Norrin Radd

Focus

In order to lead the business to its greatest competitive advantage, there must be a mechanism to focus the organization on what it will do best and keep it from getting distracted by other opportunities that come along. This mechanism it the strategic focus of the business.

Though an organization can operate without this strategic focus, there is strong evidence to indicate that organizations that develop and have the discipline to adhere to a strategic focus have a significant long-term competitive advantage.

Strategic focus is systems view that is consistent with several similar concepts - Peter Drucker's theory of business, Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad's strategic intent, Jim Collin's Hedgehog Concept, and Michael Porter's fit and position, each of which have their similarities in principle and unique perspectives and focuses.

Hamel and Prahalad's strategic intent focuses on the intended result of adopting a strategic focus, creating an extreme gap between resources and ambitions (as expressed in the mission and vision), where this gap can only be closed by systematically building new advantageous capabilities. What they describe as folding the future back into the present provides the guiding direction and inspiration to the members of the organization. The gap defined by strategic intent analogous to the BHAG in Collin's Hedgehog Concept.

Collins' Hedgehog Concept is very similar. With this concept, the value proposition of the strategic focus is expressed as ""What drives your economic engine -- the piercing insight of the single denominator -- profit per x -- that has the greatest positive impact on the economics of the business"", which is value proposition take to the level of strategic competitive advantage.

Michael Porter's fit and position addresses the importance of consistency in strategic positions which enable the growth of competencies tailored to a strategy and reinforces the identity of the organization and its members, which brings in and retains the people dedicated to the organization's mission.

Collectively, these different views of the basic essentials of strategy, enrich our understanding of strategic focus.

Innovation is critical to an organization's ability to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. The strategic focus serves to energize innovation. Thus it falls into the category of 'liberating rules.' A purely blank slate for innovation is generally de-energizes an organization's innovation because it lacks guidance and inspirational power. Having the passionate purpose, the functional need of the business by its environment, and the current core and distinctive competency serves to guide, motivate, and inspire the innovation needed to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage.

- Creative Advantage