In the world of digital business, the line between strategy and tactics is blurring. Traditionally large companies would adopt strategic frameworks which planned over three- to five-year timescales, while most digital start-ups had little interest in comprehensive and rigorous strategic processes and simply set themselves vision and worked out how to get there along the way. In today’s digital economy even large companies are finding that their planning horizons are being measured in months rather than years or quarters (if not yet in the weeks or even days of startups). On the other hand, investors are less swayed by the excitement of ‘digital’ and expect harder and more rigorous medium term planning from start-ups. As a result, while the empirical process of learning by doing is becoming part of traditional companies’ strategy processes, digital pure plays are no longer just making it up as they go along, but actively learning and changing as they go along. In short: on the battlefield of online commerce, strategy blends with tactics. Indeed, the distinction between pure play and hybrid is increasingly redundant as more holistic business models begin to emerge. Digital Stractics captures the experience and insights of some 60 entrepreneurs, CEOs and chairmen of both pure plays and hybrids to formulate frameworks within which both pure plays and hybrids can shape their strategy and business models. As timescales between ‘plan’ and ‘do’ collapse strategy and tactics have to blend. The world of STRACTICS is upon us.
