1.

Prepare a review note on the article by highlighting how the author has described the issue and
also justify your agreement or disagreement on the frame work of strategic reinvention as
suggested by the author.

This is the article presented by the hardvard business school professor Adam Brandenburger in
2019 business review. In this article i find that the writer has illustrated the four approaches of
building the break through strategies : 1 CONTRAST it is based on the notion that strategist
should identify and challenges the assumption undergirding the company's or industry status quo.
This is the most direct and often the most powerful way to reinvent a business.
2 combination steve job famously said that "creativity is just connecting things" many many
smart business moves come from linking products or services that seem independent from or
even in tension with one another. (3) Constraint. A good strategist looks at an organization’s
limitations and considers how they might actually become strengths. (4) Context. If you reflect
on how a problem similar to yours was solved in an entirely different context, surprising insights
may emerge.

contrast

combination
strategy constrain
from t

context

This map indicates four directions in which to look for creative moves with high strategic impact. The
four directions are: strategy from contrast, strategy from combination, strategy from constraint, and
strategy from context.

Creation, in its most fundamental sense, means bringing something entirely new into existence. Likewise,
creativity is, by definition, about moving away from what already exists. Often, creativity is more or less
defined this way --- as an act of challenge or rebellion,breaking with what has gone before. This is
obviously central to creativity, but it is not the whole picture. Experts on the subject of creativity talk
about various other inputs to the endeavor. Strategists who want to think creatively need a framework to
help them remember and apply a number of these inputs. The 4 C’s map is designed to help strategists do
exactly this.

1 Contrast To crate a strategy built on contrast first identify the assumption implicit in existing
strategies . Perhaps the most prominent current practitioner of strategy from contrast is Elon Musk. He
takes a status quo and directly contradicts one of the assumptions underlying it. The result is a move that
contrasts sharply with convention. Thus, in the early days of the Internet, few people thought it could be
safer to transfer money online compared with the old way of sending checks or money.

2 Combination -Strategies from combination involves looking for connection across traditional
boundaries whether by linking a product or service, two technology and the upstream and the downstream
or other ingredient. Here the creative strategist must challenges the status quo- this time by not just
thinking outside the box but across two or more boxes. In business, too, creative and successful moves
can come from combination. The world of complementary products and services is one important arena in
which these moves are seen. A good example is the complementarity between products and payment
systems. Thus, the Chinese social media platform WeChat (owned by Tencent) includes an integrated
mobile payment platform called WeChat Pay that enables users to buy and sell products within their
social networks. In other combining moves, both Tencent and Alibaba (which owns WeChat Pay
competitor Alipay) are now partnering with overseas payment firms toenable retailers in other countries
to accept their mobile payment services

3 constraints

That constraints can aid creative work and strategy making may seem a bit paradoxical. Lift a constraint
and any action that was previously possible is surely still possible, and likely more is now possible. But
this misses the point that there is not just one way to think in a given situation --- and a constraint may
prompt a whole new line of thinking and doing. Of course, a kind of Goldilocks Principle must apply.
Too many constraints will choke off all possibilities. But few constraints may not always be optimal
either. It seems there is a notion of having just the right number of constraints to spur creativity. Tesla has
not lacked financial resources in entering the car industry, but it does not have the traditional asset of a
dealership network. Rather than get into the business of building such a network, Tesla has turned what
might conventionally have been seen in the industry as a constraint into an opportunity. It has chosen the
different approach of building Apple-like stores with salespeople on salary, and it also sells cars online.
This actually positions Tesla advantageously relative to competitors whose dealers might be conflicted in
promoting electric vehicles over their existing sales base of internal-combustion vehicles. In particular,
Tesla controls its pricing directly, while buyers of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt, a competing electric vehicle,
have encountered large price differences across GM dealers. This attitude toward constraints in business
is very different from that suggested by the classic SWOT analysis. Traditionally, the strategist is
supposed to identify the strengths,weaknesses, opportunities, and threats impinging on an organization.
Appropriate actions to exploit strengths and opportunities, or to mitigate weaknesses and threats, are then
formulated. Thinking in terms of strategy from constraint is different. The strategist again starts with what
appears to be a limitation or weakness but does not take the situation at face value. Instead, the strategist
asks if, viewed or used differently, this weakness can, infact, be turned into a strength. A constraint plus
imagination may yield an opportunity
4 context

This is a classic problem-solving technique. Start with a problem in one context. Look to another context
where there is an analogous problem that has already been solved. Then import the solution into the first
context. Just like good problem solvers, creative strategists know that shifting contexts can be a powerful
stimulus to having new thoughts. Intel did this when it went outside its normal business context to come
up with its famous Intel Inside logo in the early 1990s. The goal was to turn Intel microprocessors into a
branded product, in order to speed up consumers’ adoption of next-generation chips and, more broadly, to
improve the company’s ability to drive the PC industry forward. The idea of a branded ingredient was
well-established in certain consumer product sectors --- famous examples included Teflon and
NutraSweet --- but had not been tried in the world of technology. Intel studied the consumer product
examples and imported the same idea to the hi-tech sector via a novel advertising campaign, successfully
branding what had previously been an invisible component inside a computer.6 In the 2017 Inter brand
ranking of the world’s most valuable brands, Intel came in at number 15, just one place behind Disney.
Context switching can be across industries, as in Intel’s case, or even across time. The development of the
graphical user interface (GUI) for computers was the result of a step backwards in a sense --- from the
text-based context in which programming had grown up to thinking about the highly visual eye-hand
environment in which young children operate. Now, some AI researchers are engaging in a similar
context switch by looking to how children learn in order to build similar processes into machine learning.

Conclusion

In the world of management consulting, aspects of “strategy” and “innovation” have started to converge.
IDEO, the design and innovation powerhouse, has moved into strategy consulting, for example—while
McKinsey has added design-thinking methods to its strategy consulting. This convergence raises an
obvious question: If the distinction between strategy and innovation is less clear than it once was, do we
really need to think carefully about the role of creativity in the strategy-making process?

I believe strongly that the answer is yes. At its core, strategy is still about finding ways to create and
claim value through differentiation. That’s a complicated, difficult job. To be sure, it requires tools that
can help identify surprising, creative breaks from conventional thinking. But it also requires tools for
analyzing the competitive landscape, the dynamics threatening that landscape, and a company’s resources
and competencies. We need to teach business school students—and executives—how to be creative and
rigorous at the same time.

MBA SIXTH TRIMESTER

Name : nabin ghatane

Exam roll no 18220204