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Get to Know
the Different Definition of Strategy
in order to Prepare Your HR Strategy

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It is hoped such definition of strategy will help you understand better the meaning of 'strategy.' This can become handy when you prepare your human resource management strategy in line with the organizational business plan.

Let us now see how some writers define 'strategy' or describe the situation under which strategies are used.

Michael Porter defines "strategy" in terms of competitive strategy which is 'about being different.' He argues that strategy is being in a competitive position, being different in the eyes of the customer, and adding value through a combination of activities that are different from those of competitors.

Note how "blue ocean strategy" may fit here. (See below)

In "Top Management Strategy", Tregoe and Zimmerman define strategy as:

"the framework which guides those choices that determine the nature and direction of an organization."

This is a perspective definition of strategy. It is said that "strategy...has no existence apart from the ends sought."

George Steiner, considered by many as the father of strategic planning, does not define strategy.

He pointed out:

"certain things such as strategy is what top management consider are very important to the organization, that it refers to purposes and missions, that it consists of important action to achieve the missions, asking the questions 'What should the organization be doing?' and 'what are the ends we seek and how should we achieve them?'".

Definition of Strategy in the Context of Nation Building and Defence
In "The Essentials of Strategy" by Harvard Business School Press (Harvard Business School) it is stated:

In the present-day world, then, "strategy is the art of controlling and utilizing the resources of a nation - or a coalition of nations - including its armed forces, to the end that its vital interests shall be effectively promoted and secured against enemies, actual, potential, or merely presumed."

Definition of Strategy Originated from the Military
Fred Nickols (2000) wrote:

"In business, as in the military, strategy bridges the gap between policy and tactics. Together, strategy and tactics bridge the gap between ends and means."

Tactics are the means by which the strategy is carried out.

He continues:

"Strategy is all these—it is perspective, position, plan, and pattern. Strategy is the bridge between policy or high-order goals on the one hand and tactics or concrete actions on the other. Strategy and tactics together straddle the gap between ends and means. In short, strategy is a term that refers to a complex web of thoughts, ideas, insights, experiences, goals, expertise, memories, perceptions, and expectations that provides general guidance for specific actions in pursuit of particular ends. Strategy is at once the course we chart, the journey we imagine and, at the same time, it is the course we steer, the trip we actually make."

"Kim and Mauborgne's blue ocean metaphor elegantly summarizes their vision of the kind of expanding, competitor-free markets that innovative companies can navigate. Unlike "red oceans," which are well explored and crowded with competitors, "blue oceans" represent "untapped market space" and the "opportunity for highly profitable growth." The only reason more big companies don't set sail for them, they suggest, is that "the dominant focus of strategy work over the past twenty-five years has been on competition-based red ocean strategies"-i.e., finding new ways to cut costs and grow revenue by taking away market share from the competition.

With this groundbreaking book, Kim and Mauborgne - both professors at France's INSEAD, the second largest business school in the world - aim to repair that bias.

Using dozens of examples-from Southwest Airlines and the Cirque du Soleil to Curves and Starbucks-they present the tools and frameworks they've developed specifically for the task of analyzing blue oceans.

They urge companies to use "value innovation" that focuses on "utility, price, and cost positions," to "create and capture new demand" and to "focus on the big picture, not the numbers."

And while their heavyweight analytical tools may be of real use only to serious strategy planners, their overall vision will inspire entrepreneurs of all stripes, and most of their ideas are presented in a direct, jargon-free manner. Theirs is not the typical business management book's vague call to action; it is a precise, actionable plan for changing the way companies do business with one resounding piece of advice: swim for open waters."

There are organizations who believe in this strategy. Many are still using "red ocean strategy," the strategy used by organizations in direct competition against each other.

In red ocean strategy organizations compete with each other trying to outdo and even undermine each other. Some use the words "to overwhelm the opposition."

Others had put forward their own definition of strategy. Check out for future updates.

It follows that HR strategies will depend on the types of business strategies that your organization is using or going to adopt.

Understand your business strategy or strategies and then make your HR plan together with the HR strategies.

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