The document discusses strategic decisions and their characteristics, emphasizing the importance of aligning an organization's resources with the external environment to achieve competitive advantage. It introduces the concepts of strategic fit, which matches resources with opportunities, and strategic stretch, focused on leveraging resources for innovation and growth. The author highlights the necessity of resource leveraging in various forms to enhance organizational effectiveness.

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Strategic Fit and Stretch
Presented By:
Anupam Kumar
Reader,
School of Management Sciences,
Varanasi
1© Copyright 2013 Anupam Kumar
Strategic Decisions: Characteristics
• Strategic decisions are concerned with the scope of an
organization’s activities.
• Strategic decisions try to achieve some advantage for
the organization over competition.
• Strategy is a search for fit with the business
environment.
• Strategy can be seen as creating opportunities by
building on an organization’s resources and
competences.
• Strategy is affected by the values and expectations of
those who have power in and around the organization.
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Concept of Strategic Fit
• Strategic Fit is the degree to which an organization is matching
its resources and competences with the needs of the external
environment.
• It is an attempt to identify the opportunities in the
environment in which the organization works and then
tailoring the strategy of the organization to capitalize on
these.
• However, the strategic intent (or vision) of the organization
may not be limited to the extent of the external environment
or the available opportunities.
– A small organization shall always remain small if it only tries to match
its resources to the available external environment.
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Issue with Strategic Fit
• Slow and Steady wins the
race.
• Fast and Steady shall
always beat the slow and
steady.
• A tortoise shall always
remain beaten by a hare
if the hare takes the race
seriously, then how did it
challenge the hare to a
race and won it?
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Concept of Strategic Stretch
• Strategic Stretch is the process of innovation and
development involved in finding new opportunities
and creating a competitive advantage from an
organization’s resources and competencies.
• The difference between the strategic intent and the
available resources is called Strategic stretch.
– Google could beat Microsoft in search and categorization
of networked information.
• The key to strategic stretch is leveraging resources.
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Leveraging Resources
• Resources can be leveraged, both financial
and non-financial, in five basic ways:
– Concentrating them strategically
– Accumulating them efficiently
– Complementing one resource with another
– Conserving them
– Recovering them from the market place in the
shortest possible time.
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Concentrating Resources
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Accumulating Resources
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Complementing Resources
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Conserving Resources
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Getting Resources from Market
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For further details -
Contact:
-Anupam Kumar
Reader,
SMS Varanasi.
Email: anupamkr@gmail.com
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