If a business must have a strategy, then the strategy must necessarily have parts. What are those parts? A strategy has five elements, providing answers to five questions: * Arenas: where will we be active? * Vehicles: how will we get there? * Differentiators: how will we win in the market- place? * Staging: what will be our speed and sequence of moves? * Economic logic: how will we obtain our returns? This article develops and illustrates these do- mains of choice, emphasizing how essential it is that they form a unified whole. Where others focus on the inputs to strategic thinking (the top box in Figure 1), we focus on the output—the composition and design of the strategy itself. 2.Base on the Strategy Diamond on page 54 of the article, evaluate the strategy of IKEA for the past two decades.
Beyond deciding on the arenas in which the business will be active, the strategist also needs to decide how to get there. Specifically, the means for attaining the needed presence in a particular product category, market segment, geographic area, or value-creation stage should be the result of deliberate strategic choice.
Unit managers of IEKA receive the plan and decide how to focus implementation efforts in their business units. Specific implementation tasks fall into six categories: Management and Personnel, Products and Materials, Customers, Suppliers, Buildings Equipment and Consumable Materials, and Transport.
IKEA is not only a retailer, but also maintains control of product design to ensure the integrity of its unique image and to accumulate unrivaled expertise in designing for efficient manufacturing. The company, however, does not manufacture, relying instead on a host of long-term suppliers who ensure efficient, geographically dispersed production.
IKEA seeks to achieve substantial