Strategy Process Modes for Growth Initiatives

Companies are increasingly changing approaches in forming Corporate and Business Unit strategies. They are questioning the value of their established strategic planning process and experiment with other modes of strategy making - some companies have even abandoned their strategic planning process. Increasingly, companies seem to focus their attention on strategic initiatives as main vehicles to create and/or sustain competitive advantage.

In this research project, we intend to shed light on
the variety of different strategy making modes companies use and in particular,
the generation and management of (bundles of) strategic initiatives.

Our focus will be on a comparison of the management of growth- and cost-reduction-driven initiatives. This topic entails an under-researched set of phenomena, where most of the evidence remains anecdotal. Thus, we want to invite you and your corporation to participate in a consortium that will advance research on this important subject. Our approach will be to gather a group of 5-8 selected firms interested in the topic, articulate their approaches and draw conclusions about the state of the art. We hope to uncover the mechanisms of success and the causes of failure. This will provide a set of innovative and well-grounded insights that can be applied to the practical challenges faced by you and your corporation in developing strategic growth- and cost-driven initiatives and managing their bundle.

The research project "Strategy Making and Strategic Initiatives" is headed by Prof. Dr. Christoph Lechner and carried out in cooperation with Booz Allen Hamilton (Dr. Jens Schädler). The core project team consists of Markus Kreutzer and two project managers from BAH. To embed it firmly in the relevant knowledge community, a sounding board consisting by Prof. Dr. Müller-Stewens, Booz Allen Strategy Practitioners and Prof. Steven Floyd (University of Connecticut) has been formed.