Discussion: View Thread

1. I�m developing a new course (US) / paper (NZ),
�International Business Strategy & Tactics�. Looking
over the syllabuses and syllabi publicly available on
the web, there doesn�t seem to be much consideration
of tactics.

One would assume that considering the levels of
analysis of �Transnational�, international, and
domestic, papers dealing with tactics, from an
international business point of view would consider
tactics to be business strategy & tactics at the
domestic level. Do the strategic and tactical
principles of managing resources, competition and
customer segments within a domestic market apply to
countries? Are countries larger, more complex resource
bases with more (or fewer) competitors and customer
segments? Can the same process principles be applied
to managing business in sets of countries as domestic
businesses?

2. Do countries matter at all? Ethnic groups have
governing rules, policies, and practices similar to
national governments, and ethnicity frequently crosses
national boundaries. (However, I�m always drawn back
to Prof. Ronald Inglehart�s World Values Survey
conference presentation I heard in 2001, that
proximity matters, e.g., Catholics in Holland have
values more similar to Protestants in Holland than
they do to Catholics in Spain.)

3. I�m familiar with the Bartlett, Ghoshal &
Birkenshaw Transnational Management discussion of
�country management� and �country manager�, which is a
good place to start.

4. Anyone have a reference or module already developed
that deals specifically with IB tactics, e.g., across
and within countries?

Food for Thought:

A. Roosen (2002), below: �The definitions make his
critics' error clear. Strategy is 'any long-term
plan', which will be the product of 'the art of
conducting a campaign and manoeuvring an army.'
Tactics are 'purposeful procedure' achieved by
exercising 'the science or art of manoeuvring in
presence of the enemy'. The two are as close as
Siamese twins. Companies need the twin skills - those
of the strategist, who can select the right long-term
objectives and envisage the means that will reach
those goals: and those of the tactician, who will
deploy those means in a series of manoeuvres - short,
medium and long-term - to achieve the desired ends.�

B. Your strategy determines your tactics which define
your actions. � Anon.

C. "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle;
strategy is the art of using battles to win the war"
Karl von Clausewitz - "On War".

D. �Some of French Marshal Bertheir's operational
instructions for staffs and chiefs of staff were as
follow:
-chief of staff must see everything that comes in and
sign or at least approve everything that goes out
-speed and accuracy are the most important factors in
staff work
-up to the minute intelligence on enemy forces and
actions must always be available
-the commander of the army must always be told the
truth (no matter how unpleasant the result may be) by
his chief of staff.�
(Source: Elting, "Swords Around a Throne", 1997, pp
82-83)

E. More on �A.� above, interesting www paper:

Tactical Magic
Kurt Roosen, Senior Consultant, PDMS Consulting
November 2002
http://www.pdms.com/infocentre/articles/tacticalmagic.xml

Have you noticed that much business terminology and
planning seems to revolve around military style issues
of strategic objectives and tactical solutions? This
does make a lot of sense, in that military campaigns
at a high level can certainly be seen as the most
extreme form of 'competition'. But, in lifting these
principles from their military roots are we distorting
them outside their original context? Let us examine
the original definitions back within their home
territory:

Tactics is the science and art of handling troops and
military units in the presence of the enemy. By
extension, it can mean any manoeuvring or adroit
device to accomplish a goal. The adjective form is
tactical. As an illustration, the military term
tactical unit refers to the largest group of troops or
troops and equipment that can be directed by a single
officer.
Strategy is the study or science of military position
on a broad scale for winning in a war. The adjective
form is strategic. Stratagem is a manoeuvre designed
to deceive and outwit an enemy in war. By extension,
it can refer to any action designed for obtaining an
advantage.
In other words the two terms are complimentary with
the strategy defining the 'bigger picture' or overall
objectives while tactics are specific logical
breakdown of practical actions. Therefore, tactics
determine the method to reach the end goal, and
strategy defines the parameters and boundaries that
these should follow - fine so far. However, put this
into a business context and generally the two are
purposely detached. It is often cited that a company
has an overall strategy but that the current work is a
'tactical solution' to deal with a specific problem.
The implication here is that this solution is somehow
a distraction from the strategy when it should
actually be a contributor to its progression.

This may seem a very subtle distinction, but thinking
that tactics as entirely separate from strategy can be
destructive to the overall development of the
organisation. Nothing should ever be taken as fixed
and immovable, so acceptance that tactical solutions
are a necessary flexibility within the dynamics of an
overall strategy is what will make a strategy relevant
to the world around it.

