Strategy as a concept probably arose in relation to military operations. To date, the evolution of strategic thinking has undergone unprecedented changes. The strategy is defined as a set of plans, decisions and objectives that have been adopted to achieve the goals of the organization, and has demonstrated, over time, to be revolutionary, and not only to evolve.
In the last three decades of the 20th century we have seen, in the field of Administration, the advent and disappearance of many theories and fashions that have created styles of strategic management in companies.
These theories were based on the general belief that economies, markets and customers behaved in a logical and predictable way, but the reality was different, companies were stuck in the midst of the rigidity they gave to the business plan, what which became the best recipe for producing business disasters. Before these, new forms of analysis of industrial sectors were created, the best known was that of Michael Porter with his technique for analysis of industrial sectors. Companies that had adopted the notion in vogue in the 1980s that people were an asset suddenly moved to the other extreme and in the 1990s began to handle people as a liability. Just in time, restructuring, reengineering, were the smoke screens to slim down organizations,reducing personnel and costs. Rephrasing CKPrahalad (University of Michigan 1999): «… the reduction in size was like a corporate anorexia, it made us more frugal and slimmer but not necessarily healthier. Fundamentally we needed to grow and we needed to change.
We had to build the future muscle and we were only dedicated to removing the corporate fat ”. Many of the business spasms of the eighties and nineties occurred in those zigzagging management companies, which without further analysis of the situation, went from one fashion to another: they followed the Gurus of excellence and then those of quality, reengineering, competition, to then follow those of change, delegation, renewal, reinvention, downsizing, virtuality, culture, chaos, just-in-time and transformation.
… And what will come next? Analytical tools will continue to provide valuable information for managerial decisions. Having ambitions will continue to be the foundation for motivation and goal setting. Chaos theory will continue to teach us that real life is not made up of a series of interconnected events that happen one after the other and that produce totally predictable events. Today business leaders need a dual strategy: they have to manage their company as efficiently as possible, but simultaneously they have to change it.
Our challenge !!! Create a new smart organizational culture for ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results. Organizations to be competitors today, must change their thinking in response to changes in society, organizations will be successful to the extent that they remain flexible to quickly adapt to a chaotic international environment, they must be more concerned with delegating powers decision to employees and more interest in corporate values and culture.
And what will we call the management style of the new century that has already arrived?
Probably: the style of speed. Philip Kotler says: «… speed will be crucial. Competitors move fast. The appearances of the opportunity in the market are getting shorter and the customers want things now !!! ». Times have changed, markets and companies too and as in Darwin's theory of the evolution of species; Only the strongest will survive, and the strongest companies will be those that develop flexible short and long-term strategies to create and maintain competitive advantages that allow them to succeed in the market.
Conclusions
The evolution of strategic thinking; in the business, tube and will have unprecedented changes, the business ended where we could control, order and predict everything, in this current insecure and unpredictable world the businessman must take very into account; speed, efficiency and effectiveness, not only knowing how to do things well but also knowing what to do and when to do it, training and information, renewal and innovation, permanently creating and recreating new strategies for business, These premises will be decisive to be able to live with honor or die without glory, in the business world in which words such as; reinvent, reposition, rethink, reform, reformulate, reframe and redefine,in a business world where there are no recipes or formulas that serve to survive…
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Recall that IBM was declared dead in 1979 and that companies of the stature of Bank of America, Citicorp, Du Pont, General Motors (GM) and Intel were in intensive care.
Mentioned in the MBA-executive course, 9th version, Organization classes, Universidad Católica del Norte. Antofagasta-Chile.
It is understood as the new postmodern world.
Strategies to adapt to strong technological, economic and market changes
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