Tuesday 31 May 2016

THE DOMAIN OF STRATEGY ~ DR. JIMOH IBRAHIM, CFR

Barrister Dr. Jimoh Ibrahim, CFR
The domain of strategy is the corporation or the organisation. This is what I call the ‘centre of activities.’ This can involve the whole company or any part thereof, particularly in the case of specific restructuring, which may relate to marketing, operations, research and customer loyalty. It is taken for granted, as a general rule, that the organisation provides the general direction in the form of vision, mission, goals, objectives and broad course of action on specific terms of engagement.

Sometimes, the direction of activities may be in the form of competition. Here, things like innovation, accelerated innovation, imitation, resources, skills, and competitive advantage come into practical encounter to accelerate growth or warm activities.

The centre of activities may also be around all stakeholder interests in the form of review of issues arising from employment, communities of operation (CSR), customers, regulators, and investors. It may also be in the form of performance for all measures and time horizons. Here, the key indicators are financial measures, short-term, long-term, or social measures. We deploy the strategic performance unit to coordinate the action booklet for feedback on reflections on management encounter on specific issues in the strategic road map.

The domain of strategy, or in my words, the ‘centre of activities’ of strategic engagement in an organisation is interesting. It is the centre of gravity. And in my view, this is where the opinion of Professor Isaac Newton becomes relevant in the science of management. “For it is now safe to predict that the domain of strategy can only be sustained if the force of the base of support is continuous. This is because an object of the domain of strategy will fall if the centre of its mass lies beyond its base of support.”

The applied force on the object (domain of strategy) must be equal to the rate of change in momentum with time. The force (determination) is necessary to maintain the motion (domain of strategy or centre of activities that will achieve the goals) if all is to be well in the organisation. In military (war) strategy, the force (determination of the soldiers to fight the war) is necessary to maintain the motion (operation to end the war). And when the centre of the mass lies beyond its base of support, it becomes a matter of concern for the capacity to achieve the desired result. What needs to be done is to change tactical approach in the form of increased support for the force (the soldiers) in the form of importation of more combat hardware and massive reforms in the welfare of the soldiers. It may also involve strategic engagement of the geomorphology or a redefined approach to climatology in specific cases. America would not have lost the Vietnam War if it had paid attention to these strategic matters.

The domain of strategy required in this particular case includes, apart from the military tactical strategy, financial measures, long and short term time horizon and some sort of social measures. These are more of priorities than all stakeholder meetings at this time! Strategic engagement in the centre of activities requires the six P’s. For instance, we Plan to win the war with good base support for the gravity of our force; we Position our force for safety; we will build our fort to enemy disadvantage as we Ploy to launch strategic advantage with modern equipment in tactical attack, we Pattern our strategy on capturing the enemy with minimum causality, the Philosophy is that we must end the war. And in doing all of these, our Process must involve effective information management for the benefit of our soldiers and all the stakeholders, for which we require the loyalty of all. The CEO in a management environment must appreciate not only the use of the Six P’s, he must know when to use them.

For instance, you cannot Position in the market when you do not have Philosophy. You cannot Process when you have no Plan. So also, your failure or refusal to Ploy with strategy of innovation will give you competitive disadvantage. A CEO cannot Position in the market when his Process is weak. The Process includes the offshoot of the Plan and the need for effective strategic alignment of the strategic kits.

We cannot run away from Plan, for we already know that the consequence of not planning is actually planning to fail. If we Plan, we must know how to run the plan through the other five Ps. The joy is in the result and the burden is in the lack of knowledge, or not knowing what to do. Those who will do effective strategic alignment and expect effective management of the corporation as a result, and more importantly, those who will drive strategy, must have adequate knowledge of how to engage strategic drivers.

So, the strategist must drive and allocate resources to himself as the General first. The strategist must also know and understand the workings of the Strategist as Architect, the Chess master, the Orchestra Conductor and the Expedition Leader. These attributes will determine whether the strategy will succeed or not. (Nationalmirror)

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