IT Strategy is often the place where this goes
drastically wrong because the dynamics of the
marketplace is such that long term technical
strategies quickly become out of date and financial
and resourcing constraints limit how far and how fast
you can move towards utopia. 'Tactical Solutions' are
then chastised as the 'quick and dirty fixes' that
move you further away from your goals. However, what
people are missing here is that no solution should be
put in without a need and if that need exists it
should be part of the strategy to accommodate it.
Conversely, holding out for the perfect solution
hampers the business in the short term and may
actually lead to nothing at all being achieved. Where
the backdrop is dynamic, the fast small steps are more
correctable than the slow long ones. Therefore,
instead of the strategy defining low and medium level
objectives let it go back to its military role as the
'overseer' of a framework of protocols in which
tactics can prosper. There should be no harm in
letting the immediate demands of the business be met
as long as each step provides something, however
small, as an addition towards the end objectives
defined by the strategy.

One demand of this approach, however, is that this
flexibility of delivery works within known boundaries
of perceived value. If you are expecting to have a
relatively high turnover of systems, then you need to
consider the cost of this, both in terms of physical
cost and installation and also in the cost of change
within the organisation. Put into context, you need to
determine the ratio of cost against life in service
that is acceptable in each circumstance. This
generally ends up being calculated as a monetary value
- Return on Investment or ROI. This is increasingly
difficult to ascertain in a strategic environment as
the benefits are usually very difficult to quantify as
they are expressions of efficiency or market
positioning. However, you do find that tactical
solutions tend to have a focus on a specific need and
hence subdivision of the strategy in this way means
that the small benefits that you accrue from the
tactical solution do not need to be justified in
themselves to take the process forward - you 'ride on
the back of the wave'.

One other realignment of thinking process is required
to complete this picture. By association, tactical
solutions are considered to be 'throwaway' as they are
not part of the strategic direction. While the latter
part of this should not be true, the 'throwaway'
aspect is actually something that needs to be
formalised - how much money should you consider
disposable and truly solutions driven? There is an
easy, rule of thumb way to calculate this if you are
operating within a formalised Programme or Project
Management environment.

Consider all the people who need to be involved in the
decision making and signoff process for a project and
total their annual salaries. It is reasonable to
assume a minimum number of days that will be spent in
management time for each item that is proposed. If the
cost of management time exceeds the cost of the
project then it should not be a project. This seems
obvious, but it is surprising how many people do not
formally quantify this. In my experience you can
expect a minimum of three days to be spent by each
decision maker over the course of a year on each
project, regardless of how small it is. To work this
example this would give you a dividing factor of 75
(assuming 220 working days a year) - hence three
decision makers at �35,000pa would total �105,000pa
divided by 75 equals �1,400.

This figure you should formally define as your
'Pain-Gain Boundary' which is the limit of expenditure
below which the formalised process does not take
place. This not only affords the ability to be dynamic
at the lower end of the process, but will also
dynamically alter to fit the profile and importance of
the decision makers, and the decision making process,
over time.
So, what conclusion do we draw from this? Firstly that
we should not allow strategic and tactical thinking to
be opposed, but rather to act in unison. Secondly we
should allow tactical solutions to be event driven,
but nudge the solution, gently, in the direction of
the strategic endgame.

Finally words from the writings 'The Art of War' by
Sun Tzu (544-496BC) who defined the science of
strategy: '...the victorious strategist only seeks
battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who
is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards
looks for victory'.


PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
hppt://www.leadershipvalues.homestead.com/
"Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
Romie F. Littrell, PhD, An f�na� fi�in
Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/





___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Romie,

Great quotes on strategy vs. tactics. A piece missing is the corresponding
breakdown between goals and objectives.

(I did a survey on several listservs a few years back. 80% say goals are
bigger, longer term, more durable, and objectives may change with plan year.
10% said the reverse. 10% said "Who cares?")

One perspective: Strategies are to goals as tactics are to objectives.
Simply a scaling down.

Another perspective: Goals nest. Marketing goals fit under the umbrella of
corporate goals and logically must be compatible. Thus marketing objectives
always (ha ha ha) fit within corporate objectives.

Another: What is strategic at project level is tactical at corporate level
because the goals/objectives are so minor in comparison. (War vs. battle
viewpoint)

Another: Strategists decide what to do. They answer, "Why?" with goals and
objectives. Tacticians decide how to do it. They answer "How?" with
processes and methods. (Leaders are strategic; managers are tactical.)

