequent implementation but it is a prediction of where the company is to be in the future. Do not let the variables complicate the definition.

What is Strategy?
Ken Gordon MBA PMP, Strategy Consultant, United Kingdom, Premium Member
Strategy must indeed incorporate prediction to the extent that the environment in which strategic choices are made is open to change.
Strategy must therefore also be amenable to change as conditions enable clearer vision of unforeseen and unforeseeable environmental change.
One managers tactic may be another managers strategic change therefore these terms are unhelpful. However, convergence of the results of current actions with a predicted future is the essential aim of strategy regardless of the time-frame.
In my opinion the best strategists are able to master the art of combining all perspectives in planning and re-planning for optimal convergence at a chosen future point or multiple future points.

Vision, or Objective, or Goal is a Necessary Condition for Existence of Strategy
Bayissa Milkessa, Business Consultant, Ethiopia, Member
It is normal that we need to have a vision, or objectives, or goals before having strategy as means to an end. Because it is unlikely to have a strategy as a means to an end without them. Thus, vision, or objectives, or goals are preconditions for the existence of strategy.