Research & Development World

  • R&D World Home
  • Topics
    • Aerospace
    • Automotive
    • Biotech
    • Careers
    • Chemistry
    • Environment
    • Energy
    • Life Science
    • Material Science
    • R&D Management
    • Physics
  • Technology
    • 3D Printing
    • A.I./Robotics
    • Software
    • Battery Technology
    • Controlled Environments
      • Cleanrooms
      • Graphene
      • Lasers
      • Regulations/Standards
      • Sensors
    • Imaging
    • Nanotechnology
    • Scientific Computing
      • Big Data
      • HPC/Supercomputing
      • Informatics
      • Security
    • Semiconductors
  • R&D Market Pulse
  • R&D 100
    • Call for Nominations: The 2025 R&D 100 Awards
    • R&D 100 Awards Event
    • R&D 100 Submissions
    • Winner Archive
    • Explore the 2024 R&D 100 award winners and finalists
  • Resources
    • Research Reports
    • Digital Issues
    • R&D Index
    • Subscribe
    • Video
    • Webinars
  • Global Funding Forecast
  • Top Labs
  • Advertise
  • SUBSCRIBE

Are You Strategic?

By R&D Editors | August 20, 2008

Here are three principles to help managers climb the “strategic” summit.

1. Create Differentiation. What do Johnny Cash and the Mini-Cooper automobile have in common? Johnny Cash didn’t have the best singing voice and the Mini-Cooper isn’t the highest performance automobile on the market. However, they have both been remarkably successful, not because they were “better,” but because they were different from their competition in ways their core customers valued.

Strategic leaders are continually asking two questions:

  • What are the different activities we’re performing than our competition?
  • What are the similar activities we’re performing in a different way than our competition?

2. Focus Resources. Good leaders cannot afford to act like Farmer Brown. In the morning Farmer Brown hops on the tractor and spreads fertilizer evenly across the crops in hopes that everything will grow. Strategic leaders don’t spread their resources evenly across the business in hopes that everything will grow as well. If they do, their business will ironically end up in the same state as Farmer Brown’s fertilizer. Strategy is as much about what you choose not to do, as it is about what you do. Focus requires trade-offs and trade-offs require risk. Those leaders not willing to take risks will never make it to the top of the strategic summit.

Two questions to begin thinking in terms of focus:

  • What potential offerings have we chosen not to provide to customers? 
  • Which potential customers have we chosen not to serve?

3. Design Systems. From the coral reefs of Cozumel, Mexico to the Amazon rain forests to our own bodies, life is comprised of systems. Strategy is no different. Great strategies are comprised of a system of activities that tightly fit together and act as a shield to competitors attempting to copy your successful business. If you only have one activity that makes up your strategy, the chance a competitor can successfully copy it is quite high. However, the more activities you build into your strategy, the more difficult it becomes for competitors to copy each and every one of them including the relationships they have with one another.

Strategic leaders ask two questions relative to their system of strategy:

  • What are the three to five strategic themes that we are going to build our system of strategy around?
  • Which activities or tactics will strongly support the strategic themes we are basing our business on?
  •  

Soul Searching or Truly Knowing?

Organizations can continue to operate in first gear with only a handful of people strategically contributing to the business or they can tap into the deep reservoir of insights that are waiting to be awakened in managers at all levels. Developing managers into truly strategic leaders begins with the proper assessment of their strategic thinking.

Rich Horwath is an author, speaker and strategy trainer who helps organizations develop their leaders’ strategic thinking skills to achieve competitive advantage. He is the president of the Strategic Thinking Institute, a former Chief Strategy Officer and professor of strategy at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Rich is the author of three business strategy books, including his most recent, “Strategy Espresso.” www.strategyskills.com

 

 

Related Articles Read More >

6 essentials for seismic rated cleanrooms
Critical Spaces Control Platform
Phoenix Critical Spaces Control Platform uses automation to direct airflow
Endiatx
Endiatx aims to boldly go beyond traditional endoscopy and, eventually, redefine surgical scale
FMN Laboratory researcher in a cleanroom
Take our quiz to test your cleanroom IQ, covering everything from ISO Classes to ULPA filtration
rd newsletter
EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND STAY CONNECTED
Get the latest info on technologies, trends, and strategies in Research & Development.
RD 25 Power Index

R&D World Digital Issues

Fall 2024 issue

Browse the most current issue of R&D World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Clip, share and download with the leading R&D magazine today.

Research & Development World
  • Subscribe to R&D World Magazine
  • Enews Sign Up
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing
  • Global Funding Forecast

Copyright © 2025 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search R&D World

  • R&D World Home
  • Topics
    • Aerospace
    • Automotive
    • Biotech
    • Careers
    • Chemistry
    • Environment
    • Energy
    • Life Science
    • Material Science
    • R&D Management
    • Physics
  • Technology
    • 3D Printing
    • A.I./Robotics
    • Software
    • Battery Technology
    • Controlled Environments
      • Cleanrooms
      • Graphene
      • Lasers
      • Regulations/Standards
      • Sensors
    • Imaging
    • Nanotechnology
    • Scientific Computing
      • Big Data
      • HPC/Supercomputing
      • Informatics
      • Security
    • Semiconductors
  • R&D Market Pulse
  • R&D 100
    • Call for Nominations: The 2025 R&D 100 Awards
    • R&D 100 Awards Event
    • R&D 100 Submissions
    • Winner Archive
    • Explore the 2024 R&D 100 award winners and finalists
  • Resources
    • Research Reports
    • Digital Issues
    • R&D Index
    • Subscribe
    • Video
    • Webinars
  • Global Funding Forecast
  • Top Labs
  • Advertise
  • SUBSCRIBE