“Strategy as Revolution” – a Critical Analysis

‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage in a changing environment through it’

Having established the core assumptions of Hamel and Prahalad’s (1993) article the next stage is to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the article and therefore it’s applicability to real world strategy development. A key strength of Hamel and Prahalad’s (1993) article is that they were among the earlier authors to recognise that both sides of the environment vs. organisation driven strategy debate have merit and that a combination of the two approaches may result in increased firm performance. This idea provoked a lot of academic research for example Ghoshal and Bartlett (1994), who were later supported by evidence presented by Spanos and Lioukas (2001), found that a firm’s success is dependant upon industry and firm-specific effects. Another key strength of the article is that Hamel and Prahalad (1993) provide a starting point for organisations to begin implementing the stretch and leverage strategy they recommend, these are referred to as core competencies. Core competencies are seen as “the critical basis for sustainable competitive

Chandler (1977) believes strategy is about using the necessary recourses so the organizations are able to carry out their long-term goals and aims. Which relates to Johnson (1987, pp. 4-5) who states, “Strategic decisions occur at many levels of managerial activity and will be concerned with the long-term direction”.

According Vermeulen, most new strategies are implemented. One of the chief reason for lack of implementation of these strategies is that ‘’ new strategies’’ are usually not strategies at all. A real strategy involves a clear set of choices which define what the organization is going to execute and those which isn’t going to execute. Therefore, most strategies are never put into actions despite the ample efforts of hard-working individuals since they doesn’t represent a set of clear choices (Vermeulen, 2017). To improve your strategy you must ensure that there is a clear communication of the strategy to the implementers who are the employees as well as all the people in the enterprise. Communicating your logic will be very important in answering some of the ‘’why’’ questions that your employees have. Answering such questions will help in persuading the employees that the new strategy is valuable. For effectiveness of the strategy, it should be issued from the top down and supported from the bottom up. This means that lower-level workers must be empowered so that they can think of their own initiatives to realize the

reviewed. This is analysed by putting the article in to a wider debate about strategy, then

A method by which the strategy development can be explained is the “strategic lenses”. This method views strategy development as design, experience, ideas and discourse. Strategy as design means that it emerged through rational processes, whereas the experience lens sees the strategy as the outcome of individual and collective experiences. The lens “discourse” sees strategy as the result of communication and concepts. The last lens, which is the idea lens, is about the development of strategy as a result of innovation (Johnson et al, 2008).

Meanwhile the core idea of 'Strategy as Revolution' depends on many factors and can not be applied for many companies. For a companies, revolution is on the list of consideration but not on the list of schedule. Fot this article, too much stress on could lead to misunderstanding of the impact of revolution.

Based on this general assumption, the conventional models including porter’s strategic management seem to have had their day. However, other theories have been created to try to change and renew the components of market. This is the case of Kim and Mauborgne and their blue ocean strategy which represented a revolution in the competitive market. This strategic paradigm is presented as a revolution! Its implementation will lead the company adapted to success by creating new demand and avoiding competition. This strategy seems to be similar to a dream, do not worry! The dream is overtaken by reality.

The case study primarily discusses five main perspectives with regard to strategy. They, in essence, shed focus on aspects that are crucial to the determination of a solid platform for strategy definition. The different strategies discussed mainly evolve around the mentioned concepts.

Johnston and Bate (2013) cover the need for ‘Strategy Innovation’ and provide several examples of successful large corporations (Walmart, General Electric, IBM) that started small and later dominated their industry through innovation, they define strategy innovation as the shifting of a corporation’s business strategy in order to create new value for both the customer and the corporation (chapter 1, para. 5).

Hamel's central thesis is that strategy development must be seen as a revolutionary action within an organization and goes onto list 10 attributes of such an action. His premise is that revolution is what is required in an age when incremental change is not enough to secure a position in the market place. Radical views are what are needed in order to find and establish new marketplaces. He uses examples such as The Body Shop, Ikea, and Dell.

Strategy as explained by Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, 2012, pt2 is ‘’ the long term direction of the organisation. In addition Chandler, 1962, pt3 states ‘’ the long run goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of courses of an action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals. The authors state that a business creates its own strategy, in a way that will be best suitable for the accomplishment of their targets. The organisation has to find a way to handle their resources over a period of time, such as raw materials, in order to get the highest result of value they can. Strategy is a very crucial sector in an organisation. It needs time to be conducted but if it is done correctly it will help the organisation to get to the nearest end result of their goals. Strategies and goals are linked together. Both have a vision ahead of them. The vision of a better and more reliable organisation. Strategy, is the actual definition of the process of how a goal of a business will be achieved.

To begin with, Scholes, Johnson and Ambrosini (1998) explained strategy as the direction of a firm for the long-term which accomplishes benefit for the firm through its allocation of resources within a dynamic environment to meet markets requirements and to achieve stakeholder expectations. Furthermore, Kelly and Zaman (2014) noted that strategies are strongly impacted by the environment of a firm. It is recommended that the strategies also implicate considerations about organization 's internal factors and include choices about structure, technology and other factors. Both planned and emergent approaches must be studied under the progressively change, highly competitive and international business environment. External forces are driving companies to cut costs, improve processes and recognize new opportunities for growing. This paper will define and compare emergent and planned approaches to strategy formulation, and explain how utilizing organizational resources and capabilities play a key role in creating competitive advantage. Some valuable tools such as Porter 's value chain and Economic moat will be introduced to show how internal and external factors can be evaluated. Apple company was selected to exemplify those aspects.

Johnson, Wittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér (2014, p. 3) defines strategy as ‘the long-term direction of an organisation’.

A strategy, according to Robbins and Barnwell (2002, p. 139) is “the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary to achieve the organisation’s goals”.