hello my name is professor david certian ski and i'll be your instructor for this
course
i've a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the university of
michigan
and i also worked as a process engineer and manager in my prior profession before
receiving my PHD from Emory university's Goizueta business
school
you can call me professor Krazinski doctor Krristianski or if you
prefer
you can call me professor k or dr k
this is the course introduction lecture for strategic management
first i'd like to welcome you to the course it's really an honor and a
privilege to work with you
we'll get to know each other a bit more over the coming weeks but for now i want
to give you a quick overview discourse
strategy is a bit different from the other courses in the curriculum
most of the other courses focus on individual pieces of the business
functional areas
like accounting marketing finance operations our information systems
in contrast this course is devoted to the entire business as a whole
by taking this holistic approach
will be asking the really big picture questions about how to run a business
such as
what determines the total corporate performance of an entire business
enterprise
why do some companies succeed
while, other companies fail
and what if anything
can managers actually do about it
i'd like to start by discussing what strategy is
one of the many functions that a good strategy can serve for a company is to be a
boundary marker
that defines what the company does, and more importantly
what it does not do
ideally a good strategy should restrict the company not to do and what it does
best
but rather to what it does better than any other company
which may be different from what it does best
now the whole idea of strategy is a down the marker really is the overall theme
for this course
so then in discourse we wanna think about strategy is a set of boundaries of
what the company www will and will not do
and these boundaries are defined by the answers to three very basic very
fundamental questions that i'll discuss one of the time
first
where we compete
to answer this question what we need is an attractive market opportunity
we're going to spend a lot of time discussing exactly what it is that makes
a market opportunity attractive but for now
the main point is that even if you have identified the world's most attractive
and most profitable market opportunity
it will be utterly useless to you if your company doesn't have the resources
required to serve that market needs better than your competitors
so that brings us to the second question
how do we compete
to answer this question we need resources in capabilities that able our
company to serve the market opportunity better than any other competitor
these resources could be tangible such as the diamond mine or not belittle
field
or intangibles such as skills trust ur company reputation
we are going to spend a lot of time discussing exactly what kinds of
resources and capabilities can give your company to sort of the damage
over competitors
but for now the main point is that the answers to these first two questions we
are to compete and how to compete
together these two answers constitute what we call strategy formulation
once you know where you're competing and how you're competing
you have formulated strategy
strategy formulation is not all there is to strategy
there's also strategy implementation
which is critical because even if you have the best formulated strategy in the
world
it's still would be i'd really useless to you if your company putting
implemented effectively
so that brings us to the third question
how we execute
in answering this third question we needed implementation plan for outlining
our people an organization with our strategy
this would include motivation incentives control systems organization leadership
and so forth
we're going to spend a lot of time discussing exactly how companies can
most effectively implement the strategies they have formulated
but for now i want to point out that implementation without formulation
is just as useless as formulation without implementation
if you happen to formulate a poor strategy and your answers to the first
two questions
but it makes no difference whatsoever how good your implementation plan is
as the old saying goes it makes no sense to do the wrong thing perfectly
and that's attracted a lot of companies fall into it
they wanna devoting a lot of time energy and money to doing the wrong thing
perfectly
and as a result they wind up not making any money because no matter how
perfectly they're doing it
they're still doing the wrong thing
so now i'm thinking about the overall theme of this course in taking a step
back
i'd like you to envision strategy as a three-legged stool
in order for the strategy stool the stand-up successfully in the face of
determined competition
all three legs must be firmly in place
a successful strategy requires first an attractive market opportunity
second of the resources and capabilities required to serve the needs and desires
about market better than competitors can
and third a well-coordinated implementation or execution
battle lines the people any organization with the strategy that you formulated
if even one of those three legs is massive and the store will follow
and the company may fail
now i want to show you
how the three legged strategy store maps to the content we will cover in the
course
this overall course roadmap is organized hierarchical e and we'll return do it
many times throughout the term
external analysis covers the tools and frameworks we need to identify our
market opportunity the first leg of the store
internal analysis covers the tools and frameworks we need to analyzed the
resources and capabilities we can utilize to seize the market opportunity
this is the second leg of the store
finally
strategy implementation covers the tools and frameworks we need to understand how
to successfully execute our strategy
this is the third leg of the store
this hierarchical road map for the course is included in the course
syllabus and we will refer back to it often
if you're ever confused about where we are in the course
or about how the current topic is connected to the overall scheme of the
course
and you can simply refer back to this road map
i have three basic educational objectives for this course
first i want you to learn and practice what we call diagnostic reasoning skills
