Strategy As an Egoistic Concept
Do you care for your customers?
Do you like self-checkouts in supermarkets? I don’t. Using them feels like doing somebody else’s job without getting any additional benefits.
Do people like IKEA? They apparently do. Since the company opened the store in Ljubljana, where I live, a few years ago, customers have purchased thousands of pieces of furniture there.
But why do people love buying heavy brown boxes with pieces of chipboard and spending hours assembling them and don’t like self-service checkouts?
Because IKEA makes it clear that it cares about them, but grocery store chains don’t.
The winner takes it all
Roger Martin is deservedly famous for being one of the most prominent strategic thinkers on the planet. He is renowned for his Where To Play / How To Win strategic framework.
I will not delve into the details of the concept, but the title speaks for itself. It is a tool that aims to help a company ‘win’ in the market race.
That’s how Roger Martin and many other old-school strategists …