BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

The global challenge currently facing every single South African business organisation will test their ability and endurance at competing in the global environment. Faced with competition from global firms whose managers are used to competing at the highest level, the new breed of South African manager, which is slowly beginning to emerge, will need to be `sharper, ^,flicker and more strategically, competent than his or her predecessors, who had very little competition to contend with. To give managers any chance of success, companies are going to have to overhaul their approach to strategic thinking.

The weakness of much of the so-called strategic thinking currently taking place in many South African companies is that most managers have not been taught to think like a strategist. Instead, they come from specialist backgrounds, such as marketing, finance pr IT, and have specific portfolio responsibilities, yet are asked to participate in the firm’s strategic-planning process, whatever shape or form that may take. This is not to say that individual portfolios do not have a contribution to make to company strategy. However, th_e input provided is usually influenced by the specialities of the various participating managers, viewing as they do the concept _of strategy from their own professional perspectives. There is often _afailure to develop emphatic and groundbreaking strategies, because strategy is not considered from a holistic perspective, but rathe_ras a conglomeration of individual, piecemeal methodologies. To compound the problem, strategic thinking and strategic planning are more often than not regarded as interchangeable terms, wherea_sthey are two different, yet interrelated, concepts.

Strategic thinking refers to the judgement applied by the strategist to outmanoeuvre his or her opposition in the pursuit of a specific objective, preferably in the long term. It is more than simply seekin_g a competitive advantage. Strategic thinking ‘es at the core of any planning process. It should be based on a profound understanding of the^-key issues pertaining to the organisation, the industry in question, the opposition, and the environment in which business is conducted. In fact, the environment, as opposed to the marketplace, is the real battlefield. Business organisations face conflict every single day they open for business, and that conflict is environmental in nature — competitor actions, customer behaviour, governmental regulations, the state of the economy (both domestic and global), to name but a few. Part of strategy’s role in a business organisation is to minimise the effect of that conflict for the well-being of the company’s stakeholders, who are dependent on the performance of the company in the marketplace. Company strategists need to be very aware of this, as strategic thinking must reflect the influence of these aspects of this environmental battlefield.

Strategic planning, on the other hand, is the process in which a strategic plan is devised. This plan may focus on the future, but seldom in a strategic manner. That is, a strategic plan seldom sets out how to creatively outmanoeuvre the opposition in the long run. The problem with strategy, particularly in South Africa, is _not, as business writers Campbell and Alexander suggest, the sequence of _objectives and strategy.’ Rather, the problem lies in a lack of creative thinking, the non-application of strategy from a holistic perspective, _and a dearth of competitive knowledge on the part of those involved in the process. Strategy guru Gary Hamel is more caustic when he says that ‘giving planners responsibility for creating strategy is like asking a bricklayer to create Michelangelo’s Pietá’. Team sports are a pretty good benchmark to consider in this regard. A highly successful rugby team, for example, whether at domestic or international level, would not take the field without having studied its opposition. But in South Africa, the wrangling at coaching and administrative levels between 2002 and 2004 demonstrated the negative impact such activities had on the Springbok team’s on-field performance. Hence the need for managers at all levels in an organisation not only to think strategically, but also to comprehend the contribution that their behaviour can make to the outcome of their company’s strategic endeavours.

Many strategic plans in South Africa today still follow linear thinking, mainly because managers often try to apply rigid (academic) models of strategic planning, and in situations that are constantly changing. Whilst a linear model tries to simplify the strategic process and tries to bring order to what is really a rather messy and often chaotic affair, organisations are living, breathing entities, and their needs are dictated by the functions of the marketplace and the environment in which they exist and do business. This is a highly dynamic situation, and any attempt to apply a linear model will result in a waste of time and lost opportunities. For, whilst the strategist is trying to apply the model, the marketplace and all of its players have been marching onwards.

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