VISION

VISION PLUS OPPORTUNISM

Many businesses attempt to have the best of both worlds by engaging in strategic vision and strategic opportunism at the same time.  Strategic opportunism can supplement strategic vision by managing diversification away from the core business and managing the route to achievement of a firm´s vision.  Thus, if Weight Watchers´ vision  is to exploit brand associations by extending its name to other product categories, strategic opportunism can describe the process of selecting the extensions and the order in wich they are pursued.

The combination can and does work.  However, there are obvious risks and problems.  One is that strategic vision requires patience and investment and is vulnerable to the enticements represented by the more immediate return that is usually associated with strategic opportunism.  It is difficult to maintain the persistence and discipline required by strategic vision in any case, even without distractions by alternative strategies that have been blessed as part of the thrust of the organization.

The organizational problem are worse.  It is dificult for one organization to use both approaches well because the systems, people, structure, and culture that are best for one appoach are generally not well-suited for the other.  To create an organization that excels at or even tolerates both is not easy.

A DINAMIC VISION

A model to avoid strategic stubbornness is to have a dynamic vision that can change when the situation evolves.  Of course, visions that are excessivelly dinamic are no longer visions at all, and identifying when a vision should change is most difficult.  It is like the Irishman who, when asked how to get to a turist site outside of Dublin, replied: "Just go straight until you reach Red´s bar just over a bridge.  Half a mile before you get there turn right."  The role of strategic management is to periodically review the vision and to consider creating a new direction for the business.  The result will be a vision-driven organization wich has a vision that is consistent with whatever situation evolves.

DOCUMENTOS DE : OBTAINING A SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE  ADVENTAGE.

"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible."

Sun-Tzu, Chinese Military Strategist