Every organization is supposed to act as a system that contains many sub-systems. Examples of these subsystems are humans, technology, information, management, etc. The larger the size of the enterprise, the more will be the complexities surrounding the interactions between these subsystems. “Such systems, because of their size and complexity often have human or social considerations that must be accounted for in their design.”
Business strategy refers to the plan to achieve the above-said equilibrium state within an organization which is long-term in nature. “Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations”.
Most of the writers advocate strategy as an unavoidable factor for success, not necessarily a recipe to prosperity, but the absence of which may lead to failure of the business. Thus, “implementation strategy” after its careful selection is very crucial within an organization and perforce intensive care in many areas.
- The generation gap between the managers of the company and its organization-level structures and processes, technology, etc must be minimized.
- Intelligence, knowledge base of the company management, and “competitive intelligence” must be examined regularly to ensure that regular proper corrective and remedial measures are executed from time to time.
- Efforts to be made to gain insights about how employees, especially managers think and behave in the strategy implementation processes.
It is reported that U.S. managers spend more than $10 billion annually on strategic analysis and strategy formulation. Managers themselves report that less than half the plans resulting from these efforts are ever implemented. Outside observers put the success rate even lower at less than 10%.
‘The rubber hitting the road’ refers to the marketing activities- the function which is most critical to organizations, since it generates revenue for business sustenance. Currently, China is pursuing a market-driven policy with a greater emphasis on marketing and promoting private enterprises. This is in sharp contrast with Vietnam, which is a closed economy and has robust governmental intervention in business affairs. In Vietnam, unlike China, the State controls business enterprises and provides business strategies for implementation.