Creative Competitive Advantage: Strategies That Work

For over two decades, Wharton Executive Education has offered strategy programs that have helped senior executives solve some of their biggest business challenges.

Wharton Management Professors Harbir Singh and Nicolaj Siggelkow recently sat down with Wharton@Work to talk about how executives can implement effective strategy

Executive Global: You are the academic directors of Creating and Implementing Strategy for Competitive Advantage. What kinds of issues are executives grappling with?
 

Nicolaj Siggelkow: We spend the first session talking about the specific, real-world challenges that keep them up at night. One issue is creating strategy, both assessing current strategy and developing new ones with a more structured process. The other is around execution; strategies don’t work if everyone is doing their own thing, so your leadership is critical. You can’t just build it at the top and hope it filters down.

EG: How does competitive advantage fit in?

Harbir Singh: Only ten percent of companies that have a competitive advantage are able to maintain it. We first talk about creating that advantage, which has to do with positioning in market, identifying the customer market segment you want to be in, and understanding sources of profitability. You also have to understand what kind of organization you have, how ideas come to the table, and how you sort through those ideas to identify the best ones. Then it is about execution, innovation, incentives, and rewards, and how they align with the strategy.

EG: How do you ensure that the senior strategists in the program are able to go back to their organizations and implement what you are teaching?

NS: It is very application-oriented. We provide tools to help manage growth initiatives, to structure mergers and acquisitions, and to position the firm relative to competitors. We also create activity system maps to delineate how interdependent choices either support or erode a strategy.

HS: Application is also dependent on leadership, which is a focus of the program. Leadership and strategy are intertwined, so strategy has to be implemented in light of someone’s leadership style. Our participants have to share what they learned and, as leaders, set a vision and inspire others to execute it.

EG: Isn’t the implementation stage where things typically fall apart?

HS:  Implementation is very situational. We provide a template for designing a strategy and socializing it within the organization. They can use it to list some of the initiatives they will propose, who they might engage, and what the stages of implementation will be. This lends order to the process. Creating strategies that will help you sustain competitive advantage isn’t about luck — through years of research and practice, we know what works.

Wharton’s Creating and Implementing Strategy for Competitive Advantage program runs June 20–24, 2016.

For information, please visit:
www.WhartonCompetitiveAdvantage.com