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Chapter 3 Operations strategy 67
Emergent strategies
model is not intended to represent the way strategies are always formulated. When any group
is reviewing its corporate strategy, it will also take into account the circumstances, experiences
and capabilities of the various businesses that form the group. Similarly, businesses, when
reviewing their strategies, will consult the individual functions within the business about their
constraints and capabilities. They may also incorporate the ideas which come from each function’s
day-to-day experience. Therefore an alternative view to the top-down perspective is that
many strategic ideas emerge over time from operational experience. Sometimes companies
move in a particular strategic direction because the ongoing experience of providing products
and services to customers at an operational level convinces them that it is the right thing to do.
There may be no high-level decisions examining alternative strategic options and choosing
the one which provides the best way forward. Instead, a general consensus emerges from the
operational level of the organization. The ‘high-level’ strategic decision-making, if it occurs
at all, may confirm the consensus and provide the resources to make it happen effectively.
Suppose the printing services company described previously succeeds in its expansion
plans. However, in doing so it finds that having surplus capacity and a distributed network
of factories allows it to offer an exceptionally fast service to customers. It also finds that some
customers are willing to pay considerably higher prices for such a responsive service. Its
experiences lead the company to set up a separate division dedicated to providing fast, highmargin
printing services to those customers willing to pay. The strategic objectives of this
new division are not concerned with high-volume growth but with high profitability.
This idea of strategy being shaped by operational level experience over time is sometimes
called the concept of emergent strategies. 4 Strategy is gradually shaped over time and based
on real-life experience rather than theoretical positioning. Indeed, strategies are often formed
in a relatively unstructured and fragmented manner to reflect the fact that the future is at
least partially unknown and unpredictable (see Figure 3.5). This view of operations strategy
is perhaps more descriptive of how things really happen, but at first glance it seems less
useful in providing a guide for specific decision-making. Yet while emergent strategies are
less easy to categorize, the principle governing a bottom-up perspective is clear: shape the
operation’s objectives and action, at least partly, by the knowledge it gains from its day-to-day
activities. The key virtues required for shaping strategy from the bottom up are an ability to
learn from experience and a philosophy of continual and incremental improvement.
Figure 3.5 The ‘bottom-up’ perspective of operations strategy and its application to the
printing services company