HIERARCHY OF

STRATEGIC INTENT
Where do you see yourself in 5
years?
◦ Goals
◦ I want to be a business person
◦ I want to be working at an advertising agency
◦ I want to be a marketing professional

◦ Strategic Intent
◦ I will be the best business person in the country/world
◦ I want to work at the best advertising agency of the world
◦ I want to work at the best marketing firm of the world
 Meaning
◦ Refers to the purposes the organization stands for.
◦ Think back: In 1970, few Japanese companies possessed the resource base,
manufacturing volume, or technical prowess of U.S. and European industry leaders.
Honda was smaller than American Motors and had not yet begun to export cars to the
United States. Canon’s first halting steps in the reprographics business looked pitifully
small compared with the $4 billion Xerox powerhouse.
◦ If Western managers had extended their competitor analysis to include these
companies, it would merely have underlined how dramatic the resource discrepancies
between them were.
◦ Honda manufactured almost as many cars worldwide in 1987 as Chrysler. Canon had
matched Xerox’s global unit market share.
◦ The lesson is clear: Assessing the current tactical advantages of known competitors will
not help you understand the resolution, stamina, or inventiveness of potential
competitors.
◦ Sun-tzu, a Chinese military strategist, made the point 3,000 years ago: “All men can see
the tactics whereby I conquer,” he wrote, “but what none can see is the strategy out
of which great victory is evolved.”
◦ As a term ‘Strategic Intent’ was introduced by Hamel and Prahalad in an HBR article
published in 1989.
◦ https://hbr.org/2005/07/strategic-intent

◦ On the one hand, strategic intent envisions a desired leadership position and establishes
the criterion the organization will use to chart its progress. Canon sought to “beat
Xerox.” Honda strove to become a second Ford—an automotive pioneer. All are
expressions of strategic intent.

◦ At the same time, strategic intent is more than simply unfettered ambition. (Many
companies possess an ambitious strategic intent yet fall short of their goals.) The concept
also encompasses an active management process that includes focusing the
organization’s attention on the essence of winning, motivating people by
communicating the value of the target, leaving room for individual and team
contributions, sustaining enthusiasm by providing new operational definitions as
circumstances change, and using intent consistently to guide resource allocations.
◦ Strategic intent captures the essence of winning.
◦ Coca cola- Put a Coke within “arm’s reach” of every consumer in the world.
◦ Tesla- to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport.

◦ Strategic intent is stable over time.

◦ In battles for global leadership, one of the most critical tasks is to lengthen the
organization’s attention span. Strategic intent provides consistency to short-term
action, while leaving room for reinterpretation as new opportunities emerge.

◦ Strategic intent sets a target that deserves personal effort and commitment.
◦ It is hard to imagine middle managers, let alone blue-collar employees, waking up
each day with the sole thought of creating more shareholder wealth. But mightn’t
they feel different given the challenge to “beat Benz”—the rallying cry at one
Japanese auto producer? Strategic intent gives employees the only goal that is
worthy of commitment: to unseat the best or remain the best, worldwide.
Concepts of Stretch, Leverage, and
Fit
◦ Stretch refers to a ‘misfit between resources and aspirations’

◦ Leverage refers to concentrating, accumulating, complementing, conserving and

recovering resources in such a manner that the meagre resource base is stretched to
meet the aspirations that an organization dares to have.

◦ Fit means positioning the firm by matching its original resources to its environment.
“Be realistic!”
◦ Many companies are more familiar with strategic planning than they are with strategic
intent.
◦ The planning process typically acts as a “feasibility sieve.” Strategies are accepted or
rejected on the basis of whether managers can be precise about the “how” as well as
the “what” of their plans.
◦ Are the milestones clear? Do we have the necessary skills and resources? How will
competitors react? Has the market been thoroughly researched?
◦ In one form or another, the admonition “Be realistic!” is given to line managers at
almost every turn.
Building Competitive Advantage
◦ Strategic intent implies a sizable stretch for an organization. Current capabilities and
resources will not suffice. This forces the organization to be more inventive, to make the
most of limited resources.
◦ Whereas the traditional view of strategy focuses on the degree of fit between existing
resources and current opportunities, strategic intent creates an extreme misfit between
resources and ambitions.
◦ Top management then challenges the organization to close the gap by systematically
building new advantages.
VISION- MEANING
AND BENEFITS
Vision
◦ Aspirations expressed as strategic intent, should lead to tangible results, otherwise they
would just be castles in the air.

