Reflection on Chapter 4: Creating a Strategy

A strategy can be viewed as a plan that integrates a firm's goals and actions into a cohesive whole that draws effectively on its resources and capabilities.
To form a strategy, you must know your goal, analyze the market, develop SWOT analysis.

S: one's strength
W: one's weakness
O: Opportunity to act your mission and goal
T: Treats in its competitive environment

There is a Chinese sentence: 知己知彼, 百戰百勝
The concept is the same, to know your competitors as well as yourself, and win always.
So, before plan a strategy, study yourself and your enemy is the way to victor. 


A good strategy design can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage.

Reflection Chap 5

This chapter focus on Innovation, which is a change in the thought process for doing something, or the useful application of new inventions or discoveries

How do we innovate? The book says: Creativity leads to invention and thus to innovation.
Creative thinking is a core competency of most new ventures, and entrepreneurs strive to have creative people on their team.
This concept reminds me of Apple Inc, which is the World's Number One Innovative Company, three years in a row according to BusinessWeek's 2007 list of the world's 50 most innovative companies. And iPod driving Apple to Number One Innovative Company. IPod combines outstanding design, easy-to-use interface, superb performance, and an experience like no other.

When we say Innovative product, it must has produced economic value in the marketplace, or it is just a piece of product in the shopping mall. So how do we know the market demand? What's the sources of innovation? Besides research laboratories, universities, and independent inventors, ultimate customer is another possibly important source.  
Developing an understanding of what customers value may be a far more useful exercise than merely asking them to submit their own solutions. The process of innovation begins with identifying the outcomes customers want to achieve; it ends in the creation of items they will buy.


Here are elements of an attractive innovation strategy:
1. Well-defined customer
2. Key customer benefit that is measurable in dollars
3. Short period until economic payback and positive cash flow
4. High benefit-to-price ratio for he customer
5. Proprietary advantage that can be maintained or defended
6. Core competencies required to exploit the new technology are present or available to the new venture
7. Access to the necessary resources