What is the key skill business strategist must have?

Every business strategist builds up plethora of skills acquired from his learning, experience and strategic thinking. Amongst these specialized skills one overshadows all others. That is identifying the primary purpose. Here is a preview:

Carl von Clausewitz, the master strategist says succinctly in his book “On War”. “The talent of the strategist is to identify the decisive point and to concentrate everything on it, removing forces from secondary fronts and ignoring minor objectives”. There are five takeaways from his statement which let me explain on bottom-up process:

1.  In business strategy, goals are classified into minor and major ones. Most of the time Pareto Theory works and businesses find that they are preoccupied with minor objectives that sap their energy and consume enormous efforts and resources giving out fewer benefits that in most instances do not exceed 20 per centum of expected results.

2. This shortfall in results behove business strategist to weigh in on allocation of resources. In theory wants are more than resources at hand. Therefore, right allocation is vital amid limited and costly resources. Business strategist is now forced to fish out the minor objectives and cut down resources employed in pursuance of achieving these minor objectives.

3. In doing so business strategist must understand that he cannot close the secondary fronts entirely. If that happens opponents would be able to sneak through weak points in flanking attacks. A good example is a gas station that provides gas, oil and lubricants deciding to remove lubricants out of its shelves.

4. Concentrating attention and employing more than required resources to key sector is the open sesame for success of any business. Here there are two aspects: one is the physical and human resources employed on the key sector and the other one is the attention it gets from line managers and corporate bosses who are called upon to put that extra effort to make the key sector do well with an element of competitive advantage. Good example is the play store of the Google.

5. The final take away is to identify the key sector itself. This is going to be tough task. The key sector identified must be attuned to the primary purpose. Clausewitz calls it as “decisive point”. By being decisive means a combination of winning spirit interwoven with the purpose of achieving an advantageous position that provides more benefits than before. Put it other way, a business strategist must grab everything possible from the market and deny his opponents access to big deals. In military parlance this goes as anti-access and area denial (known in shortened form as A2/AD.

 

Cheers!

 

Muthu Ashraff Rajulu

Business Strategist

Mobile: + 94 777 265677

E-mail:   cosmicgems@gmail.com

Blog:   Business Strategist