There are decades of investments in helping corporations throughout the world to develop a sustainable corporate and/or business strategy.

In modern times many authors, among them Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad, and Gary Johnson and Kevan Scholes suggest that defining core competencies is the only way to ensure continuing success under changing conditions. What is therefore the classical approach to strategy development?

There are two methodological approaches or ways to develop a corporate and/or business strategy:

• rigorous formal approaches include game theory, decision trees, opportunity portfolios, real options, scenarios, simulations and other numerous variations;
• less rigorous possibilities include rapid analysis frameworks (such as SWOT), scorecards and weighing systems, and evaluation processes (such as Stage-Gate).

Both approaches have support on

• the one hand in the rigorous mathematical theory; and on
• the other hand in the less rigorous but equally vigorous discussions of topics such as decision styles, roles, and emotions.

Source:
Chhatpar, Ravi: Analytic Enhancements to Strategic Decision-making: From the Designer’s Toolbox in Lockwood Th. & Walton Th. (eds). 2008. Building Design Strategy: Using Design to Achieve Key Business Objectives. DMI & Allworth Press, 257 p.