Without a doubt, the terms strategy and competitiveness sound complex to understand, even for that experienced businessman. He who considers these concepts in their entirety, has surely contemplated the various courses of action that a company must take to increase its market share, or allow a marked positioning of its products in all its business lines.
Analyzing and understanding a business is a task that involves significant effort, a task that includes and involves the entire organization. The growing and complex demands of the context demand the existence of a new entrepreneurial attitude based on an integrated vision that combines economic and non-economic aspects (social, psychological and cultural). In simple terms, to be successful, a strategy must aim at a level of competitiveness that exceeds the merely economic. Any business can yield profits for a period of time, but to what extent will it be possible to maintain a high business profile only with numbers without much meaning?
The answer is as follows: to the already accepted vision of competitiveness, understood as a commercial and economic phenomenon, a flexible conception of strategy and organization must be added, specifically its human resources. For this reason, to the already accepted vision of competitiveness is added organizational, human competitiveness, made up of the effort and work of human capital, and corporate social responsibility, a phenomenon that seeks constant value creation, pursuing the same time social welfare. Following Armando Enrique Bertagnini's line of thought, we arrived at a complete and dynamic conception of what must be taken into account to formulate a competitive strategy.
Mainly, 3 groups of interrelated variables must be considered:
- The strategy: corresponds to politics and makes the phenomena of power and the commitment of resources. Individual and group behavior: the concrete manifestation of culture at the micro level, that is, at the entrepreneurial level. Administration as a rational element: seeks to optimize the results of the company from an adequate allocation of resources.
From the interaction between these variables, strong and weak links are produced. While strong relationships correspond to ties of deep interdependence, weak relationships indicate a lesser degree of interdependence, but still significant enough.
A competitive strategy must consider the following:
- The vision: the desired company as a not so unattainable utopia; the live interaction of long-term economic, social and psychological objectives. The mission: the space where the vision operates, that is, what the business is about and what technical and technological resources are used in it. The strategy itself: the way the company connects with the markets, who its customers are, how it reaches them and how it competes. It includes both the corporate strategy focused on the degrees of diversification, internationalization and integration of business and competencies, as well as the specific strategy of each business unit. Policies: the regulatory framework that guides the actions of a company. Culture: that set of values, shared beliefs,and basic assumptions as well as the attitudes and aptitudes that manifest them; language, behavior, and communication. Intangible resources: the way to approach the strategy (offensive or defensive, persistent or changing) and the scope it has, that is, the definition of the degree of diversification desired and the intensity with The one that intervenes each business unit in the formulation of the organizational strategy. The tangible resources: fixed assets, inventories and money. The organization per se: the structure and its composition, the management model understood as those criteria used to take decisions, the role of informatics and administrative processes.persistent or changing) and its scope, that is, the definition of the degree of diversification desired and the intensity with which each business unit intervenes in the formulation of the organizational strategy. Tangible resources: fixed assets, inventories and money.The organization per se: the structure and its composition, the management model understood as those criteria used to make decisions, the role of informatics and administrative processes.persistent or changing) and its scope, that is, the definition of the degree of diversification desired and the intensity with which each business unit intervenes in the formulation of the organizational strategy. Tangible resources: fixed assets, inventories and money.The organization per se: the structure and its composition, the management model understood as those criteria used to make decisions, the role of informatics and administrative processes.the management model understood as those criteria used to make decisions, the role of informatics and administrative processes.the management model understood as those criteria used to make decisions, the role of informatics and administrative processes.
There is no formula that leads to sure success; Many companies have not been able to define even half of the variables mentioned, and are still in the market. If it is true that the clearer these variables are defined, the greater the organizational credibility of the company, the better the operability of its production and business processes, and the more it will be able to target specific objectives.
In particular, I consider that success depends on how we manage to manipulate this extensive set of variables; how we manage to place each piece on a chessboard so that each one fulfills its mission as expected. Using the teachings of great teachers, theorists and pragmatists, I consider that a competitive strategy will be one that manages to manipulate the various variables described and is consistent in:
a) Its management: how to manage organizational behavior
b) The way to guide the definition and business model to highly complex contexts: prevent stagnation and obsolescence of good business practices.
c) Manage the functioning of the organizational structure, decision-making and empowerment.
d) Generate an adequate interaction between the management model (government and business processes) and the information systems, to achieve the effective implementation of the strategy and its feedback.
e) Effectively manage change, identifying its roots, perceiving its sense of urgency and consciously managing its consequences.
A competitive strategy will be one that manages to combine these aspects with the totality of the distinctive capabilities of the organization, that is, that which differentiates the organization from the rest and which is not only a resource, but something difficult to imitate and is not exhausts.
It would be, in simple terms, going from the (internal) organizational resources to the (external) market.
Managers must not forget that business management must not only maintain a solid and systemic methodological scheme. Effective managers spend most of their time as a team with other people, both their peers and their subordinates, they chat about various topics (related to business strategy and other remotely associated issues), constantly question themselves, start big discussions, joke, they do not attempt to directly influence the behavior of others, they work long hours with great effort and dedication. This unsystematic behavior, where many of their tasks are not stipulated, is difficult to frame, but nevertheless, they allow the creation of value inside and outside the organization. Continuously improving the elements that make up the company's value chain will not be an easy task,but the active interaction between the main functional areas (understood production - design and improvement of operations; finance - accounting and auditing; marketing - positioning, communication, product, promotion and distribution; human resources - training and development), will facilitate this task.
If we can define a competitive strategy that meets these characteristics, we will get closer to what Kim and Mauborgne have called a blue oceans strategy. A strategy based on value innovation whose purpose is to combine generic cost leadership and differentiation strategies, offering products at strategically accessible prices that ensure the effective capture of value in a space not exploited by the market.