We are all strategies. If our customers or employers can reach objectives
better using a different strategy, we will be fired.

Another: Goals are never reached. They are strategic directions.
Objectives had sure as hell better be reached, or someone will have their
feet to the fire.

Strategies define organizations. If "product development" is a corporate
strategy, then there will be a "Product Development" department with its VP.
If portfolio management is a product-development strategy, then there will
be portfolio managers in the hierarchy.

Then there are the organizations that use "strategic objective" as a
substitute for strategy. Try looking at the language of some federal
agencies. They simply will not state a measurable objective because they
would then be accountable. So they fudge the language. A "goal" is an
ongoing action, like "research" for a federal lab. (Anywhere in business, a
goal is a result, not a process.) Others define an important process to be
performed as a "strategic goal."
----------
I swear that a solid chunk of our national inefficiency is weak or
conflicting understanding (at best) of goals, objectives, strategies, and
tactics.

Best to all,

Gary

--
Change agent skills
are as important to individual success
as are professional discipline skills.

Gary Lundquist
303-840-9929 GaryL@Market-Engineering.com
Editor - The Colorado Innovation Newsletter
www.ColoradoInnovation.blogs.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Romie Littrell
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 12:40 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Education in IB tactics

A. Roosen (2002), below: “The definitions make his
critics' error clear. Strategy is 'any long-term
plan', which will be the product of 'the art of
conducting a campaign and manoeuvring an army.'
Tactics are 'purposeful procedure' achieved by
exercising 'the science or art of manoeuvring in
presence of the enemy'. The two are as close as
Siamese twins. Companies need the twin skills - those
of the strategist, who can select the right long-term objectives and
envisage the means that will reach those goals: and those of the tactician,
who will deploy those means in a series of manoeuvres - short, medium and
long-term - to achieve the desired ends.”

B. Your strategy determines your tactics which define
your actions. – Anon.

C. "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle;
strategy is the art of using battles to win the war"
Karl von Clausewitz - "On War".

D. “Some of French Marshal Bertheir's operational
instructions for staffs and chiefs of staff were as
follow:
-chief of staff must see everything that comes in and
sign or at least approve everything that goes out
-speed and accuracy are the most important factors in
staff work
-up to the minute intelligence on enemy forces and
actions must always be available
-the commander of the army must always be told the
truth (no matter how unpleasant the result may be) by
his chief of staff.”
(Source: Elting, "Swords Around a Throne", 1997, pp
82-83)

E. More on “A.” above, interesting www paper:

Tactical Magic
Kurt Roosen, Senior Consultant, PDMS Consulting
November 2002 http://www.pdms.com/infocentre/articles/tacticalmagic.xml

Have you noticed that much business terminology and
planning seems to revolve around military style issues
of strategic objectives and tactical solutions? This
does make a lot of sense, in that military campaigns
at a high level can certainly be seen as the most
extreme form of 'competition'. But, in lifting these
principles from their military roots are we distorting
them outside their original context? Let us examine
the original definitions back within their home
territory:

Tactics is the science and art of handling troops and
military units in the presence of the enemy. By
extension, it can mean any manoeuvring or adroit
device to accomplish a goal. The adjective form is
tactical. As an illustration, the military term
tactical unit refers to the largest group of troops or
troops and equipment that can be directed by a single
officer.
Strategy is the study or science of military position
on a broad scale for winning in a war. The adjective
form is strategic. Stratagem is a manoeuvre designed
to deceive and outwit an enemy in war. By extension,
it can refer to any action designed for obtaining an
advantage.
In other words the two terms are complimentary with
the strategy defining the 'bigger picture' or overall objectives while
tactics are specific logical breakdown of practical actions. Therefore,
tactics determine the method to reach the end goal, and strategy defines the
parameters and boundaries that these should follow - fine so far. However,
put this into a business context and generally the two are purposely
detached. It is often cited that a company has an overall strategy but that
the current work is a 'tactical solution' to deal with a specific problem.
The implication here is that this solution is somehow a distraction from the
strategy when it should actually be a contributor to its progression.

This may seem a very subtle distinction, but thinking
that tactics as entirely separate from strategy can be destructive to the
overall development of the organisation. Nothing should ever be taken as
fixed and immovable, so acceptance that tactical solutions are a necessary
flexibility within the dynamics of an overall strategy is what will make a
strategy relevant to the world around it.

