Strategic Thinking is a Competitive Advantage
I think that the startup ecosystem is definitively taking over the economy in more than a direction. Marc Andreesen’s now famous “software is eating the world” is one of these (although it has a major flaw in the fact that it is based on the assumption that underlying technologies and energy will always be there in unlimited supply to fuel the growth of software).
Another domain where startups are taking the helm from the incumbent’s hands is in strategic thinking. Strategic Thinking relates to all the activities aiming at creating, designing and implementing new business ideas.
The startup ecosystem has given birth to three fundamental frameworks, in no particular order:
- the “business model canvas” from Alexander Osterwalder
- Steve Blank’s “customer development”
- and the “lean startup methodology” by Eric Ries
It is no surprise that the guyswho created this have been working together recently to coordinate the 3 frameworks and put the resulting assembly in motion.
I’m not a big fan of too much strategic thinking inside a startup. It can lead to the waste of the 2 most critical resources that startups lack: people and time. But when it’s quickly done in a collaborative way, it is a major competitive advantage for new companies facing entrenched competition:
- buying from the constraints experienced by their users, all the 3 frameworks are simple, articulated, and accessible, making them ideal tools for quick strategic positioning,
- yet, they have the potential, if properly used, to unleash powerful dynamics that optimize available resources and deliver amazing results in all activities key to the startup development,
- they have the malleability required for quickly adapting to the very unstable environment of startups either during the inception phase or throughout their life,
- most importantly, they are themselves moving objects in constant evolution to better capture the key forces of the ecosystem. And they are almost free as you’re not even required to buy the books to use them!
To come back on my original point, this is in striking opposition with what strategic thinking is inside big companies. What I remember from my bigcorp past are cumbersome, top-down, consultant driven, rigid, pointless, opaque, threatening processes that were mocked by everyone in the organization, even before they started or delivered. And millions were thrown through the window in the process.
I bet it hasn’t changed much. Just read a couple of HBR books on Business Model Innovation or Entrepreneurship, which in no doubt are aimed at high purchasing power corporate executives and no one else, and you’ll realize that this world is eons back in terms of efficiency.
That’s why startups will win.
