A company's
strategy, which today we understand as a regular concept, has its
origins in military strategy. The term strategy comes from the Greek
word stratos (army) and ag (to direct). However, the first time the
strategy concept appeared it was not with the Greeks, but in the book
by Sun Tzu “The art of war”, which I have already refered
to in the introduction of this course.
Looking
for similarities between military strategy and company strategy, we
find the concepts of strategy and tactics. Strategy is superior and
includes tactics. It tries to achieve a decisive advantage over the
enemy. Tactics are directed towards a specific action. With tactics
we win a battle and with strategy we win a war.
For this
reason strategy is very important. Using strategy we make decisions
with the following characteristics:
Important
They
involve significant resources
They
are not easily reversed
Despite
the similarities that we have spoken about between military and company
strategy. There are also important differences between them. In the
military field, the main objective resides in defeating the enermy
to win the war. In the company field you have to co-exist with the
competition rather than eliminating them.