IT Strategy is often the place where this goes
drastically wrong because the dynamics of the
marketplace is such that long term technical
strategies quickly become out of date and financial
and resourcing constraints limit how far and how fast
you can move towards utopia. 'Tactical Solutions' are
then chastised as the 'quick and dirty fixes' that
move you further away from your goals. However, what
people are missing here is that no solution should be
put in without a need and if that need exists it
should be part of the strategy to accommodate it.
Conversely, holding out for the perfect solution
hampers the business in the short term and may
actually lead to nothing at all being achieved. Where
the backdrop is dynamic, the fast small steps are more correctable than the
slow long ones. Therefore, instead of the strategy defining low and medium
level objectives let it go back to its military role as the 'overseer' of a
framework of protocols in which tactics can prosper. There should be no harm
in letting the immediate demands of the business be met as long as each step
provides something, however small, as an addition towards the end objectives
defined by the strategy.

One demand of this approach, however, is that this
flexibility of delivery works within known boundaries
of perceived value. If you are expecting to have a
relatively high turnover of systems, then you need to
consider the cost of this, both in terms of physical
cost and installation and also in the cost of change
within the organisation. Put into context, you need to determine the ratio
of cost against life in service that is acceptable in each circumstance.
This generally ends up being calculated as a monetary value
- Return on Investment or ROI. This is increasingly
difficult to ascertain in a strategic environment as
the benefits are usually very difficult to quantify as
they are expressions of efficiency or market
positioning. However, you do find that tactical
solutions tend to have a focus on a specific need and
hence subdivision of the strategy in this way means
that the small benefits that you accrue from the
tactical solution do not need to be justified in
themselves to take the process forward - you 'ride on
the back of the wave'.

One other realignment of thinking process is required
to complete this picture. By association, tactical
solutions are considered to be 'throwaway' as they are
not part of the strategic direction. While the latter
part of this should not be true, the 'throwaway'
aspect is actually something that needs to be
formalised - how much money should you consider
disposable and truly solutions driven? There is an
easy, rule of thumb way to calculate this if you are
operating within a formalised Programme or Project
Management environment.

Consider all the people who need to be involved in the
decision making and signoff process for a project and
total their annual salaries. It is reasonable to
assume a minimum number of days that will be spent in management time for
each item that is proposed. If the cost of management time exceeds the cost
of the project then it should not be a project. This seems obvious, but it
is surprising how many people do not formally quantify this. In my
experience you can expect a minimum of three days to be spent by each
decision maker over the course of a year on each project, regardless of how
small it is. To work this example this would give you a dividing factor of
75 (assuming 220 working days a year) - hence three decision makers at
£35,000pa would total £105,000pa divided by 75 equals £1,400.

This figure you should formally define as your
'Pain-Gain Boundary' which is the limit of expenditure
below which the formalised process does not take
place. This not only affords the ability to be dynamic
at the lower end of the process, but will also
dynamically alter to fit the profile and importance of
the decision makers, and the decision making process,
over time.
So, what conclusion do we draw from this? Firstly that
we should not allow strategic and tactical thinking to
be opposed, but rather to act in unison. Secondly we
should allow tactical solutions to be event driven,
but nudge the solution, gently, in the direction of
the strategic endgame.

Finally words from the writings 'The Art of War' by
Sun Tzu (544-496BC) who defined the science of
strategy: '...the victorious strategist only seeks
battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who
is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards
looks for victory'.


PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
hppt://www.leadershipvalues.homestead.com/
"Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana Romie F.
Littrell, PhD, An fánaí fiáin Faculty of Business, Auckland University of
Technology, N.Z. http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/





___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with
voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Hi Rommie,

I seem to recall that Mintzberg said that the difference between strategy and tactics depended on where (and when) you sat in the organisation.

Of course, the applicability of the literature on military strategy and its relevance to business strategy is still strongly contested. So, a different approach to strategy and tactics is given by the folks at the Strategy-as-practice (http://www.strategy-as-practice.org/) end of the spectrum. They would have a different view of the distinction between the two (well more than one view I'm sure). For example, drawing on de Certeau's "The practice of everyday life", de la Ville puts forwards an interesting position (http://www.afscet.asso.fr/resSystemica/Crete02/delaVille-ESSC-GB.pdf)


Regards
Peter




-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Romie Littrell
Sent: Wednesday, 14 September 2005 7:40 a.m.
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Education in IB tactics

1. I'm developing a new course (US) / paper (NZ),
"International Business Strategy & Tactics". Looking
over the syllabuses and syllabi publicly available on
the web, there doesn't seem to be much consideration
of tactics.

