Article Review

Presented to:
Dr. Fazal A. Khalidi
Strategic Management
IoBM

Group Members:
Muneeb Shafqat (13437)
Owais Farooqui (13431)
Ghazanfar Ghani (13410)

Group-5

Article-1
Title:

Why Even Bad Strategy is Worth Doing Well

Writer:
Phanish Puranam, is the Chair Professor of
Strategy & Organization Design at INSEAD.
Published on:
January 21, 2014 (http://knowledge.insead.edu/)

Group-5

Abstract
Good implementation of even a poor strategy
can lead to the discovery of better ones.
This actually refers to what organizational researchers call
bottom-up exploration employee deviations from
official strategy that sometimes result in huge gains for
companies.
We can have example of Apples Graphic Calculator.
Google News, Adense, Gmail etc are all resulted from
letting staff follow their creative thinking & implementing it
effectively regardless if it looks initially less attractive for
the organization.
Group-5

Introduction
Apples Case:

1st Version of Apples Graphic Calculator was cancelled officially

in 1993. However;
Two Freelance developers (Ron & Greg) despite of not getting
any additional pays & benefits for this used their Apple ID
badges to gain unauthorized access to the campus.
They work (in wee hours) for 6 unpaid months until they finished
this project.
This Graphic Calculator software had shipped with an estimated
20 Million Machines.
Group-5

 Google famously allows employees to spend

20 percent of their time on company related
personal projects.
However Author says:
Aggressively pursuing effective
implementation may in fact be very sensible
indeed, but here effectiveness means the
extent to which an Organizations actions
correspond to its strategic intentions.

Group-5

Separation b/w beliefs & Actions

In general, people who come up with strategy & refine
them are not those who implement them.
To study this separation's consequences author built &
use a model: Agent base model
This model involves a Manager & a sub ordinate.
Look for the biggest possible profit by choosing from
range of alternatives through trial & error.
Pick a Strategy Directions from Manager (What to
do) Sub ordinate implements as he understood
Performance Outcome Modification of beliefs
regarding strategy based on the performance
observed.
Group-5

Results & Author's observation

Across a range of conditions it was generally a good
idea to improve the implementation effectiveness of
the subordinate, even when the strategy the manager
chose was not necessarily a good one to begin with.
Learning From Failure Is Success.

Group-5

Learning From Failure Is Success

Two main reason for this phenomenon;
Firstly, bad implementation makes it quite difficult for
companies to learn from failure or success. When a
strategy produces undesirable outcomes, It is difficult
to know whether the problem lies in the strategy itself
or all the deviations in effective implementation?
If the outcome was good, how do we know if it was
indeed because of the strategy?
This could lead a CEO into unfortunate decision-making
based on a confounded impression of the outcome.

Group-5

What you see is what you Get

Results also suggest that firms along with
investing in improving their strategic
implementation, they should also focus on
sharpening their measurement of
implementation effectiveness.
A manager who looks and listens and accurately
interprets implementation effectiveness can be a
greater asset for that firm.

Group-5

Conclusion
Strategy implementation is indeed more
important than strategy formulation.
Authors research strongly implies that money
going towards improving implementation is
not only well-spent by companies as standard
business practice, but it could also be thought
of as an investment towards being innovative

Group-5

10