Within the administrative theory it is a law that the structure follows the strategy (CHANDLER). But who guides the strategy?… Without a doubt, it is almost always ignored that a strategy is guided by the environment where the company operates. The type of strategy to be used will depend on the complexity and turbulence of the environment where the organization operates. Ford's Model T strategy, which successfully flooded the global car market, was very successful for the low-turbulent environment of its time. The valid “give them any color as long as it's black” strategy that led the Ford owner to success for nearly forty years, prevented them from seeing the forest and resisted perceiving changes in the environment.Consumers wanted cars of various colors and competitors like General Motor oriented their strategy towards the new reality and the rest is familiar history in the war of the automobile business.
What is the starting point of the strategy?it is the environment. The systemic approach of organizations is a new paradigm that breaks traditional truths, aims at the rational and correct formulation of organizational strategy. Much “closed” organizational systems are demonized, these were a paradigm for their time since they responded adequately to their environment, they achieved their objectives; Or perhaps organizations like Ford, typewriter manufacturers, the Christian church, etc., did not achieve their objectives under the “closed” systems where they operated? What happens is that the environment in which they operated was stable and if changes occurred within the supersystems (environment) they were irrelevant to affect the entire system of organizations.But by not having considered the strategies according to the environment, Ford was almost destroyed by its competitors, by not knowing how to guide itself according to the changes in the environment, the typewriter manufacturers were destroyed and displaced.
In the current era, the variables of the environment where organizations operate have become more changeable, requiring dynamic organizations that respond quickly to the variability of the environment, in order to overcome the limits of survival.
The environment variable that has had the most impact on organizations and has forced them to change their paradigms are information technology and ICT communications. The great wall has been demolished, hierarchical organizations are curiosities of the past, new organizations are being raised today on its rubble. The new organization that has been reborn today is open and interconnected and the enabling technology is ICTs. In the new reality, business or national competitiveness can only be achieved through open, interconnected and globalized organizations. The competitive advantage that business leaders dream so much can only be achieved through ICTs, because Information technology creates and adds value to the company.
The information technology IT and communication are the cause of changing business paradigms. ICTs are the enabling technology for the great transformation from hierarchical organization to expanded organization, an open and interconnected organization capable of coping with global competition.
Company The internal information systems of the no longer extended organization add value to the company. The linking of the company with its suppliers, distribution channels and clients (CRM) through the intercompany computing network are what are creating value in the company.
The new company with its extended reach technology makes the. rethinking relationships with external organizations. Inter-company computing systems begin to dialogue with each other. The manual value chain from suppliers to customers becomes an electronic value network, also linking like-minded groups and even competitors.
The new paradigm of information technology is creating a myth to the pyramidal organizations that characterized the standardized production company. In the new company, most of the coordination of activities is more horizontal than vertical. Instead of a pyramid, the structure of a high-value company looks more like a spider web; where the points of intersection of the network often have sufficient autonomy to create connections with other networks, there is no concept of internal or peripheral within the organization, but only different distances with respect to its center.
According to the wise deduction of A. Chandler, if the strategy guides the structure, the strategy is guided by the environment. And in the new reality the customer's need (CRM), ICT information technologies and the global economy are the most dynamic components of the environment that must be taken into account when establishing our expanded business strategy. If not, our companies will disappear like the companies that were dedicated to making typewriters. Whether a company has a good or bad strategy will depend on a correct analysis of the environment variables.
