What is strategy? Baidu answers it this way: corporate strategy is a top-down holistic planning process, which is divided into company strategy, functional strategy, business strategy, and product strategy levels. Corporate strategies are emerging endlessly; for example, informatization is a brand-new strategy. Although there are many types of corporate strategies, their basic attributes are the same: they are all strategies for the enterprise, all plans for the enterprise's overall, long-term, and fundamental issues. Zhihu's answer is even more brilliant, citing the simplest example:

A postgraduate entrance exam candidate gets up at 4 AM every day, memorizes English words, studies politics and professional courses, attends training classes, insists on exercising, spends over ten hours a day studying, and sleeps only 5 hours a day.

This is called tactical diligence.

Then you ask this candidate, why do you want to take the postgraduate exam, and what do you plan to do after getting in?

The top student smiles slightly and says: I don't know why I'm taking the exam; my mom told me to. After I get in, I don't know what to do either, maybe pursue a PhD. This is called strategic laziness. Being diligent in strategy but lazy in tactics is called "having high aims but low ability"; being diligent in tactics but lazy in strategy is usually described as "excellent but useless." It can also be explained with a picture: Choice is more important than diligence; doing the right thing is more important than doing things right. The biggest cost for a startup is the decision cost, or the time cost or opportunity cost caused by improper decisions. I often tell people around me that startups easily generate huge "gravity": once you start doing something, even if your company has few people and executes quickly, you're like jumping off a plane, almost on a single track, and it's hard to see other opportunities to change or adjust midway. So in the early stage, you need to spend enough time on decision-making. This actually talks about the CEO's energy allocation issue. Due to work, in the TMT industry, I have had the opportunity to contact some CEOs, roughly divided into three levels: A. Entrepreneurs (leading a startup team of a dozen to dozens of people, I've seen over a hundred)

B. Small bosses (companies that have grown to a certain scale, notable figures in the market, such as some second- and third-tier mobile game developers, I've seen dozens) C. Entrepreneurs (large listed companies or equivalent scale, I've seen about a dozen) How do they allocate their time? Let's look at A and C first. The three most important things for Category A:

