Strategic planning is a fundamental aspect of business management, and deliberate strategy is one of the approaches that help streamline it. But what happens when the plans do not go as expected? Well, this is where the emergent strategy comes into play!
In this article, we will explore deliberate and emergent strategies and see how real-world companies use them. Make sure to check out our essay samples, too!
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🔥 Deliberate and Emergent Strategy: Definitions
What Is a Deliberate Strategy?
A deliberate strategy is an organizational approach that uses a top-down model for strategic planning and focuses on intent. This strategy is anchored on an organization’s vision and mission and targets achieving the business’ core objective. Michael Porter developed this strategy, implying that companies should focus on making choices and trade-offs and deliberately decide to be different from others.
What Is an Emergent Strategy?
Emergent strategy is identifying unforeseen impacts of executing a strategy and finding ways to incorporate them into the company’s future plans. Unlike the deliberate strategy, the emergent strategy uses a bottom-up approach to company management.
⚖️ Deliberate vs Emergent Strategy: Which One to Choose?
During the development of a company’s strategy, it’s important to remember that everything changes depending on the prevailing circumstances. This aligns with the Mintzberg theory, which states that structures are products of their time. Here are the main applications of deliberate and emergent strategies:
🎁 Deliberate and Emergent Strategy Examples
Boeing Deliberate Strategy
Initially, Boeing only focused on developing military aircraft until 1952. When it realized the new needs in the commercial market, the management shifted to a deliberate strategy. They concentrated on creating bigger, faster, and more advanced high-performance aircraft. This strategy has helped the company to dominate the industry.
Nike Deliberate Strategy
Nike’s Just Do It ad featuring Colin Kaepernick is another interesting case study of the deliberate strategy application. Nike decided to improve its brand’s appeal among liberal and ethnically diverse younger clients. This was risky in the short term but very profitable in the long term because the new categories of customers and their preferences were changing and shifting quickly.
Amazon Emergent Strategy
When Amazon started, its primary aim was to become a major retailer. However, it employed the emergent strategy to take advantage of emerging opportunities. This resulted in the introduction of things like Amazon Prime and the Kindle that were more in line with emerging market segments.
Netflix Emergent Strategy
Netflix employs a customer-centric and data-driven marketing model that helps it to stay ahead of competitors. This is an example of an emergent strategy that allowed the company to quickly implement new plans based on shifting customer demand. The model has been very effective, helping Netflix change in accordance with market trends and emerging technology.
Other companies using great deliberate and emergent strategies include:
- McDonald’s
- Harley-Davidson
- Ford
Both deliberate and emergent strategies largely depend on the nature of a company, industry, target clients, and future targets. Keep it in mind when writing your next case study on this topic! We wish you good luck with your business essay writing.