Strategic Considerations

Competition

Monopolistic/Oligopolistic Market Behaviour Competition and Cooperation

The basic assumption in Strategy is competition. Competitive behaviour sees organisations taking an adversarial role in all exchange situations

The problem with building a defensive wall is that one loses the benefits of competition improved performance.

Co-operative Market Behaviour

Co-operative behaviour is characterised by organisations exhibiting behaviour that focuses primarily on cooperation with market supporters (strategic relationship building to leverage collaborative efforts.

Syncretic Market Behaviour

The attempt to achieve a dynamic balance between positives to be found in both competitive and co-operative strategies

Scection 1.1

Competition and Co-operation

The basic assumption in Strategy is competition. We create strategies to improve our overall performance and because we are in competitive situations or could be in the future. Competitive activity has a number of levels. It ranges from an extreme of all out war to dtente and cooperation. Success may be better achieved not only by building relationships and alliances, with customers, suppliers and those who can facilitate our activities, but through better competition with our competitors.
1. Competitive market behaviour

Competitive behaviour sees organisations taking an adversarial role in all exchange situations, not only with competitors in the market but also in dealings with stakeholders such as suppliers. The primary objective is to drive the hardest bargain in all situations. This is what is referred to as a zero sum game an interaction in which one participant's gains result only from another's equivalent losses.

Monopolistic/Oligopolistic Market Behaviour

Some organisations seek to operate in a monopolistic way, seeking to exclude or severely limit competition via government policies and regulations or through totally proprietary (patented) technology.
The problem with building a defensive wall is that one loses the benefits of competition improved performance.

Co-operative Market Behaviour

Co-operative behaviour is characterised by organisations exhibiting behaviour that focuses primarily on co-operation with market supporters (strategic relationship building to leverage collaborative efforts. By working together, they can jointly create a superior offer to customers) and less on competitive behaviours towards competitors. Lesser (Non-competitive) market behaviour ranges from: An intention not to engage in overtly competitive activities due to a desire not to disturb the status quo. Dtente A mutual deep interest and understanding, not to act competitively. Collusive behaviour Organisations who conspire and engage in anti competitive behaviour.

Syncretic Market Behaviour

Syncretic (a combination of different beliefs) market behaviour is the attempt to achieve a dynamic balance between positives to be found in both competitive and co-operative strategies. The objective is to enhance the competitive position of the organisation by Behaving in a mutually beneficial way with competitors, though sharing information and/or base technology.

Scenario Building
One way to understand different futures within the planning process is to develop scenarios, and then design the strategy so that it has enough flexibility to accommodate whatever future occurs. In other words, by developing multiple scenarios of the shape of things to come, an organisation can make a better strategic response to the future environment. The prime aim of scenarios and scenario building is to enable decision-makers to detect and explore all or as many as possible, alternative futures so as to clarify present actions and subsequent consequences. They should, thus, be prevented from making strategic decisions before they have done some strategic thinking!

Contingency Strategies
Many organisations will develop several variations of strategy, each of which is intended to fit a different environmental scenario. An environmental scenario consists of a set of environmental characteristics that describe a organisation's external circumstances. By structuring external variables into sets of related variables, different scenarios result. Evaluative criteria then are formulated for each scenario. These are variables to be monitored in order to estimate which of the scenarios is going to apply in the future. Actually this is a matter of deciding whether the present scenario will continue to be the best description of the organisation's environment or one of the others seems to be emerging as most correct. arise.