One would assume that considering the levels of
analysis of "Transnational", international, and
domestic, papers dealing with tactics, from an
international business point of view would consider
tactics to be business strategy & tactics at the
domestic level. Do the strategic and tactical
principles of managing resources, competition and
customer segments within a domestic market apply to
countries? Are countries larger, more complex resource
bases with more (or fewer) competitors and customer
segments? Can the same process principles be applied
to managing business in sets of countries as domestic
businesses?

2. Do countries matter at all? Ethnic groups have
governing rules, policies, and practices similar to
national governments, and ethnicity frequently crosses
national boundaries. (However, I'm always drawn back
to Prof. Ronald Inglehart's World Values Survey
conference presentation I heard in 2001, that
proximity matters, e.g., Catholics in Holland have
values more similar to Protestants in Holland than
they do to Catholics in Spain.)

3. I'm familiar with the Bartlett, Ghoshal &
Birkenshaw Transnational Management discussion of
"country management" and "country manager", which is a
good place to start.

4. Anyone have a reference or module already developed
that deals specifically with IB tactics, e.g., across
and within countries?

Food for Thought:

A. Roosen (2002), below: "The definitions make his
critics' error clear. Strategy is 'any long-term
plan', which will be the product of 'the art of
conducting a campaign and manoeuvring an army.'
Tactics are 'purposeful procedure' achieved by
exercising 'the science or art of manoeuvring in
presence of the enemy'. The two are as close as
Siamese twins. Companies need the twin skills - those
of the strategist, who can select the right long-term
objectives and envisage the means that will reach
those goals: and those of the tactician, who will
deploy those means in a series of manoeuvres - short,
medium and long-term - to achieve the desired ends."

B. Your strategy determines your tactics which define
your actions. - Anon.

C. "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle;
strategy is the art of using battles to win the war"
Karl von Clausewitz - "On War".

D. "Some of French Marshal Bertheir's operational
instructions for staffs and chiefs of staff were as
follow:
-chief of staff must see everything that comes in and
sign or at least approve everything that goes out
-speed and accuracy are the most important factors in
staff work
-up to the minute intelligence on enemy forces and
actions must always be available
-the commander of the army must always be told the
truth (no matter how unpleasant the result may be) by
his chief of staff."
(Source: Elting, "Swords Around a Throne", 1997, pp
82-83)

E. More on "A." above, interesting www paper:

Tactical Magic
Kurt Roosen, Senior Consultant, PDMS Consulting
November 2002
http://www.pdms.com/infocentre/articles/tacticalmagic.xml

Have you noticed that much business terminology and
planning seems to revolve around military style issues
of strategic objectives and tactical solutions? This
does make a lot of sense, in that military campaigns
at a high level can certainly be seen as the most
extreme form of 'competition'. But, in lifting these
principles from their military roots are we distorting
them outside their original context? Let us examine
the original definitions back within their home
territory:

Tactics is the science and art of handling troops and
military units in the presence of the enemy. By
extension, it can mean any manoeuvring or adroit
device to accomplish a goal. The adjective form is
tactical. As an illustration, the military term
tactical unit refers to the largest group of troops or
troops and equipment that can be directed by a single
officer.
Strategy is the study or science of military position
on a broad scale for winning in a war. The adjective
form is strategic. Stratagem is a manoeuvre designed
to deceive and outwit an enemy in war. By extension,
it can refer to any action designed for obtaining an
advantage.
In other words the two terms are complimentary with
the strategy defining the 'bigger picture' or overall
objectives while tactics are specific logical
breakdown of practical actions. Therefore, tactics
determine the method to reach the end goal, and
strategy defines the parameters and boundaries that
these should follow - fine so far. However, put this
into a business context and generally the two are
purposely detached. It is often cited that a company
has an overall strategy but that the current work is a
'tactical solution' to deal with a specific problem.
The implication here is that this solution is somehow
a distraction from the strategy when it should
actually be a contributor to its progression.

