IMI CONFERENCE: Lack of focus and inability to make choices are key principles of strategy business leaders often fail to grasp, a leading academic told the conference.
"It sounds simple but the worst mistake a lot of companies make is not to choose," said Mr Costas Markides, professor of strategic and international management at London Business School.
Executives must decide who to target and who not to target as customers, what they will and will not be offered and how they will do this.
Mr Markides said: "When you are writing your business strategy, write down what you will not do rather than what you will do."
He cited the example of Edward Jones, one of the fastest growing brokerage firms in the US which refuses to consider people who trade through the internet as customers because it does not regard them as serious investors.
But strategy must not only make difficult choices, it must put all those choices together into a self reinforcing system of activities that fit, said Mr Markides.
The strategic choices must be supported by the underlying organisational environment of the firm.
"Even the most brilliant of strategies will fail unless we actively seek and win our people's emotional commitment to our strategy," concuded Mr Markides.
