Strategisches Management

Strategy can mean a lot of things. In this module, you'll encounter examples of strategy in action that demonstrate what people mean when they talk about strategy. After completion of the module, you'll be able to: Describe examples of strategy in action; Recognize "strategic situations"; Explain the difference between strategy as "position" and strategy as "capability" (and why that matters).

Historically, strategy consulting and strategic planning have been big business. Companies have spent a lot over the years on sophisticated, high-brow "strategic" consulting. For a long time, consultants were the strategy "high-priests" of business. Until it all fell apart. Many past approaches have now fallen into disfavor, having risen spectacularly and failed even more spectacularly. Indeed, the history of business strategy making could be called a "March of Folly" (historian Barbara Tuchman uses this expression to describe a tendency in human history to repeat the same mistakes, again and again). This module explores what the past can teach us, how we might avoid repeating past mistakes.

In the past several decades, a lot has changed in the world. Many more people and nations (China, India, Russia, etc) have joined the global market economy. The number of Internet users has skyrocketed and continues dramatically upward. Shipping traffic between countries has multiplied and also continues to grow. All this world change has changed the strategy situation of most companies in a big way. It means, for example, that companies in advanced economies have to compete against rivals that have structural cost advantages, because they operate in lower cost parts of the world. This module describes the shifted and shifting strategy landscape, due to the advance of technology and the relentless march of globalization.