What is strategy about?

1. Strategy: ‘A course of action, including the specification of resources required, to achieve a specific objective.’ CIMA: Management Accounting: Official Terminology, p. 50.
2. Strategic plan: ‘A statement of long-term goals along with a definition of the strategies and policies which will ensure achievement of these goals.’ CIMA: Management Accounting: Official Terminology, p. 50.
3.  ‘The basic characteristics of the match an organisation achieves with its environment is called its strategy.’ Hofer and Schendel (1978, p. 4).
4. ‘Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations.’ Johnson and Scholes (1997, p. 10).
5. ‘Corporate strategy is the pattern of major objectives, purposes and goals and essential policies or plans for achieving those goals, stated in such a way as to define what business the company is in or is to be in and the kind of company it is or is to be.’ Andrews, cited in Lynch (2000, p. 8