What Exactly is Strategy?
The idea and concept of strategy has been prominent on the agenda of business management for decades. Over the years, strategic thinking has established its role in business management.
Writers, teachers and practitioners have created a diversified set of doctrines, and as Kaplan & Norton remark: "“… no two organizations thought about strategy in the same way”.
Lacking a single, extensive and commonly agreed definition, let us examine what the classic strategist von Clausewitz says about it: “Strategy determines the place where, the time when, and the fighting forces with which the battle is to be fought”.
Clearly, according to von Clausewitz’s definition, strategy is about organizing oneself into a winning position.
In business the fighting forces can be thought of as products, technologies, processes, human and other resources, organizational capabilities, and so on. Strategy focuses on organizing these for competition.
strategy
from Fr. stratégie, "art of a general,", from Gk. strategia "office or command of a general"