Strategy Management

Aftab KHAN
Aftab.khan@hesge.ch
09/01/2020
Recap of strategy
• https://youtu.be/XgpXxjGNnQU
The future of strategy: old wine in
a new bottle?
Begins with three principles:
• Draw inspiration from the future: look to fundamental trends,
collect data in the form of facts, figures and stories
• Be organisationally inclusive: good strategy does not cascade
from the apex of the authority structure to its base. It should be
organisationally comprehensive, inclusive and engaged.
• Take a portfolio approach: the focus is competitive advantage
but this does not lasts long: rather than a single strategy, a
portfolio of competitive opportunities should be continuously
under revision in terms of goals and environment.
Business strategy and social
commitment

• Reconciling business performance with social progress:

“Market has pushed out social values” – K Polanyi (The great
transformation)
“businesses are going to play as much or more of a role in our
progress as the government” – J. Diamon (Guns, Germs and Steel,
1997)
What does this mean for strategy?:
• Inflection points? : A strategic inflection point is a time period
when an organization must respond to disruptive change in the
business environment effectively or face deterioration
• Leadership?: what kind of leadership we ought to pursue
• Capitalism?: what does this mean for capitalism? A hyper
globalised business environment.
Capitalism & social values..

F Hayek

Douglas North

Wealth is property rights and Price mechanism

accumulation of property

Information
Incentives
But prices can be incomplete,
incorrect and imperfect
• What is the price of health?
• What is the price of fresh air?
• What is the price of human life?
• What is the price of sources of clean water?
A third factor of production?
Imagination
And from where the imagination is coming from?
Pain/problem/suffering

Watanabe, Tokota
Where is the future of markets?
• Product market: a higher tendency to pay more by the customer
for the products/firms whose who are doing the “right” thing
• Labour market: millennials and younger generations are more
willing to work not only for money but for a meaning
• Capital market: More than 50% mutual funds/ pention funds
(CH) are investing in socially responsible companies, its shows in
Price/earning ration and portfolio holding
As for leadership…(CEO)
• Two critical questions:
 Are we imagining or are we only executing?
 Are we going to be an agent of progress or we will condemn to be the
slave of “profit maximization”.
Sustainable Strategy: video
• Sustainable Futures

https://youtu.be/T3pQFInfeqY