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A successful turnaround global farm machinery company is attempting to redefine its role in the global food system and develop a strategic plan for the company.

Why is it that successful strategies are rarely developed as a result of formal planning processes? What is wrong with strategy or the way most companies go about developing it? Andrew Campbell and Marcus Alexander, seasoned practitioners of the art of strategy, who consult, teach and do research at the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, offer a "common sense" piece on why the planning frameworks managers use so often yield disappointing results. Strategy, they explain, is not about plans but insights. Strategy development is the process of discovering and understanding insights and should not be confused with planning, which is about turning insights into action. The answer is not new planning processes, better designed plans, or more effort. The answer is for managers to understand two fundamentals--the benefit of having a well-articulated and stable purpose and the importance of discovering, understanding, documenting, and exploiting insights about how to create value.

Companies find it difficult to change strategy for many reasons, but one stands out: Strategic thinking is not a core managerial competence at most companies. Managers are unable to develop competence in strategic thinking because they do it so rarely. Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen helps managers develop a creative strategy and a proficiency in strategic decision making. This article presents a three-stage method executives can use to conceive and implement a creative and coherent strategy themselves. The three-step process forces managers to dig deep in order to understand the forces affecting their business. This method is a useful tool for managers because it helps them link strategic thinking with operational planning: two processes that are often separate but are more effective when connected.

What makes for a good strategy in highly uncertain business environments? How do executives choose a clear strategic direction when no amount of sophisticated analysis will allow them to predict the future? The authors, consultants at McKinsey & Co., outline a new approach for dealing with the high levels of uncertainty that regularly confront managers today. This article explains how to make crucial distinctions among the levels of uncertainty managers face, and then how to choose a strategic posture appropriate for that level. This strategy framework helps managers to tailor a portfolio of actions--comprising big bets, options, and no-regrets moves--to the uncertainty at hand. An important and timely addition to the strategy arsenal, this article offers a discipline for thinking rigorously and systematically about uncertainty.

One of the most challenging decisions a company can confront is whether to diversify. The rewards and risks are extraordinary. Success stories such as General Electric, Disney, and 3M abound, but so do stories of failure--consider Quaker Oats' entry into the fruit juice business with Snapple. There has been much talk about the importance of strategic focus for companies in recent years, so much so that diversification as a corporate strategy has gone out of vogue. In this article, London Business School Professor Costas Markides argues that companies may be overlooking significant growth opportunities by abandoning diversification moves. In order for diversification to work, though, he proposes that companies consider a number of essential questions before they leap into new business: What business am I in? Do I have all of the critical success factors? Can I break up my core competencies? The answers to these and other questions may make the difference between success and failure in the new business. Much has been written about "focusing on core competencies," while diversification has been largely ignored. And yet, diversification can be a powerful way to grow a business.

Focuses on strategic decisions regarding investment in digital imaging technology facing Polaroid Corp., a worldwide leader in the traditional imaging marketplace, in July 1997. New Polaroid CEO Gary DiCamillo must decide how much emphasis to place on digital vs. traditional imaging technology, how to restructure the organization to capitalize on this new technology, and whether to support a new proposal to develop a digital camera for the mass market.

Delta Beverage is facing severe cost control problems. In addition to the high interest expense, the cost of aluminum cans and PET containers has risen substantially during the past year. Students must decide whether the CFO should hedge aluminum to avoid the risk of violating a loan covenant.

Modularity is a familiar principle in the computer industry. Different companies can independently design and produce components, such as disk drives or operating software, and those modules will fit together into a complex and smoothly functioning product because makers obey a given set of design rules. As businesses as diverse as auto manufacturing and financial services move toward modular designs, the authors say, competitive dynamics will change enormously. Leaders in a modular industry will control less, so they will have to watch the competitive environment closely for opportunities to link up with other module makers. They will also need to know more: engineering details that seemed trivial at the corporate level may now play a large part in strategic decisions. Leaders will also become knowledge managers internally because they will need to coordinate the efforts of development groups in order to keep them focused on the modular strategies the company is pursuing.

Millions of people are communicating at home and at work in an explosion of connectivity that threatens to undermine the established value chains for businesses in many sectors of the economy. What will happen, for instance, to dominant retailers such as Toys "R" Us and Home Depot when a search through the Internet gives consumers more choice than any store? What will be the point of cultivating a long-standing supplier relationship with General Electric when it posts its purchasing requirements on an Internet bulletin board and entertains bids from anybody inclined to respond? The authors present a conceptual framework for approaching such questions--for understanding the relationship of information to the physical components of the value chain and how the Internet's ability to separate the two will lead to the reconfiguration of the value proposition in many industries.

Discusses the strategic challenges facing Electronic Arts in 1995 as they try to maintain their leading position in the video game industry. Addresses the evolution, competitive environment, and key trends in the industry, as well as the position and strategy of Electronic Arts.