This may seem a very subtle distinction, but thinking
that tactics as entirely separate from strategy can be
destructive to the overall development of the
organisation. Nothing should ever be taken as fixed
and immovable, so acceptance that tactical solutions
are a necessary flexibility within the dynamics of an
overall strategy is what will make a strategy relevant
to the world around it.

IT Strategy is often the place where this goes
drastically wrong because the dynamics of the
marketplace is such that long term technical
strategies quickly become out of date and financial
and resourcing constraints limit how far and how fast
you can move towards utopia. 'Tactical Solutions' are
then chastised as the 'quick and dirty fixes' that
move you further away from your goals. However, what
people are missing here is that no solution should be
put in without a need and if that need exists it
should be part of the strategy to accommodate it.
Conversely, holding out for the perfect solution
hampers the business in the short term and may
actually lead to nothing at all being achieved. Where
the backdrop is dynamic, the fast small steps are more
correctable than the slow long ones. Therefore,
instead of the strategy defining low and medium level
objectives let it go back to its military role as the
'overseer' of a framework of protocols in which
tactics can prosper. There should be no harm in
letting the immediate demands of the business be met
as long as each step provides something, however
small, as an addition towards the end objectives
defined by the strategy.

One demand of this approach, however, is that this
flexibility of delivery works within known boundaries
of perceived value. If you are expecting to have a
relatively high turnover of systems, then you need to
consider the cost of this, both in terms of physical
cost and installation and also in the cost of change
within the organisation. Put into context, you need to
determine the ratio of cost against life in service
that is acceptable in each circumstance. This
generally ends up being calculated as a monetary value
- Return on Investment or ROI. This is increasingly
difficult to ascertain in a strategic environment as
the benefits are usually very difficult to quantify as
they are expressions of efficiency or market
positioning. However, you do find that tactical
solutions tend to have a focus on a specific need and
hence subdivision of the strategy in this way means
that the small benefits that you accrue from the
tactical solution do not need to be justified in
themselves to take the process forward - you 'ride on
the back of the wave'.

One other realignment of thinking process is required
to complete this picture. By association, tactical
solutions are considered to be 'throwaway' as they are
not part of the strategic direction. While the latter
part of this should not be true, the 'throwaway'
aspect is actually something that needs to be
formalised - how much money should you consider
disposable and truly solutions driven? There is an
easy, rule of thumb way to calculate this if you are
operating within a formalised Programme or Project
Management environment.

Consider all the people who need to be involved in the
decision making and signoff process for a project and
total their annual salaries. It is reasonable to
assume a minimum number of days that will be spent in
management time for each item that is proposed. If the
cost of management time exceeds the cost of the
project then it should not be a project. This seems
obvious, but it is surprising how many people do not
formally quantify this. In my experience you can
expect a minimum of three days to be spent by each
decision maker over the course of a year on each
project, regardless of how small it is. To work this
example this would give you a dividing factor of 75
(assuming 220 working days a year) - hence three
decision makers at £35,000pa would total £105,000pa
divided by 75 equals £1,400.

This figure you should formally define as your
'Pain-Gain Boundary' which is the limit of expenditure
below which the formalised process does not take
place. This not only affords the ability to be dynamic
at the lower end of the process, but will also
dynamically alter to fit the profile and importance of
the decision makers, and the decision making process,
over time.
So, what conclusion do we draw from this? Firstly that
we should not allow strategic and tactical thinking to
be opposed, but rather to act in unison. Secondly we
should allow tactical solutions to be event driven,
but nudge the solution, gently, in the direction of
the strategic endgame.

Finally words from the writings 'The Art of War' by
Sun Tzu (544-496BC) who defined the science of
strategy: '...the victorious strategist only seeks
battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who
is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards
looks for victory'.


PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
hppt://www.leadershipvalues.homestead.com/
"Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
Romie F. Littrell, PhD, An fánaí fiáin
Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/





___________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Thanks Peter. I'll peruse the websites you have provided.
Regards,
Romie

"Smith, Peter"

Regarding the strategy vs tactics distinction, I favor the view that strategy pertains to the deployment of resources and tactics refers to the employment of resources. In that view, strategy and tactics bridge the gap between ends and means.

There are some strategy articles on my web site. Go to www.nickols.us and click on the link to articles. Once there, click on the link to strategy. The article there that gets the most play is titled "Strategy: Definitions and Meaning." Perhaps it will help.

