Question

Strategy is an important part of project management and business decisions. Define strategy and describe in detail the steps involved in selecting the best strategy for a given situation. Share an example of a company that executes strategy well and a company that has struggled in this area. What did the two companies do differently?

Answer 1

Define strategy:

Strategy is the planned course of action that a company develops well in advance to achieve predefined goals.

Steps involved in selecting the best strategy for a given situation:

Step 1: Define objectives: In the first step, the objectives are defined which are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant to the situation, and time-specific. The reason to define objective is it helps to decide the direction of the actions.

Step 2: Analyze the situation: In this step, the situation is analyzed in terms of existing issues that need to be solved, resources to solve the issues, and what kind of resources the organization can procure.

Step 3: Develop the alternatives: In this step, according to the analysis of the situation, different alternatives are developed.

Step 4: Evaluate the alternatives and select the best one: In this step, the organization evaluate the alternatives in terms of cost and benefits, and select the best alternative to generate maximum returns.

Step 5: Implement and monitor: In this step, the selected alternative is implemented and the performance is monitored simultaneously or after a regular interval.

Share an example of a company that executes strategy well and a company that has struggled in this area:

The company that executes strategy well:

There are various organizations that implement the strategies well. Amazon is one of the organizations. The company was established with a vision to be the most customer-centric organization on the earth. For that, the company focuses on customer satisfaction by offering high quality products at affordable rates with fast and free home delivery. The company invests in infrastructure development, technology enhancement, and employee learning.

The company that does not execute strategy well:

Electronic Arts (EA) is one of the best examples of business strategy failure. The company is famous for games such as ‘Fifa’, and ‘Battlefield’. The company had pressure from the shareholders to get the financial returns, so the company started charges for the games, and customers perceived the company as a greedy money-making machine.

What did the two companies do differently?

The extent of focus on the customers was the main differentiator. Amazon focuses on the customer needs and requirements, while EA didn’t focus on customer requirements such as the product the customers want and like, price of the products, and support the customers need to use or maintain the product.

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