Supply/demand everywhere

Posted by:

Working  with public officials in Tyumen region of Russia highlighted the still-wider generic nature of the systems that strategy and policy try to design and operate well. Every commercial business serves customers with products or services and do so using capacity of various kinds operated by staff. Customers drive demand (sales and revenue), there may be a cost-of-goods, and capacity + staff drive the supply the business can deliver at some cost.

The surprise in venturing out of the corporate world into other sectors is how universal these relationships are. ...

Continue Reading →

Generic architecture = rock-solid theory

Posted by:

Strategy Dynamics gives confidence because its standard architectures (systems of resources and performance) are utterly reliable. It is no surprise that we find the same factors linked in the same way in any sector … every retailer serves consumers with products through stores operated by staff. But rename or replace these items and you have an airline, a school or hospital. Same applies across service companies of many types, manufacturing firms, banking …

Of course important details must be got right and adapted ...

Continue Reading →

Strategy Dynamics Briefing 77: Information-based resources

Posted by:

The inclusion of data and knowledge in the strategic architecture reflects the existence of two classes of entity — the “material” factors we have dealt with as tangible resources, and “informational” factors that also can be collected, lost, stored and used. The simplest informational factor is just data—specific pieces of information about something of importance. This can be illustrated by extending the call-center example from Briefing 27. At that point, we looked at the staff skills required to serve customers ...

Continue Reading →

Strategy Dynamics Briefing 65: Evaluating strategic opportunities

Posted by:

We have previously laid out a rigorous, logical description of an organization as a system of tangible resources that enable pursuit of its purpose by supporting each others’ development. The strategic architecture is, if you like, “the machine” designed for that purpose, so this question is effectively whether it is possible for that machine to exist at all. For that to be true, its resources must be capable of generating sufficient cash flow to fuel their own development, as well ...

Continue Reading →

IT & Enterprise Architecture

Posted by:

strategy+business explains how IT works best when tied closely to business goals, which using an Enterprise Architecture  helps ensure. Though the article explains little of what exactly an EA is, there’s plenty on the Web about it, including professional training and certification. An EA seems to rely on having a sound foundation of an ‘Operating Model’ of the business, which in turn ties together strategy maps, goals and policies.

But how do we ensure that operating model is indeed rigorous? I would start from ...

Continue Reading →