The Shifting Language of Strategy

My post on International Business terms got me thinking about the shifting popularity of Strategic Management terms.

So, here we go with some comparisons.

Let’s start with the topic itself and its two main constituent threads (i.e. strategic management, corporate strategy, and business strategy):

All three terms boomed from the late 1970s, but it was business strategy (i.e. decisions about how to compete in markets) that screamed away from corporate strategy (what markets to compete in).  As with many of the IB terms, all the concepts have faded in recent years, perhaps as conversations became more specific (or even less-business focussed).

It doesn’t surprise that such corporate strategy has waned in a relative sense, as the orthodox rhetoric has been towards streamlined, focused organisations.  Looking at some of the typical such corporate strategy terms (diversification, mergers, acquisitions, outsourcing), shows a genuine plateauing in all terms, other than outsourcing which has raced up in the past decade (this no doubt reflects not just usage by strategy scholars, but also the critics thereof). Diversification peaked way back in the late 1980s (although this term has a considerably wider usage than its strategy meaning), which correlates pretty nicely with the decline in such behaviour (at least by Western firms):

The influence of Michael Porter, and his big ideas/tools (Five Forces, generic strategies) have proven surprisingly consistent in terms of usage, although they too have waned this millennium:

In terms of talking about competitive advantages, core competences/core competencies peaked in the early 200s, while dynamic capabilities are still on a steady rise (I get similar results with the singular versions of the terms):

What terms have I missed (conscious that comparing phrases with different word counts is not practical/tenable, nor does it make much sense to use terms with other common uses, such as resources)?

As this is likely to be my last pre-Christmas post, I wish you all a fun festive season and safe passge into 2011.

 

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Fastest start-up in history?

I love this tale from Aussie blogger Ben Rowe about setting up a new web-based business. He went from conception to execution in 4 hours at the cost of $25 (not including labour – but it was a Friday evening, so probably free).

He taps into several staples of the web 2.0 zeitgeist – Twitter, t-shirts, outsourcing and tailored e-commerce.

His idea? Printing twitter posts onto t-shirts. Or, in fact, coming up with a neat design for the shirts and getting someone else to print on demand if an order comes through.

There doesn’t seem to have been any orders yet, so it remains to be seen whether this is a viable business (although there haven’t been many expenses yet anyway).

Ben has also noted that it turns out he wasn’t first to market. Will first mover advantage squash him?

Or will the market power of the existing on-line t-shirt giant Threadless see them win out with this little diversification/product-line extension?

What can Ben do to achieve a sufficient point of difference in the market?