--
Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net
www.nickols.us





-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Romie Littrell <littrellaom@yahoo.co.nz>
> 1. I???m developing a new course (US) / paper (NZ),
> ???International Business Strategy & Tactics???. Looking
> over the syllabuses and syllabi publicly available on
> the web, there doesn???t seem to be much consideration
> of tactics.
>
> One would assume that considering the levels of
> analysis of ???Transnational???, international, and
> domestic, papers dealing with tactics, from an
> international business point of view would consider
> tactics to be business strategy & tactics at the
> domestic level. Do the strategic and tactical
> principles of managing resources, competition and
> customer segments within a domestic market apply to
> countries? Are countries larger, more complex resource
> bases with more (or fewer) competitors and customer
> segments? Can the same process principles be applied
> to managing business in sets of countries as domestic
> businesses?
>
> 2. Do countries matter at all? Ethnic groups have
> governing rules, policies, and practices similar to
> national governments, and ethnicity frequently crosses
> national boundaries. (However, I???m always drawn back
> to Prof. Ronald Inglehart???s World Values Survey
> conference presentation I heard in 2001, that
> proximity matters, e.g., Catholics in Holland have
> values more similar to Protestants in Holland than
> they do to Catholics in Spain.)
>
> 3. I???m familiar with the Bartlett, Ghoshal &
> Birkenshaw Transnational Management discussion of
> ???country management??? and ???country manager???, which is a
> good place to start.
>
> 4. Anyone have a reference or module already developed
> that deals specifically with IB tactics, e.g., across
> and within countries?
>
> Food for Thought:
>
> A. Roosen (2002), below: ???The definitions make his
> critics' error clear. Strategy is 'any long-term
> plan', which will be the product of 'the art of
> conducting a campaign and manoeuvring an army.'
> Tactics are 'purposeful procedure' achieved by
> exercising 'the science or art of manoeuvring in
> presence of the enemy'. The two are as close as
> Siamese twins. Companies need the twin skills - those
> of the strategist, who can select the right long-term
> objectives and envisage the means that will reach
> those goals: and those of the tactician, who will
> deploy those means in a series of manoeuvres - short,
> medium and long-term - to achieve the desired ends.???
>
> B. Your strategy determines your tactics which define
> your actions. ??? Anon.
>
> C. "Tactics is the art of using troops in battle;
> strategy is the art of using battles to win the war"
> Karl von Clausewitz - "On War".
>
> D. ???Some of French Marshal Bertheir's operational
> instructions for staffs and chiefs of staff were as
> follow:
> -chief of staff must see everything that comes in and
> sign or at least approve everything that goes out
> -speed and accuracy are the most important factors in
> staff work
> -up to the minute intelligence on enemy forces and
> actions must always be available
> -the commander of the army must always be told the
> truth (no matter how unpleasant the result may be) by
> his chief of staff.???
> (Source: Elting, "Swords Around a Throne", 1997, pp
> 82-83)
>
> E. More on ???A.??? above, interesting www paper:
>
> Tactical Magic
> Kurt Roosen, Senior Consultant, PDMS Consulting
> November 2002
> http://www.pdms.com/infocentre/articles/tacticalmagic.xml
>
> Have you noticed that much business terminology and
> planning seems to revolve around military style issues
> of strategic objectives and tactical solutions? This
> does make a lot of sense, in that military campaigns
> at a high level can certainly be seen as the most
> extreme form of 'competition'. But, in lifting these
> principles from their military roots are we distorting
> them outside their original context? Let us examine
> the original definitions back within their home
> territory:
>
> Tactics is the science and art of handling troops and
> military units in the presence of the enemy. By
> extension, it can mean any manoeuvring or adroit
> device to accomplish a goal. The adjective form is
> tactical. As an illustration, the military term
> tactical unit refers to the largest group of troops or
> troops and equipment that can be directed by a single
> officer.
> Strategy is the study or science of military position
> on a broad scale for winning in a war. The adjective
> form is strategic. Stratagem is a manoeuvre designed
> to deceive and outwit an enemy in war. By extension,
> it can refer to any action designed for obtaining an
> advantage.
> In other words the two terms are complimentary with
> the strategy defining the 'bigger picture' or overall
> objectives while tactics are specific logical
> breakdown of practical actions. Therefore, tactics
> determine the method to reach the end goal, and
> strategy defines the parameters and boundaries that
> these should follow - fine so far. However, put this
> into a business context and generally the two are
> purposely detached. It is often cited that a company
> has an overall strategy but that the current work is a
> 'tactical solution' to deal with a specific problem.
> The implication here is that this solution is somehow
> a distraction from the strategy when it should
> actually be a contributor to its progression.
>
> This may seem a very subtle distinction, but thinking
