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Pete Bernhardt

Strategy advisor (MBA | CMInstD)

Interesting read on the six 'strategic concepts' identified by Outthinker Networks as being mentioned significantly more by [financial] outperformers than by underperformers... __ First, the approach to identifying them was interesting: From 3000 companies, 15 pairs of companies were identified where one significantly out-performed the other across at least three of four [financial] measures: - current operating margin, - revenue growth (over the last five years), - improvement of operating income margin (over five years), and - growth in enterprise value (over five years) Then, they "analyzed over 7,000 pages, and 29 annual reports, supplementing this desk research with interviews with about 100 chief strategy officers". __ The 6 strategic concepts that were identified were (note, I have renamed these into more commonly used language and ranked them by the % they are more likely to be used by 'outperformers' vs 'underperformers)': - Complement partnerships (110% more likely) - Open strategy / strategy transparency (100% more likely) - Stakeholder strategy (85% more likely) - Fast follower (80% more likely) - Learning-orientated experiments (70% more likely) - Digital channel partnerships (60% more likely) __ A couple of things came to mind when reading it. The emphasis on ecosystems: We need to be careful not to conflate: - ecosystem strategy (or shaping strategy in Strategy Palette language, Martin Reeves et al.) --> that very few companies should be pursuing with - a robust understanding of the ecosystem --> that arguably every company should be weaving into strategy The praising of fast-follower strategy: This is where the timeframe of outperformance becomes important. In an environment where the start-up ecosystem is reoriented around high costs of capital and research funding is under strain, everyone taking a fast-follower approach seems like a recipe for stagnation and entropy. Thanks Kaihan Krippendorff for a thought provoking read. https://lnkd.in/geN27m8H

6 Strategic Concepts That Set High-Performing Companies Apart

6 Strategic Concepts That Set High-Performing Companies Apart

hbr.org

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