The Strategic Choices a Company Makes Determine Its Success

What choices will you make for your business? What path will you choose to take?

The strategic choices a company makes greatly influence success. That’s why the phrase “Strategic Choices for Successful Business Growth” is on my website banner, and has been there since my site went live almost five years ago. Success comes from making the right strategic choices, which entails choosing the strategic moves that become Winning Moves.

Strategic choices are something that a company can control. This is attractive since external conditions may not always be controllable, especially in times of uncertainty. But, whether it’s success patterns from my research or from the findings of others, businesses can choose to follow the principles of success. They can do so regardless of what happens to external conditions. Often, these choices can successfully grow the business. Yet, when the business is hit by really dire times, the choices may merely pave the way for handling the challenges most effectively. With the right strategic choices, the business can bolster its performance to the best extent possible, despite the external conditions.

There are many strategic choices, such as choices about general business direction, choices about target markets, choices about how information and knowledge are applied, choices about innovation and risk, choices about how and when to change the business, and about how fast to grow. All of these can greatly impact how well the business performs. Thus, understanding what kinds of strategic choices succeed and why provides a business with major advantages.

Today, there is so much information available about what works and what does not. This knowledge can prepare you to make the right strategic choices that turn your strategic moves into Winning Moves. But, as I said in my previous blog post (which talked about going back to basics to revitalize a business), there is confusion out there about exactly how business success principles apply. So, I see a need for the kind of clarification and explanation I am providing in this blog. In fact, an example of the possible confusion about how to make the right choices surfaced in a post on yesterday’s Harvard Business Review Blog. That Harvard post expressed concern that Jim Collins’ latest best-selling book, which happens to be about choices, doesn’t pay enough attention to the principles of strategy guru Michael Porter.

According to my 25+ years of research, success comes from taking the kinds of success principles described by Collins (which, as those of you who have been following my website for quite some time may know, share some similarities with my findings) and making sure these principles are reflected in strategy. There are effective ways to do this. Yet, the Harvard post seems to overemphasize Porter, which may add to possible confusion about how to apply Collins-like principles.

It is important to break through the confusion and make the right strategic choices. That’s why this blog and website offer research based material to clarify what business success principles mean and how to apply them. As a result, you’ll be better prepared to make the right choices. And, you’ll also be better equipped to understand how to integrate the kind of material Collins produces (which does share similarities with my own research findings) with strategy.

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