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Business Strategy Kept Simple: The Walt Disney Example

There is a temptation to over-complicate business and what it takes to be successful.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the mysterious world of business strategy and incredibly expensive business strategy consultants.

With this series of articles, I want to try to reverse that association so that you see business strategy as your friend.

I will let you in on a secret.

Good business strategy makes business simpler, easier and much more successful.

It does not need to be complicated although it can be made to appear very complicated indeed.

The Story Of Walt Disney & Disney-World in California

Many years ago, Walt Disney took his children to an amusement park and he was horrified by what he saw.

It was rundown, dirty and too many rides were broken. It wasn’t really the type of place that you’d want to take children to.

He came away convinced that it must be possible to do better.

He drew up a simple design specification for an amusement park he wanted to create:

  • All the horses jump
  • No chipped paint
  • Windows don’t get dirty
  • No stale popcorn.

We know what he went on to create but these origins are interesting for two reasons.

First we have a chance to look into the mind of an entrepreneur.

Disney saw an opportunity when the existing market offerings weren’t very good for customers, he boiled his solution down to the basic elements and then he put in process the actions to make it happen.

Second, strategic innovation doesn’t have to be complicated. The biggest innovation can be doing the simple things and making sure that they are done right, consistently.

Just take a look around you, how often do you see compromises on the delivery of basic services in what you buy:

  • Long queues at the check-out desks in shops with other staff chatting away, oblivious to the customers waiting to be served.
  • Tradesmen who don’t turn up at your house at the agreed time and don’t let you know they’re running late..
  • Suppliers of basic commodity type products who always seem to be out of stock.

You have a strategy in your business. It emerges from your day to day and longer term decisions. Whatever goes on in your business (good and bad) reflects your strategy but how much thought have you given to the overall big picture solutions you deliver to customers

Is your strategy intentional and purposefully aimed at fulfilling your set objectives or his it emerged as you’ve turned this way and that?

What Is Strategy?

Strategy has been defined as “a plan, method or series of manoeuvres or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result”.

Don’t you just love definitions that make you look up the definition of another word? So what is a stratagem?

A stratagem is “a plan, scheme or trick for surprising or deceiving an enemy; any artifice, ruse or trick to attain a goal or to gain an advantage over an adversity for obtaining a specific goal or result.”

My definition of business strategy is simpler

“Strategy is how you achieve your own objectives by winning the hearts, minds and business of customers by out-thinking and outmanoeuvring competitors.”

This puts customers at the centre of your thinking about your business, recognises that you must take competitors into consideration but also says that strategy is about achieving your objectives.

Your business strategy has to be about what you want, how your competitors are likely to behave and how you find a way to find and deliver a way that keeps both of you delighted.

The key difference between strategy for big business and small business strategy comes down to you, the business owner and entrepreneur.

In big business, ownership of the business is distinct and separate from management of the business. In fact there is a large amount of business theory about the best ways to make sure that the managers work in the best interests of the shareholders. The general assumption is that the shareholders are focused on return on investment and shareholder value whilst management pursue their own self interests.

In small businesses, it is unusual for ownership and management to be separated so the business has to reflect the aims of the business owner.

This is why it is so important that the business owner is clear on how the business is expected to fit into their lives. Please see my earlier blog on Your Primary Aim (link) inspired by Michael Gerber and his book, “The E Myth Revisited“.

My intention is to blog about strategy regularly but I realise that some of you may want information faster than I can deliver.

Business strategy is the cornerstone subject of MBA programmes and because of that, many of the books are study text books and are heavy going so be warned about looking at the best selling lists on Amazon.

If you would like to know more about Business Strategy, I have collected together one page about the Best Strategy Books I have reviewed.

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