Strategy Dynamics Briefing 39: Resources carry attributes from stage to stage

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Earlier briefings [starting at no.24] explained how resources carry attributes with them when won by, or lost from an organization. Resources also carry attributes with them as they develop from stage to stage.

Staff Experience
A common case concerns staff experience, which for simplicity can be measured in years. The figure below shows a three-level staff structure, with junior staff being hired with no experience. Thereafter, three distinct mechanisms raise or lower experience:

  • Junior staff add one year of experience for each ...
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Good Strategy: Bad Strategy. Rumelt

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I look forward to any new strategy book, so was thrilled to get “Good Strategy: Bad Strategy” by Prof Rumelt who McKinsey call ”strategy”s strategist”. Big disappointment!

“Bad strategy” apparently shows up as ”fluff”, failure to face challenges, mistaking goals for strategy, or choosing bad objectives – all common enough, maybe, but these are not any kind of strategy. There are plenty of actual strategy mistakes that repeat endlessly across industries and throughout time, but do not get a mention.

The “good ...

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Strategy Dynamics Briefing 38: When Resources Deteriorate

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Not all resources develop in a positive direction. Equipment and other fixed assets deteriorate, often through recognizable stages. Management of physical assets is a neglected issue in strategy, even in operations management. Yet for many companies the value involved is considerable — a typical utility company, could have tangible assets worth more than five times the company’s annual turnover. For such organizations, the renewal and maintenance of physical assets is a dominant component of its business strategy. This is not ...

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Strategy Masters

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Great to see serious Strategy courses on offer, rather than superficial MBAs. The Vienna University Masters in Strategy, Innovation and Management Control is a recent case that will include a complete module on dynamics. Tilburg and Maastricht are other good examples. Even if you do not want to take such a course, the content shows what a professional competence in strategy should cover.
There are some others, but I do not see anything in ...

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Another dot-com bubble?

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Back in 1999 I got booed for saying the dot-com boom was mostly hot air, after which the NASDAQ dropped from 1000 to 200. The Economist now warns of a 2nd bubble,with private equity and big corporates falling over each other to throw cash at anything web-ish. Many of the new ventures will be great, but most will fail, due to poor understanding of whether business models are viable – which needs a sound system-model of the business.
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