Who is a master tactician?

A master tactician excels in using the right tactics at the right time, right place and with the right opponent. How his ambit runs? Here are the main highlights about being a master tactician:

In every situation you are in, there are resources further broken into physical resources, human resources, technology and most essentially the time. Planning the allocation of these resources and steering their operationalization depends on the place and the type of enemy one is faced with.

Selecting the right tactics requires the ability to choose the suitable one amongst many that are available and perhaps have probable qualities of being used effectively. Looking at the escalation ladder, an appropriate tactics is cherry-picked based on the premise whether to escalate vertically or horizontally or both together?

Yet the sacred cow is that any and every steps or manoeuvres made must be able to lead one to the achievement of overall strategy. In general, tactical gains by theory do not lead one to achieve business strategy or goals in geoeconomics.

By the way, I have not said anything so far about “opportunity”. The crux of the matter lies in seizing the right opportunity. Master Tactician Sun Tzu just enters the ring with “must do” notions regarding opportunity. One nugget of gold is the following quote: “Opportunities multiply as they are seized”. A word of caution from him subdues us: “You have to get the right opportunity”. Attempting to use sundry opportunities makes you run through your limited resources without getting a positive result. The honorifics is the enemy senses that you are simply desperate.

At the most obvious level, it is the opponent himself who provides you the right opportunity. Sun Tzu concurs with my hypothesis that none other than an opponent gives you prospects to seize upon his weak areas for your own advantages. Put it simply defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself inadvertently, or in many cases foolishly.

Here is an illustration that impacts business strategy amid geoeconomics: America provided the opportunity for China, which was struggling for the last few years to perfect 7 nanometre (nm) microchips in one go when she banned exports of this advanced technology. Surely, necessity is the mother of invention. China put the shoulder to the wheel in developing 7nm chips. Significantly the success she savoured has now rattled America. Contextually 7nm chips account for 90% of semiconductor production and 70% of revenue globally.

 

Cheers!

 

Muthu Ashraff Rajulu

Business Strategist

Mobile: + 94 777 265677

E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com

Blog:   Business Strategist