Discusses the strategic challenges facing Disney in 1996, especially those relating to the proliferation of digital content and the influence of information technologies. Provides the opportunity to discuss the importance of distribution channels in a digital age, along with the strategic reasoning behind Disney's acquisition of ABC in 1995.

Dave Pottruck, president and co-CEO of Charles Schwab Corp. (CSC), is contemplating a piece of news in the June 1, 1999 edition of the Wall Street Journal that was about to send shock waves through the brokerage community. The newspaper had just announced Merrill Lynch's decision to launch online trading on December 1, 1999. Customers at Merrill Lynch would be able to trade online for $29.95/trade or, for a minimum annual fee of $1,500, make as many trades as they wanted. Now that Merrill Lynch had joined the online trading revolution, Pottruck wondered, how would this affect Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (Schwab), and what should the company do in response? Pottruck observes that Merrill Lynch, ETrade, WingspanBank, and Schwab, although competing for similar customers, appeared to be doing so from very different starting points. Pottruck considers the competitive dynamics of the brokerage industry and wonders: How can Schwab maintain its growth trajectory in the face of so many, varied competitors? What other firms might enter the space? How could Schwab protect and grow its existing customer base? Was Schwab getting "squeezed in the middle" or could it create a "category of one?"

Presents evidence on the unsustainability of many competitive advantages, reviews the typical threats to the sustainability, and discusses ways in which those threats can be combatted.

Describes the contributions of strategic concepts in the business world, and how they came to be influenced by competitive thinking.

Progressive is a leader in providing nonstandard (high-risk) automobile insurance to drivers across America, with a long record of extraordinary profitability. Progressive is facing a challenge in its segment from Allstate, the industry leader, and must decide how to respond.

Traces Intel's history and strategy from 1968 to 1997. Examines the company's decision to exit DRAMS and its entry into microprocessors. Focuses on how the company managed to achieve and sustain its competitive advantage in microprocessors, and the threats it faces in the future.

Viacom reached a powerful position in the global entertainment industry through skillful and very bold acquisitions. Now its further expansion is challenged by the moves of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Different businesses within Viacom have contradictory positions on how to deal with major opportunities and how Viacom top management should manage the decision-making process.

For R.R. Donnelley & Sons, the period between 1995 and 1997 was marked by corporate restructuring, executive turnover, and an increasingly competitive environment. The emergence of the Internet and other digital technologies created threats, challenges, and possible opportunities for Donnelley's printing businesses. During 1995, Donnelley moved to improve its position by making technology-related acquisitions and forming the Digital Division. By early 1997, these acquired companies had been or were in the process of being spun-off or resold and the Digital Division had been shut down.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How can a company successfully attack an established market leader? How can it find new ways to compete that everyone else has missed? By breaking the rules of the game in its industry to find new sources of innovation, according to the author. In a study of 30 successful attackers, the author identifies five ways that they think about and develop new game plans: First, redefine the business. A company should ask itself what business it believes it is in, which, in turn, determines its customers, its competitors, and its competitive advantage. Second, redefine the who. Ask: Who is my customer? Companies can locate a customer segment that is not currently served by competitors and design products or services to fill that gap. To be successful, a company must choose a niche that eventually grows to become the mass market, and the company's way of playing the game becomes the new game in town. Third, redefine the what. A company should first decide strategically what products or services it should be selling to its customers. Then it can determine whom to target. To become a strategic innovator, a company has to be the first to identify new or changing customer needs and priorities and find better ways to satisfy them. Fourth, redefine the how. A company can build on its existing core competencies to create a totally new product or way of doing business. It can share competencies across business units, reuse a competence from one unit to create a new business, and expand competencies as it learns new skills. Finally, start the thinking process at different points. In thinking of new ideas and ways to do things, managers need to broaden their perspectives and change their angles of focus. Companies can use any one or a combination of the five approaches to kick-start strategic innovation.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Traditional accounting-based performance measurement systems are unsuited to current organizations in which the relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders have changed, say the authors. A stakeholder approach to performance measurement captures strategic planning issues, while the choices a company makes in strategic planning direct the design of the performance measurement system. The authors define two groups of stakeholders: environmental (customers, owners, and the community) and process (employees and suppliers). The company exists to serve the objectives of the stakeholders, which become its primary objectives. What the company expects from and gives to each stakeholder group to achieve its primary objectives are its secondary objectives. The company must plan for and negotiate explicit and implicit contracts with stakeholders and evaluate whether the plan meets the expectations of all stakeholders. Employees design, implement, and manage processes to achieve the secondary objectives, expecting the primary objectives to result. Therefore, according to the authors, the company's performance measurement system must evaluate all processes based on their contribution to achieving secondary objectives. In their view, the system, which is the heart of a company's control system, must: help evaluate whether the company is getting expected contributions from employees and suppliers and returns from customers; help evaluate whether the company is giving each stakeholder group what it needs to continue to contribute; guide the design and implementation of processes that contribute to the secondary objectives; and help evaluate the company's planning and implicit and explicit contracts with its stakeholders. The authors examine the performance measurement system at the Bank of Montreal.