◦ Vision articulates the position that a firm would like to attain in the distant future.

◦ Kotler (1990) defines it as a “description of something (an organization, a corporate

culture, a business, a technology, and activity) in the future.”

◦ El-Namaki (1992) considers it as a ‘mental perception of the kind of environment an

individual, or an organization, aspires to create within a broad time horizon and the
underlying conditions for the actualization of this perception’.
A Vision should be
◦ An organizational charter of core values and principles
◦ The ultimate source of our priorities, plans and goals
◦ A puller (not pusher) into the future
◦ A determination and publication of what makes us unique
A Vision should not be
◦ A ‘high concept’ statement, motto or literature or an advertising slogan
◦ A strategy or plan and a view from the top
◦ A history of our proud past
◦ Passionless
Benefits of Having a Vision
◦ Good visions are inspiring and Exhilarating
◦ Good visions help in the creation of a common identity and a shared sense of purpose
◦ Good visions foster risk taking and experimentation
◦ Good visions foster long-term thinking
◦ Good visions represent integrity: they are truly genuine and can be used to the benefit
of the people
MISSION
Mission
◦ While the essence of vision is forward-looking view of what an organization wishes to
become, mission is what an organization is and why is exists.

◦ Mission is a statement which defines the role that an organization plays in the society.

◦ It refers to the particular needs of the society. For example, information needs.

◦ A book publisher and a magazine editor will have different objectives, but the same
mission of fulfilling the information needs of the society.
Definition
◦ Thompson (1997) defines mission as the ‘essential purpose of the organization,
concerning particularly why it is In existence, the nature of the business(es) it is in and
the customers its seeks to serve and satisfy’

◦ Hunger and Wheelen (1999) say that mission is the ‘purpose or reason for the
organization’s existence’.
Characteristics of a Mission
Statement
1. It should be Feasible
2. It should be Precise
3. It should be Clear
4. It should be Motivating
5. It should be Distinctive
6. It should indicate major components of Strategy
7. It should indicate how Objectives are to be Accomplished
Activity
◦ Critically analyze the Vision and Mission statements of
◦ 1. Tata Motors
◦ 2. Nykka
◦ 3. Amazon
◦ 4. Reliance Retail

◦ Are these companies working in accordance with their vision and mission statements?
◦ What do these statements tell you about the companies?
BUSINESS DEFINITION
Defining Business
◦ What is our Business? a) Fashion
Accessory
◦ What will it be?
1. Wrist b) Smart
◦ What should it be?
watches Watches

◦ The timekeeping business (watches) 2. Wall c) Luxury

Clocks watches
The transport business
3. Alarm d)
Clocks Analog/
Digital
Dimensions of Business Definition
◦ Derek Abell suggested use of three dimensions to define a business:

◦ 1. Customer Groups- ‘who’ is being satisfied

◦ 2. Customer Function- ‘what’ is being satisfied
◦ 3. Alternative Technologies- ‘how’ is the need being satisfied
Business Model
◦ Business Models are often expressed in the form of a question: How does the
organization make money?
◦ Formally, a business model could be defined as a ‘representation of a firm’s underlying
core logic and strategic choices for creating and capturing value within a value
network’.
◦ Business models have an intimate relationship with the strategy of an organization.
◦ Companies in the same industry, competing with each other, can rely on different
models as a matter of strategic choice.
◦ Business Model as a competitive advantage.
◦ Business Models of Grofers and Big Basket.
Goals and Objectives
◦ Goals denote what an organization hopes to accomplish in a future period of time.
◦ They represent the future state or outcome of the effort put in now.

◦ Objectives are the ends that state specifically how the goals shall be achieved.
◦ They are concrete and specific in contrast to goals that are generalized. In this manner,
objectives make the goals operational.

◦ While goals may be qualitative, objectives tend to be mainly quantitative in specification.

This way they are measurable and comparable.

◦ This fine distinction between goals as broadly stated aims and the objectives as specifically
stated aims is not necessarily maintained in practice by organizations.
Role of Objectives
◦ Objectives define the organization’s relationship with its environment.
◦ Objectives help and organization pursue its vision and mission.
◦ Objectives provide the basis for strategic decision-making.
◦ Objectives provide the standards for performance appraisal.
Characteristics of Objectives
◦ Objectives should be understandable
◦ Objectives should be concrete and Specific
◦ Objectives should be related to a time-frame
◦ Objectives should be measurable and controllable
◦ Objectives should be challenging
◦ Different objectives should correlate with each other
◦ Objectives should be set within constraints