Solved: What are the threats to strategy, where do they come from and how is strategy

We begin by telling what is strategy?

It is choosing a unique and valuable position rooted in systems of activities that are much more difficult to match as per Harvard Business Review. So the essence is that it should not be imitable in most of the cases.

Both internal and external situations can pose a threat to a company’s strategy. Internal factors like lack of adequate resources for the fulfillment of a strategy, unionisation of workforces against the leadership. That is why before the strategy is being designed for implementation, it has to be properly assessed if it is being challenged or has a conflict with any internal policies. External factors like a launch of any new product by competitor or revamping of existing product that can change the dynamics of market share, change in labour laws, change in material costs, etc. So, both internal and external factors may pose threats to company’s strategies.

Strategy of a company is undermined by the faulty view of competitor’s and their strategies, by company’s respective failures or changes (like change in leadership) and by the desire to grow abnormally. The concept of best practices is flawed because it often leads to framing of one set of practices as benchmark which other companies simply try to mititate without realising their own strengths and weaknesses which leads to failures.