Strategy: Means

To End
IL A SRIVASTAVA
IMB2014024

Strategy
At the heart of strategy is the aim of defeating and gaining victory
over competitors.
Strategy, broadly defined, is the process of interrelating ends and means.
When we apply this process to a particular set of ends and means, the
productthat is, the strategyis a specific way of using specified means to
achieve distinct ends.
Strategy is a high levelplanto achieve one or more goals under conditions
of uncertainty.

Strategy by Igor Ansof

Liddell Hart gives a short definition of strategy: "the art of distributing and
applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy." Deleting the word
"military" from Liddell Harts definition makes it easy to export the concept of
strategy to the business world.
Ansoff made the distinction betweenobjectives as the ends that the firm
was seeking to obtain and strategy as 'the means to these ends.
Hofer and Schendel elaborated this definition of strategy asthe
"fundamental pattern of present and plannedresource deployments
and environmental interactions that indicates how the organization will
achieve its objectives."

Strategy and Ends

Strategy, then, has no existence apart from the ends sought.
It is a general framework that provides guidance for actions to be taken and,
at the same time, is shaped by the actions taken.
This means that the necessary precondition for formulating strategy is a clear
and widespread understanding of the ends to be obtained.
Without these ends in view, action is purely tactical and can quickly
degenerate into nothing more than a flailing about.

A Practical View
When discussing strategy in the abstract, we often treat means and ends as
fixed. In practice, however, we frequently adjust both.
The occurrences of warsuccesses and failures, lessons learned, new ideas,
the entry of new combatantsmay cause us to shift both our means and our
goals.
As our resources increase, as we gain confidence in our abilities, and as we
find our competition more vulnerable than we had imagined, we tend to
expand our goals. On the other hand, when we find our resources or abilities
inadequate, we cut our ambitions to match.
Given time, determination, and creativity; means can be developed to
achieve many reasonable goals. Means are adjustable to some degree at
every level. Moreover, our ends can afect the means available to us.

In Short
Strategy has been borrowed from the military and adapted for
business use.
Strategy is about means. It is about the attainment of ends.
Strategy is concerned with how you will achieve your aims. If strategy
has any meaning at all, it is only in relation to some aim or end in view.
Strategy is one element in a four-part structure.
Ends to be obtained
The strategies for obtaining them, the ways in which resources will be deployed.
The ways in which resources that have been deployed are actually used or
employed.
The resources themselves, the means at our disposal. Thus it is that strategy and
tactics bridge the gap between ends and means.

Thank You