The Derry Journal (Ireland) has a longish article (registration required) that deals with scenario planing and strategic management. Snippets:
In studying the management structure within your own organisation or that of your competitors, you should be on the look out for: 1) Lack of Leadership. 2) Loss of discipline. 3) Psychological burnout. 4) Crises. 5) Forfeiture of Obedience. 6) Loss of morale. 7) Injudiciousness. The ideas that I have just enunciated do not come from the Harvard Business School, but are found in the writings of Sun Tzu over two thousand years ago. He wrote that those sophisticated at strategy first create undefeatability and then await the enemy's defeatability. He wrote that undefeatability lies with ourselves while defeatability lies with the enemy.
Porter's four concepts of corporate strategy: Portfolio management - frequently concentrating on acquisition targets-Restructuring - post-acquisition activity-Transfering skills (for which commonalities must pre-exist)-Sharing activities to achieve economies of scope - a strong sense of corporate identity - a clear corporate mission - incentives and rewards - interbusiness task forces. The main difficulty that I have with this theory of corporate strategy is that it appears to operate in a vacuum. There is little room for people.