> that tactics as entirely separate from strategy can be
> destructive to the overall development of the
> organisation. Nothing should ever be taken as fixed
> and immovable, so acceptance that tactical solutions
> are a necessary flexibility within the dynamics of an
> overall strategy is what will make a strategy relevant
> to the world around it.
>
> IT Strategy is often the place where this goes
> drastically wrong because the dynamics of the
> marketplace is such that long term technical
> strategies quickly become out of date and financial
> and resourcing constraints limit how far and how fast
> you can move towards utopia. 'Tactical Solutions' are
> then chastised as the 'quick and dirty fixes' that
> move you further away from your goals. However, what
> people are missing here is that no solution should be
> put in without a need and if that need exists it
> should be part of the strategy to accommodate it.
> Conversely, holding out for the perfect solution
> hampers the business in the short term and may
> actually lead to nothing at all being achieved. Where
> the backdrop is dynamic, the fast small steps are more
> correctable than the slow long ones. Therefore,
> instead of the strategy defining low and medium level
> objectives let it go back to its military role as the
> 'overseer' of a framework of protocols in which
> tactics can prosper. There should be no harm in
> letting the immediate demands of the business be met
> as long as each step provides something, however
> small, as an addition towards the end objectives
> defined by the strategy.
>
> One demand of this approach, however, is that this
> flexibility of delivery works within known boundaries
> of perceived value. If you are expecting to have a
> relatively high turnover of systems, then you need to
> consider the cost of this, both in terms of physical
> cost and installation and also in the cost of change
> within the organisation. Put into context, you need to
> determine the ratio of cost against life in service
> that is acceptable in each circumstance. This
> generally ends up being calculated as a monetary value
> - Return on Investment or ROI. This is increasingly
> difficult to ascertain in a strategic environment as
> the benefits are usually very difficult to quantify as
> they are expressions of efficiency or market
> positioning. However, you do find that tactical
> solutions tend to have a focus on a specific need and
> hence subdivision of the strategy in this way means
> that the small benefits that you accrue from the
> tactical solution do not need to be justified in
> themselves to take the process forward - you 'ride on
> the back of the wave'.
>
> One other realignment of thinking process is required
> to complete this picture. By association, tactical
> solutions are considered to be 'throwaway' as they are
> not part of the strategic direction. While the latter
> part of this should not be true, the 'throwaway'
> aspect is actually something that needs to be
> formalised - how much money should you consider
> disposable and truly solutions driven? There is an
> easy, rule of thumb way to calculate this if you are
> operating within a formalised Programme or Project
> Management environment.
>
> Consider all the people who need to be involved in the
> decision making and signoff process for a project and
> total their annual salaries. It is reasonable to
> assume a minimum number of days that will be spent in
> management time for each item that is proposed. If the
> cost of management time exceeds the cost of the
> project then it should not be a project. This seems
> obvious, but it is surprising how many people do not
> formally quantify this. In my experience you can
> expect a minimum of three days to be spent by each
> decision maker over the course of a year on each
> project, regardless of how small it is. To work this
> example this would give you a dividing factor of 75
> (assuming 220 working days a year) - hence three
> decision makers at ???35,000pa would total ???105,000pa
> divided by 75 equals ???1,400.
>
> This figure you should formally define as your
> 'Pain-Gain Boundary' which is the limit of expenditure
> below which the formalised process does not take
> place. This not only affords the ability to be dynamic
> at the lower end of the process, but will also
> dynamically alter to fit the profile and importance of
> the decision makers, and the decision making process,
> over time.
> So, what conclusion do we draw from this? Firstly that
> we should not allow strategic and tactical thinking to
> be opposed, but rather to act in unison. Secondly we
> should allow tactical solutions to be event driven,
> but nudge the solution, gently, in the direction of
> the strategic endgame.
>
> Finally words from the writings 'The Art of War' by
> Sun Tzu (544-496BC) who defined the science of
> strategy: '...the victorious strategist only seeks
> battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who
> is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards
> looks for victory'.
>
>
> PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
> hppt://www.leadershipvalues.homestead.com/
> "Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
> Romie F. Littrell, PhD, An f???na??? fi???in
> Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
> http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
> http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail
> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com