ABOUT ... THE STRATEGY MUSE

"The Strategy Muse" is a journal of strategies that businesses across the globe are currently employing to enhance income and / or control costs while seeking and attaining their own uniqueness from the perspective of their customers. It is intended to be a source of information and inspiration for others across companies, industries and regions.

1. It will showcase what businesses are actually doing to achieve their objectives - an implicit indication of their conviction about what will work from the perspective of:

a) their circumstances (i.e. industry structure, bargaining power and threats of new competitors and new products); and

b) their aspirations (i.e. vision, mission and plans).

More than showcasing only elusive strategies with academic elegance and magical effectiveness, it will also showcase real practicable strategies that are actually being implemented by businesses and reported in the news - the mundane yet unavoidable marketing, financing, manufacturing, servicing, and staffing strategies: price cuts and price hikes, job cuts and fresh hiring, share issue and share buybacks, marketing offensives and marketing defensives, in-house manufacturing and outsourcing etc. Because even frontrunners in strategic innovation who keep leaping through new windows of opportunity providing unique new and perhaps customized offerings to customers, cannot and do not overlook such mundane aspects in their quest for their own uniqueness from the perspective of their customers.

2. It was created for action-focused corporate karmayogis who are constantly looking for ideas to boost income and / or control cost.

a) The uninitiated will get acquainted with the ways of business.

b) Experts and veterans may decipher what professors at Chicago University's Graduate School of Business refer to as Strategy Patterns (the continuities and changes in strategy trends worth heeding), reassess levels of conviction or doubt about planned strategies, and perhaps even discover inadvertent blind spots in their own strategies from real world examples.

c) It may prove to be a useful starting point for business brainstorming sessions (say those Monday morning meetings).

Human Resources teams of businesses may consider circulating the blog URL or the URLs of relevant 'labels' (i.e. tags) to employees on a weekly basis as a part of their "Employee Inspiration Program". (Labels/ tags are listed in the right hand side column of "The Strategy Muse" blog, e.g. Revenue Strategies, Expenditures Strategies, .... Banking and Finance sector strategies, .... Healthcare sector strategies, .... Technology sector strategies).

4. The posts are classified into Revenue Strategies and Expenditure Strategies for easy assimilation because:

a) Every business is essentially about Buying (Expenditure) and Selling (Income). [For a trader, manufacturer or service provider to be able to sell his goods, manufactures or services he may need to buy finished goods, raw materials, infrastructure, machinery, technology, services of employees and service providers, and / or finance]

b) Everyone involved in business is directly or indirectly burdened or involved with the achievement of an Income target and / or an Expenditure target so their radars pick up signals for boosting income and controlling cost more readily.

c) Income and Expenditure are metaphysical destinations of Business Strategy. Every business strategy ultimately impacts Income or Expenditure or both. So classifying business strategies on their impact on Income and Expenditure is likely to subsume all theoretical and practical classifications. For example, Income Strategies are likely to feature instances of C.K.Prahalad's Core Competence Strategies and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid Strategies, Michael Porter's Market Focus Strategies, Product Differentiation Strategies and Cost Minimization Strategies that are used to pass on price reductions to customers, General Electric's Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies, and Richard Rumelt's Leaping through the Window of Opportunity Strategies etc. Expenditure Strategies may include Michael Porter's Cost Minimization Strategies that are not used to pass on price reductions to customers, C.K.Prahalad's Core Competence Strategies, and General Electric's Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies etc.

5. The 'mission' of 'The Strategy Muse' is to inform, inspire and enhance the Business Strategy Quotient of readers in search of ideas to meet their own income and / or expenditure targets with abstracts from the business news. Its 'vision' is a business world in which everyone involved is strategically enlightened enough to assess the 'mission' and 'vision' of their business and appreciate and consummate their own importance in its strategic quest.

6. 'The Strategy Muse' was conceptualized and is compiled by Sourav Mitra, a very reluctant chartered accountant. He has done time in diverse workpits - from tiny CA firms to giant industry leading MNCs. At last count he was AVP Finance in an outsourced staffing company. He has a healthy interest in strategies that businesses employ to boost income and cut costs. What he finds he will share with you to adopt, adapt or avoid intelligently as you steer your business to higher income at lower cost with absolutely or relatively unique offerings for customers.

Click here to visit "The Strategy Muse".
Click here to visit mutant version at Livemint.com.