Dynamics of Strategy: When the Invisible Barriers are Naturally Dynamics

In the 10th edition of this newsletter entitled?“Strategy Redefined: The Intelligent Art of Navigation Through the Invisible Barriers,”?it was concluded that the?“Business or Enterprise Strategy”?should be designed based on a deep understanding of the?“Enterprise’s Environment”?and its?“Critical Success Factors”?or the?“Invisible Barrier”?as well as focusing on building?“Core Competencies”?that can match these critical success factors to enable “Intelligent Navigation” through them. It was also discussed in detail in that edition that this should be carried out during the “Strategy Formulation” period.

However, what wasn’t discussed in this previous 10th edition is the “Embedded Nature” of these invisible barriers. Without shading lights on this embedded nature, the reader can typically assume that these barriers are simply constants. However, these barriers are, by definition and naturally,?“Dynamic Barriers.”?This embedded dynamic nature of these invisible barriers means that they are changing with time and have values at the time of the?“Strategy Formulation”?that will definitely change during the?“Strategy Execution and Implementation” period.?This intuitively will add to the initially inherited complexity of the?“Strategic Management”?efforts within any enterprise. However, what is worth mentioning is that these changes are not related only to the typical increase or decrease of the value but also to the direction and rate of changing these values.?

Let us take a simple example to explain these concepts. Building on the same illustrative example used in the previous 10th edition, the market saturation level is an invisible factor, and the decision-makers should first be aware that the market saturation level concept exits, and they should be able to understand how it may act as an invisible barrier to their actions. Taking the proper action means the ability to find the best fit between the actions taken and the environment. This means they should stop investing in their advertising campaigns when market saturation is reached. Taking non-best-fit actions generates resistive responses from the invisible barriers in the surrounding environment. For example, any additional advertising campaigns will be a waste of time and money.

Now let us emphasize the dynamic nature of the market saturation invisible barrier with its three fundamental components, which are the?“Value Changes,”?“Direction of Change,”?and the?“Rate of Change.”?Due to the continuous changes in the enterprise’s macro and micro business environments, increasing the advertising effort and budget will start to result in a slow increase in the positive direction in customer awareness with the enterprise value-added products and services in the first stage. In the second stage, increasing the advertising effort and budget will definitely result in a faster increase in the positive direction of customer awareness. Later on and in the third stage, any increasing the advertising effort and budget will only result in a slow increase in the positive direction of customer awareness again. This is what is simply well-known in the business and management communities as the?“S-Curve for Growth.”?So, the proper actions depend on the deep understanding of not only the existence of the invisible barriers but mainly on their embedded dynamic nature. Just note that not all embedded dynamic natures follow the S-curve shape.

Hence, and to conclude, the?“Business or Enterprise Strategy”?should be designed based on a deep understanding of the?“Enterprise’s Environment”?and its?“Critical Success Factors”?or the?“Invisible Barrier”?as well as focusing on building?“Core Competencies”?that can match these critical success factors and enable?“Intelligent Navigation”?through them. However, this intelligent navigation depends on the deep understanding of not only the existence of the invisible barriers but mainly on their?“Embedded Dynamic Nature.” This is what can be called the "Dynamics of Strategy."