There was a time when the process of strategic management involved a smart Manager sitting down and really thinking about the direction to take his or her business. This was a time before personal computing, widespread data availability; before Michael Porter and the cult of the McKinsey Way. Since there was no way to do rigorous analysis outside of the rarefied academic labs of RAND, people contented themselves with the application of intellect, experience and context. This was called the “Cognitive School” of strategy. Of course things have changed since then. We have a better way, a way that, empowered by cheap computing and a flood of data from the Internet, enables the 21st Century strategist to test any hypothesis to death in a matter of days. Never has the Excel Wizard been more valuable than now. Now the market’s obsession with Big Data has led to a new wave of analytical tools hitting the streets. These, we’re told, will supplement weak human logic with the two towers of soft...
Thoughts on strategy in a Digital Economy