Strategic Analysis and Choice: A Structured Approach is intended to both complement course work in firm level strategy at the senior undergraduate, MBA, and executive educational levels and to stand alone as a resource for managers working through the strategic planning process outside the classroom. This book was written to address problems that students typically encounter in trying to apply some well-known tools to case and real world material. These tools are often presented in strategy textbooks at fairly abstract levels and while students understand that they are to do something, they don’t really know how to go about it. Practical application of the concepts does not prove to be intuitive for many, and this has frustrated them—and me. Because of this, strategic analysis can get a bad reputation in the classroom and in the world as difficult, incomplete, and biased. When managers believe this, strategy gets reduced to a formality with no real potency or meaning.
I believe that this represents a significant missed opportunity. Good analysis is a window on the world; without it, decisions are guesses. From the analytics, strategic choice can powerfully unite and coordinate elements of the firm. These are desirable outcomes. Thus, my objective with this book is to make the concepts more concrete and easy to use for working managers and those who will become managers. As you’ll see, the emphasis is on analytics and how to ask and answer questions that lead to stronger, more thoughtful and considered conclusions. No such work can be exhaustive as there are more factors and models than can be reasonable addressed in a brief work, but the principles are extendable to new analytic criteria. Analysis will still be hard work, but this book should provide a roadmap that makes it more tractable.
Many people have helped with this book, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts. First, my thanks to students in my undergraduate and graduate strategy courses at Pennsylvania State University-Erie for their insights into what I thought was clear but perhaps was not. In particular, I thank Renee Brunner, Diane Detar, Robert Gorzynski, and Anna Smialek for their detailed discussions. I also thank my colleague Jim Fairbank for his comments on an early draft. I particularly thank my wife Jonne for her close reading and suggestions over several iterations, improving both writing clarity and managerial sensibility.
I also thank the editorial team at Business Expert Press. Mason Carpenter not only gave this idea a chance but made it comparatively easy and painless to carry through. Cindy Durand has been invaluable in guiding me through process pitfalls in finishing up the work.