{"id":7302,"date":"2022-04-15T14:20:36","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T12:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/?p=7302"},"modified":"2023-02-17T16:50:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T14:50:50","slug":"from-military-strategy-to-corporate-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/tl-dr\/from-military-strategy-to-corporate-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"From military strategy to corporate strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cBattle plan\u201d, \u201cconquest\u201d, \u201cenemy\u201d, \u201cdeterrence\u201d, \u201celement of surprise\u201d… As you will have no doubt noticed, corporate strategy borrows a fair part of its rhetoric from military strategy. Listening to CEOs explain their strategy, you often have the impression of hearing generals on the battleground.<\/mark> Is this analogy relevant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, at its origins, corporate strategy took great inspiration from military strategy.<\/strong> Corporate strategy was born in the 1960s in the United States, when four Harvard Business School professors used the SWOT model to enrich their General Policy classes. This was also around the time that Bruce Henderson founded the first strategic consulting firm: Boston Consulting Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are no air miles or business class when parachuting into a battle zone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At first, corporate strategy classes were often given by military personnel, and the reference texts used were for the most part by great military authors like the Chinese Sun Tzu<\/a> or the Prussian Clausewitz<\/a>. At the time, the directors being addressed by the recently created corporate strategy were all men, the majority of whom had served their country during World War II and the Korean War, and came from one of two backgrounds – business and military. It is therefore not surprising that they made use of their knowledge from the battleground and applied it to the business world.<\/strong>
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