  1. Lead the core business well, such as improving the product (product-based companies) or opening up the market (sales/channel-based companies)
  2. Lead the startup team well, ensuring the team has enthusiasm and combat effectiveness
  3. Be able to raise funds at critical stages The three most important things for Category C:
  4. Judge industry trends and patterns, make trade-offs and trims on the company's business portfolio, and adjust the group's organizational structure
  5. Manage the group's board of directors and senior management team, balancing power mechanisms
  6. Manage the capital market and the use of capital tools Category B is usually a mix of A and C, with more diverse situations. Simply put, what A worries about is tactics, and what C worries about is strategy. Monitoring product versions and data, recruiting R&D/operations/marketing talent, repeatedly polishing BP and speeches to get investment—these are tactics; Tencent adjusting BG architecture, divesting search and e-commerce, Baidu buying 91, and stories on the boards of major listed companies—these are strategies. At different stages of enterprise growth, the demand structure for tactics and strategy is different. If a CEO cannot continuously and effectively adjust their energy allocation according to the company's development state, they may become the company's biggest bottleneck. If a listed company CEO's interest is still in going to the front line to oversee products and business, is insensitive to industry patterns, is careless about organizational structure, is inexperienced in capital operations, can't handle the board, and can't balance the senior management team, this is using tactical diligence to cover strategic laziness, and it will put the company in trouble. But this is easier said than done. CEOs are also human, prone to path dependence, and like to stay in their comfort zones; even if they are willing to keep learning and changing, they may not necessarily do well. Deciding victory from a thousand miles away and planning strategies in a tent are, after all, different genes. The CEO's pattern determines the company's pattern—from what I've personally seen, without exception. Strategy is why you do something. Tactics is how you do it. A group of people drive into a big desert, and the car breaks down. Four guys are in the car, and two are immediately stunned. One takes out a compass, a guide, and a map, and studies them. The last one equips himself with a hat, scarf, shoes, and drinking water, stretches his muscles in the back seat, and even applies sunscreen. He says, "I'm off to find an oasis," and leaves. The three in the car couldn't hold him back, and he ran off. Five minutes later, the guy fiddling with the map says, "The oasis should be in the opposite direction." They get out to look for the running guy, but only see a small black dot under the desert sun. This guy who went to find the oasis showed his action in tactical diligence, but he failed miserably at the strategic level. The result is life and death unknown. As for the compass guy, although he didn't make a decision quickly and didn't seem thunderous in action, he is a master at the strategic level. Many times, being lazy in strategy but diligent in tactics is actually a matter of pattern. For example, Japan is a nation without much strategy. Take the Pacific War: tactically, Japan couldn't be said to have prepared insufficiently; they even considered how soldiers should fix bayonets. The only thing they didn't think through was whether this war should be fought at all. I personally tend to believe that success or failure at the strategic level depends more on intelligence and the pattern issues caused by intelligence. Such things are common in our real life. For example, when I was in high school, a classmate resolutely chose science when dividing into arts and science tracks. In the following two years of science studies, he was tormented by physics, chemistry, and biology. In academics, he put in more effort than all classmates, including me. He did almost everything right like a textbook, but his college entrance exam was still a complete failure. This classmate did almost everything right tactically but still failed to conquer the exam because he failed at the strategic level. He didn't think clearly about whether he should study science or arts. Let me give a contrasting example. A roommate in my college dorm, a top student who fell from grace, failed the college entrance exam and came to our school. In college, he maintained his top-student nature. In his junior year, something went wrong with the postgraduate recommendation, causing him to miss the qualification. When we all thought he would definitely choose to take the postgraduate exam to redeem himself, he resolutely chose to find a job. It seemed really strange. When we talked to him, he said, "The two failures in the middle school and college entrance exams at least taught me one thing: I'm not a test-taker." He said, "You see some powerful athletes who dominate in domestic small competitions, but when it comes to international competitions, they get nervous and come back dejected every time. This shows that in this world, some people are not born for big competitions. Whether it's a stress resistance problem or a mental attitude issue, the result is only one: they are not suited for that jungle." He finally said, "Maybe I'm a lion, and I shouldn't stay in the jungle, so I'm going to my grassland." To this day, I am still moved by the rational brilliance in him. Looking back, he embodies three big words: a clear-minded person. This is the victory of strategy. Choice is more important than effort. Strategy is how to choose; tactics is how to work hard! To do strategy well, you must be diligent in thinking and analysis! To do tactics well, you must have strong perseverance and endurance! Take entrepreneurship as an example. Many people ask about having an idea or some capital and wanting to start a business. Ask them: Why will you succeed? Answer: Starting a business is my own thing; I will definitely go all out to do things. Such results often lead to failure. A good entrepreneur or manager, especially the team leader, must learn to: build a team, set strategy, and lead the team. Instead of treating yourself as an executor, being diligent and hardworking in doing everything, liking to do everything yourself, fearing colleagues can't do well, or fearing others won't work hard. After failing in entrepreneurship, such people always say, "I've worked so hard, why can't I make money, why do I still fail?" Strategy represents the future and direction. You need to tell yourself and others: Does the company's chosen product direction have a future? What will the company's team structure be like in the future? What will the company develop into in the future? How will the entire company system change? Who are your current users, and who are your future users? How do you find users? How do you convince them to buy? Strategy often looks at the company from a macro perspective, considering the economic environment the company is in and the direct and indirect competitors it faces. From the overall situation, from the ecosystem, and then slowly to every detail of the company. Strategy also answers the question of where the company comes from and where it is going. It has a bit of a philosophical flavor. This requires every entrepreneur to spend time every day asking themselves questions, then thinking, analyzing, looking at problems from outside the company, coming up with solutions, and then finding the right people to solve them. Think twice before acting, which emphasizes the importance of strategy. The direction must not be wrong. In the wrong direction, no matter how diligent and hardworking you are, the results won't be much better. So, I hope everyone, before starting a business, can value strategic thinking and be diligent in planning, rather than just being diligent in tactics. In the early stages of entrepreneurship, tactical effort is also very important; otherwise, it becomes empty talk and fantasy, but you need to pay attention to time allocation. Strategic hand-drawn blueprints of industry giants The 3rd (CFIC) China FMCG + Internet Conference will be held in Chongqing in November 2017. The conference will closely focus on the theme "New Forces, New Ecosystem," inviting 1000+ distributors, 500+ brand owners, 200+ B2B platform founders, and 100+ investment and financing institutions domestically to jointly explore a new chapter of cross-border integration! November 8-9, 2017 Chongqing Yuelai International Conference Center, Xinyue Hall Registration is now open. Long press the QR code below or click "Read Original" to register. Add friend with note "Conference Registration" Click the link below to review the highlights of the 1st and 2nd FMCG + Internet Conferences: 2016 "FMCG + Internet" Summit Forum -END-