ISYS90038 Chap.1 An Introduction to Strategy
An Introduction to Strategy
Week 1 asks a question that sounds simple and is not: what is strategy? Instead of one definition the subject gives three, and the tutorial asks you to read a single case through each in turn. Mintzberg and Quinn describe five readings of the word, plan, ploy, pattern, position and perspective, and the set reading by Mintzberg and Waters separates deliberate strategy from strategy that emerges from a pattern of decisions.
Porter grounds strategy in competitive advantage, consistently superior performance built on resources rivals cannot easily copy, and in the five forces that decide how attractive an industry is. Lafley and Martin treat strategy as a cascade of linked choices that runs down to the capabilities and management systems a business needs, which is why the lecture notes it leads naturally into IT requirements.
The subject treats IS, ICT and IT as the same term. This chapter compares the three schools, shows where each is strongest, and works an invented credit union through all three.
It also covers the limit that the practice exam tests directly: the five forces were built for firms competing for profit, so most of them lose their meaning for a statutory public body, although supplier power can still matter when vendor contracts are in play.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Why three schools: each perspective asks a different question and needs different case evidence
- 02
Mintzberg and Quinn's five readings: plan, ploy, pattern, position and perspective
- 03
Deliberate and emergent strategy: comparing a published plan with the pattern of actual decisions
- 04
Competitive advantage: superior performance built on rare, hard-to-copy and long-lived resources
- 05
Five sources of advantage: cost, quality, focus, speed, and manoeuvrability with agility
- 06
Porter's five forces: rivalry, entrants, substitutes, supplier power and buyer power
- 07
Public-sector limits: why most forces fail for a statutory agency and where supplier power survives
- 08
Lafley and Martin's cascade: from winning aspiration to the capabilities and systems IT must support
Worked example · free
Test whether the five forces fit a public agency
- 1State the model's design assumption: it analyses firms competing for customers and profit against rivals, entrants, substitutes and powerful buyers or suppliers.
- 1Apply it to the evidence: the authority holds a statutory monopoly on highways (P2, L6–8), so rivalry and the threat of new entrants have no real object.
- 1Test buyer power and substitutes: motorists cannot buy roads elsewhere, and no substitute provider performs the authority's legal role.
- 1Find the surviving force: dependence on one software vendor near a renewal (P5, L20–22) gives that supplier real bargaining power.
- 1Conclude with a position: the model adds partial value through supplier power and little through the other four forces.
Key terms
- Deliberate strategy
- An intended strategy that is realised as it was planned, as opposed to one that emerges from unplanned patterns of action.
- Pattern
- Mintzberg's reading of strategy as a consistent sequence of actions over time, whether or not anyone planned it.
- Competitive advantage
- Consistently superior performance compared with competitors, based on resources that are rare, hard to imitate and long-lived.
- Supplier bargaining power
- The influence suppliers hold over price, quality and delivery terms, one of Porter's five forces.
- Cascade of choices
- Lafley and Martin's view of strategy as linked decisions, each constraining the next, down to capabilities and management systems.
- Positioning school
- The strand of strategy thinking, associated with Porter, that seeks advantage by placing the organisation in a favourable market position.
An Introduction to Strategy FAQ
Which strategy perspective should I use on an exam case?
Choose the lens that matches the question and the evidence. Mintzberg suits a gap between plan and behaviour, Porter suits an organisation competing for customers, and Lafley and Martin suit questions about the capabilities and systems IT must provide.
Does Porter's five forces work for a government agency?
Mostly not, because it assumes firms competing for profit. A statutory body has no rival for its public and no entrant threatening its mandate, yet supplier power can still apply through critical vendor contracts, and a strong answer names that force.
What is the difference between deliberate and emergent strategy?
Deliberate strategy is intended and then carried out as planned. Emergent strategy forms from a pattern of decisions that nobody set out in advance, and it can become the organisation's real strategy even while the published plan says something else.
Why does the subject treat IS, ICT and IT as one term?
The opening lecture notes that strategy is discussed as IT, IS, ICT, cyber or digital, and states that the subject treats IS, ICT and IT as the same. An IS strategy and an IT strategy therefore refer to the same plan in your answers.
Exam move
Learn each school as a question plus the evidence it needs. For Mintzberg, practise listing a plan's stated priorities beside the actions a case reports, then name the reading of strategy the actions reveal. For Porter, write one evidence line per force and practise the public-sector variant, deciding which forces survive and why.
For Lafley and Martin, trace a case's choices down to the capabilities it needs and ask what systems would support them. Re-read the Week 1 tutorial case through a lens you did not use in class, and time yourself writing a five-mark answer that names the lens, cites two lines and states the implication.
Working through An Introduction to Strategy in ISYS90038? Sia is AskSia’s AI Information Technology tutor — ask any ISYS90038 An Introduction to Strategy question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how ISYS90038 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
