Open Warrior

I’ve just started an honours course on business strategy, and one of the requirements of the course is that at the end we write a reflective essay on our initial views on business strategy, and how they’ve changed over the duration of the course. I’ll use this blog to reflect and think about business strategy, and track my changes in mindset over time.So far we’ve only had an introductory lecture, so up till now, most of my thoughts and views are mostly my own and largely uninfluenced.

So what do I think of business strategy?

Well firstly I think that many separate business processes come together to form a business strategy. Some of these business processes are tried, tested, proven to work and can be implemented in a systematic way. However, I think that in many cases, these tried and tested processes need to be adapted to suit a specific business environment. At this stage, a level of understanding of the business is needed, and a critical and logical leader needs to take charge and move forward.

Sometimes however, some of the business processes which form part of the business strategy are not tried and tested. At this stage I think that the business leadership needs to draw on past experiences, case studies and a bit of a “gut feeling” to determine the way forward.

I guess the type of thinking required to form a business strategy can be learned and that’s the motivation for a business strategy class.

I’m sitting in my second lecture and writing this from my phone, so now it’s time to listen and come to understand how business works and how to think critically in developing a business strategy.