which are quite different from analytical reasoning skills
analytical reasoning is what you use when you apply logic to find a solution
in an orderly systematic way
for example
analytical reasoning is what computer programmers use to locate bugs in their
programs
they systematically turn off one piece of the program at a time to tell the
problem disappears
that way they can figure out which severed team was misbehaving and focus
their efforts on repairing that sub routine
in contrast diagnostic reasoning is the sort of skill that you use when you
leave two-factor conclusions without having complete information
basically
diagnostic reasoning boils down to your ability to
hill in the gaps in information
in order to make accurate conclusions without having all of the facts
available
for example
diagnostic reasoning is what numbers assyrian doctor uses to identify the
root problem underlying cluster of apparently unrelated symptoms
unlike the computer programmer
the emergency room doctors simply does not have to luxury of taking a purely
analytical approach
the doctor can't wait for a million test to be run nor can she systematically
turn-off different organs to find the problem part of body
she must quickly diagnose the problem in the face of incomplete an imperfect
information using her diagnostic reasoning skills
the diagnosis must be right the first time and they are rarely second chances
most courses in the curriculum focus primarily on helping you develop
analytical reasoning skills in specific functional areas like accounting finance
operations for information systems
but this course is devoted primarily to helping you develop your diagnostic
reasoning skills
in my view that's the main deliverable of this course
if we accomplish nothing else in your intellectual development
i will consider our time together is being successful you can enhance your
ability to apply diagnostic reasoning
my second educational objective in this course is for you to practice and
improve your communication skills
that is communicating your diagnoses and recommendations in a persuasive and well
reasoned way
but communication is a two-way street
if we are going to improve your diagnostic reasoning skills we also need
to improve your ability to seek out ways to improve the quality of information
you using your judgments
bus we'll also practice listening to the very backgrounds and experiences from
classmates to refine our own thinking
my third and last educational objective in this course is for you to learn
understand and be able to apply an entire toolkit of conceptual frameworks
they can be used to frame an analyze the relevant issues in any strategic
situation
while you may think initially that these tools and frameworks are only useful to
analyze for-profit organizations
you'll quickly see how they help you in many aspects of life
well these tools were designed to analyze companies
they're really about understanding situations when resources are scarce and
performance matters
we will talk more about how these tools apply
tamo will demands of life
so if these are the overall course objectives that i want to take a moment
to show you how the assignments and activities of the course fit in
first of all
if one of our main jobs is to prepare you to deal with ambiguous and perfect
information and make sense of it
we need to slowly pushing out of the classroom towards a more complex world
this continuum shows a very well-defined and perfect world on one end very much
like our typical classroom environment where problems and solutions are very
clearly defined
and a world full of complexity and ambiguity on the other and
very much like the real world most managers with them every day
first of all
you will have an opportunity to read articles in view lectures that i hope
you understand the main strategy frameworks
you'll find it these frameworks have some strengths like their simplicity
but also have many weaknesses because they can't fully account for the
complexity of the real world
that's their only tools to help you solve problems
not solutions in and of themselves
you will find that these tools make the most sense and very tightly controlled
classroom environments
second
after giving you conceptual tools and frameworks through articles and lectures
you will have an opportunity to engage with real business cases
these cases are very controlled because you were given a great deal of
information and a very concise package
the cases are also static
that is they deal with the business scenario at a point in time
however they also add significant complexity
some information may be missing
well either information provided maybe irrelevant
the frameworks will likely help you analyze the case
but they may not apply perfectly to the cases you analyze
as you're a case reports
and or come to class prepared to intelligently discuss your analysis of
the case
you'll increase your ability to make sense of a complex world
and drive to the heart of the critical issues
in other words these cases will help you take one step closer
to the real world
in addition to the cases articles and lectures you-all also participate in a
business simulation
as part of the simulation u_n_ a team of other students will develop and
implement a strategy
forcing related file
you will compete with teams made up of your classmates
well the simulation is still a very tightly controlled environment
it adds a dimension of complexity
because it's dynamic
that is market conditions change over time
some of these changes are predictable
well others are not
you will have to create and refine a strategy and execution plan in the face
of a uncertain future
with unpredictable competitors
the simulation will help you gain appreciation for the interconnected
nature of the three legs of the strategy still
as well as the importance of integrated strategy across all operating units
company
there is a quick overview of the course
i'm a strong believer in utilizing precious classroom time for two-way
interactional learning
this means that you will get most of the one-way material from me through online
video lectures and reading assignments
in class will spend our time discussing analyzing and challenging
i certainly hope you enjoy your experience in this course but more
importantly
i hope you learn skills and tools that will help you be successful in life
broadly
but also in your career
the