Markides, C. (2004) "What is strategy and how do you know if you have one" Business Strategy Review, (Volume 15. Issue 2: pages 5 -12). A brief and useful summary on two of these 8 pages.

What is strategy and how do you know if you have one? Strategy bewilders and confuses at every turn. This led the Economist to claim that: "Nobody really knows what strategy is". The chasm at the heart of our knowledge of strategy, argues Costas Markides, requires a return to fundamentals. What is strategy, really? Despite the obvious Not that the confusion is restricted to academics. importance of a superior strategy to the success of If asked, most practising executives would define an organisation and despite decades of research on strategy as "how I could achieve my company's the subject, there is little agreement among objectives". Although this definition is academics as to what strategy really is. From technically correct, it is so general that it is notions of strategy as positioning to strategy as practically meaningless. visioning, several possible definitions are fighting for legitimacy. Lack of an acceptable definition has Needless to say, this state of affairs is opened up the field to an invasion of sexy slogans unfortunate. Perhaps nothing highlights better and terms, all of which add to the confusion and the sad (comical?) state of affairs surrounding state of unease. strategy than the following. What Is strategy and how do you know If you have one? Summer 2004 # Volume 15 Issue 2 Business Strategy Review