Strategies and tactics : How they differ ?

1.0 The Difference of Strategy and Tactics

Strategies are different from tactics . One is more holistic in nature and the other is reductionist. The most important differences of strategy and tactics are given below :

1.1 Strategies are proactive and tactics are reactive.

1.2. Strategies are internal in source and the business venture has absolute control over their application.

1.3. Strategy can only be applied once, after that it is process of application, with no unique element remaining.

1.4. The outcome is normally a strategic plan which is used as guidance to define functional and divisional plans, including Technology, Marketing, etc.

2.0 The Content of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization's future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

2.1 "What do we do?"
2.2 "For whom do we do it?"
2.3 "How do we excel?"

3.0 The Important aspect of Strategic Planning

The most important aspect of strategic planning in Business is how do we beat the competition.In many organizations, Strategic plan is viewed as a process for determining where an organization is can survive competetion the next year or more -typically 3 to 5 years, although some extend their vision to 20 years. In business lingo this is referred as Sustainable Competitive Advantage.In order to determine where the organization is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. These analysis is the pretext of resulting document which we know as "strategic plan".