Practitioner’s Perspective
on Strategy
This site is a ‘handout’ in support of a strategy course taught in master’s degree at TSM, the Graduate School of Management from Toulouse University. If I may paraphrase P. Drucker, it seeks to equip the reader with (some of) “the understanding, the thinking, the knowledge and the skills for strategy formulation” ( [Druker85] ) .
The course was first created in 2009, and initially focussed on practical aspects of Corporate Strategy.
However I quickly observed that most students (as well as many managers):
- were usually familiar with the jargon of strategy, however often struggled with many underlying concepts,
- often preferred qualitative approaches and felt less comfortable with quantitative aspects,
- were looking for ‘ready-to-use recipes’ and expected some sort of ‘automated process’ for strategy formulation.
In 2013, I released an expanded version, known by several cohorts of students as “the booklet”, that included definitions for the key notions (even those that are deemed known), provided some insight about business economics and corporate finance, and last but not least introduced the fundamentals of corporate development.
Over the years, more and more contents have be added (while I stopped to use some others). The booklet became a website in 2018.
However, this site is neither a textbook nor is intended to replace one. Students who are interested in the field of strategic management and/or are considering pursuing a career in strategy/consulting are invited to consider these lines as a starting point for a broader journey. The bibliography contains some very good entry points for further reading.
Please note that the views expressed herein are those of the author. They have not been endorsed by TSM or the University of Toulouse and do not necessarily reflect their opinions.