What did i learn from Strategy Course?

Strategy was one of the courses I was excited about before joining MBA. I was always amazed and eager to learn the basics behind how firms like Intel try to stay ahead of time, how has technology changed business ecosystem in firms like Yahoo, how are firms thinking of creating shared value and how much is the consumer important in the overall value chain? How do firms strategy vary in highly complex globalized environments? This course was finally able to answer most of these thoughts with conviction.

The key learning out of this course may not have come directly out of books but it was very important to understand the core basics of strategy. The first and foremost take away was that we must build our own perspective and think differently, rather than simply getting carried away with the voice of the system. The whole new concept of dissecting a case to generate viewpoints from diverse people in the batch took discussions to entirely different level. Simply going through the facts/numbers in the case may not be enough to arrive at a solution but interlinking the numbers with the situation and thinking on the background for those numbers is what is actually more important.  

It was indeed very exciting to analyze the business case with the protagonist of case, wherein he presents his viewpoint on how he felt when he took an important decision when he was in a troublesome situation. Timely, there were other key speakers who helped to relate concepts by focusing on live examples. For e.g. Mr. Sanjay Goyal (CEO, Ericsson India) reinforced the differences that lie between operational effectiveness and strategy, Mr. Nagarajan (MD, Mother Dairy) discussed about the importance of customer and supply chain in the business of milk distribution in NCR, Mr. Navi Radjou discussed the fine difference that lies between wisdom and smartness, Mr. Sachin Garg (Founder & CEO, Grapewine Publishing) highlighted the hindrances that comes in the path of a successful entrepreneur and laid the importance of understanding your customer etc. 

Change is one thing which each one of us likes to resist but firms cannot survive if they do not adapt to change. Porter’s Five Forces Model, 4C, McKinsey 7S models talk of ways firms can create a unique differentiating position and fit for their products/services by analyzing their internal and external business environments. Companies focus on strategies to create sustainability for themselves. They target their efforts in creating a fit that would set them apart from their competitors.

Finally, towards the end, all my learning’s throughout the course culminated into building Market Strategy during MarkStrat simulation exercise. This daylong live session gave me hands on experience on the concepts and some specific highlights i captured in this session were:

• Position your product uniquely differentiating from competitors.
• Budgeting and investing in R&D every year is very important to sustain.
• Timely calling off a product and launching a new one are equally important.
• Blind following of competitors move can be detrimental to business.
• Leverage only to the extent you are in a position to pay your debts. 

There were additional insights on LIPS and HIPS category of products and how to align value chain to generate value for your customers. They need to strategize and constantly work on transforming the product from LIP to High Involvement product category. We all live in a cut-throat competitive world, where the mind of corporate is ruled by capitalist ideas. To sustain in this scenario, and to maintain profits, the products or services needs to be constantly updated. Companies need to create differentiation as a perception or create value for the consumer to stay ahead.

Abishek Mittal

NMP XXVI - Class of 2014

MDI, Gurgaon