Strategic analysis: a scientific art

Abstract

The word “analysis” is relatively uncontroversial and involves the decomposition of complex phenomena into their component parts as a first step in the better understanding of issues and problems - it requires an essentially reductionist stance. While defining analysis is relatively easy, it is somewhat more difficult to define the concept of strategy as there are many interpretations and misinterpretations which pervade the academic literature. However, the phrase which best encapsulates my own view of the word strategy is “the deployment of resources to achieve organisational objectives”. If we were to put these two components together - with some additional embellishments - my definition of the term “strategic analysis” would be: “developing a theoretically informed understanding of the environment in which an organisation is operating, together with an understanding of the organisation’s interaction with its environment in order to improve organisational efficiency and effectiveness by increasing the organisation’s capacity to deploy and redeploy its resources intelligently”.