Strategic Management from an Islamic Perspective: Key Concepts

The key to success: Providing customers with products and services they want and that they can afford Plan: Continuing the current business model by extending it in the future Strategy: Creating a new business model in the future Strategic conversations: Discussion between leaders and followers about the future of the organization Strategic flexibility: An organization has more strategic choices when it has more efficient business processes than its competitors. The biggest mistake: Thinking that strategy is about "beating" your competitors - it is not. It is always about satisfying your customers. You can beat your competitors and still disappoint your customers. The second biggest mistake: Think that profits is the only measure of success of a strategy. A simple way to increase profitability is to increase risk. A better measure of success is profits divided by the amount of risk that the organization takes. Good organizations must develop a culture of risk management. Every organization must do two things at the same time. It must operate as it is currently and think about how it will be different in the future. The essence of strategy is engaging key leaders and subordinates in strategic conversations. A key goal has to be that the organization is more efficient than others so that it develops strategic flexibility. In my experience, people get so excited about the tactics of strategy ("lets beat our competitors")that they forget that the purpose of strategy is to provide customers with products and services that they want at a price they can afford.