wisdom to win

 Wisdom to Win
search bar left
search bar right
 

Corporate Strategy Quotes

 

Top 40 Corporate Strategy Quotes

 

No 1 (Best quote!)Corporate Strategy Quotes

Success is 5% strategy, 95% execution [i.e. implementation].

- Percy Barnevik, boss of the Swedish engineering company, ABB 1988-2002, pictured right.

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

In Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance (2002) Lou Gerstner, IBM's ex-boss, pictured right, agrees:

Execution is really the critical part of a successful strategy

 

 

No 2Corporate Strategy Quotes

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results,

- Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British prime minister, pictured right.

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

In Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Peter Drucker, pictured right, says:

The aim of strategic planning is action now.

 

 

No 3Corporate Strategy Quotes

Know the enemy and know yourself.

-Sun Tzu (lived around 500 BC) ,Chinese general, pictured right.

He also says:

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics before strategy is the noise before defeat.

 

 

No 4Corporate Strategy Quotes

Strategy is a human construction; it must in the long run be responsive to human needs.

- Kenneth Andrews, pictured right, in The Concept of Corporate Strategy (1971)

 

 

No 5Corporate Strategy Quotes

Take risks. Ask big questions. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not reaching far enough.

- David Packard (1912-96), co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.
 

 

 

Corporate Strategy Quotes

No 6

We must take things as we find them, and not as we wish them to be.

- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), French leader, pictured right.

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American scientist, pictured right. said something similar:

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

 

Corporate Strategy Quotes

 

No 7

The genesis of the strategy process must be a purposely created misfit between where the firm is and where it wants to be.

- Gary Hamel, pictured right above, and C. K. Prahalad, pictured right, Competing forCorporate Strategy Quotes the Future (1996)

 

 

 

No 8Corporate Strategy Quotes

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

- Richard Branson (1950- ), founder of the British company, Virgin, pictured right.

 

Some further advice on opportunities:

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, that you miss the right opportunity

- Michael Dell (1965- ), founder of Dell computers, pictured right.

Corporate Strategy Quotes
 

Don’t sit down and wait for opportunities to come. Get up and make them!

- Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919), African American businesswoman, pictured right.

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

- Francis Bacon (1561- 1626), English philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 9Corporate Strategy Quotes

Those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s army without battle.

- Sun Tzu (lived around 500 BC) ,Chinese general, pictured right.

 

 

No 10Corporate Strategy Quotes

To pursue the unattainable is insanity.

- Marcus Aurelius (121-180), Roman emperor and philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 11Corporate Strategy Quotes

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

- Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), American president, pictured right.

 

 

No 12Corporate Strategy Quotes

Study the past if you would divine the future.

- Confucius (551- 479 BC), Chinese philosopher, pictured right.

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

The American revolutionary, Patrick Henry (1736-99),, pictured right. agrees:

I know of no way of judging of the future, but by the past

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

But Edmund Burke (1729-97) Irish-born British philosopher and politician, pictured right. disagrees:

You can never plan the future by the past


 

No 13Corporate Strategy Quotes

Many of the great strategies are simply great visions.

- Henry Mintzberg, pictured right, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994)

 

 

No14Corporate Strategy Quotes

I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.

- Abraham Lincoln (1809–65), American president, pictured right.

 

 

No 15Corporate Strategy Quotes

All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgements of probabilities, and not on certainties.

- William (Bill) Hewlett (1919-2001), co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.

 

 

No 16Corporate Strategy Quotes

When in doubt what should be done, do nothing.

- William Lamb, Lord Melbourne (1779–1848) British prime minister, pictured right.

 

 

No 17Corporate Strategy Quotes

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

- Alexander Pope (1688–1744), English poet, pictured right.

 

 

No 18Corporate Strategy Quotes

When we build, let us think that we build for ever.

- John Ruskin (1819–1900) English art writer and philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 19Corporate Strategy Quotes

Our virtues lie in th’ interpretation of the time,

 (Aufidius in Corialanus)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

 

No 20Corporate Strategy Quotes

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe,

- Abraham Lincoln 1809–65, American president, pictured right.

 

 

No 21Corporate Strategy Quotes

She did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen,

(about Elizabeth-Jane in The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886)

- Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), pictured right, English writer.

 

 

No 22Corporate Strategy Quotes

The reasonable is that which is viable.

(from Sophie’s World, 1991)

- Jostein Gaarder (1952- ), Norwegian writer, pictured right,

 

 

No 23Corporate Strategy Quotes

When the facts change, I change my mind.

- John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), English economist, pictured right.

 

 

No 24Corporate Strategy Quotes

Blue ocean strategy challenges companies to break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space that makes the competition irrelevant.

- W. Chan Kim, pictured right, and Renée Mauborgne, pictured right below, Blue Ocean Strategy (2005)

Corporate Strategy Quotes
In the book they also say:

The creation of blue oceans is about driving costs down while simultaneously driving value up for buyers.

 

 

No 25Corporate Strategy Quotes

You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds. Lay first the foundation of humility,

- St. Augustine (354-430), Algerian philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 26Corporate Strategy Quotes

Our goals can only be reached through the vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe and upon which we must vigorously act.

- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist, pictured right.

 

 

No 27Corporate Strategy Quotes

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

- Colin Powell (1937- ), American general and Secretary of State, pictured right.

 

 

No 28Corporate Strategy Quotes

The whole is worth more than the sum of the parts,

- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 29Corporate Strategy Quotes

In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), American president, pictured right.

 

 

No 30Corporate Strategy Quotes

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

- Friedrich Engels (1820-95), pictured right, co-author of The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx .

 

 

No 31Corporate Strategy Quotes

Long range planning should prevent managers from...dedicating their resources and energies to the defence of yesterday.

- Peter Drucker, pictured right, in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973).

 

 

No 32Corporate Strategy Quotes

Readiness is all.

(Hamlet in Hamlet)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right.

 

 

No 33Corporate Strategy Quotes

Strategy is a deliberate search for a plan of action that will develop a business's competitive advantage and compound it.

- Bruce D. Henderson (1915-92), founder of the management consultants, the Boston Consulting Group, pictured right.

 Corporate Strategy Quotes

John Kay, pictured right, .in Foundations of Corporate Success (1993) defines strategy like this:

Corporate strategy is concerned with matching markets to distinctive capabilities

 

 

No 34Corporate Strategy Quotes

Successful strategy is based upon an understanding of customers' needs,

- Kenichi Ohmae (1943- ), Japanese management writer and consultant, pictured right..

 

 

No 35Corporate Strategy Quotes

To move swiftly, strike vigorously and secure all the fruits of victory is the secret of successful war.

- Thomas Stonewall Jackson (1824-63), pictured right, American Civil War general.

 

 

No 36Corporate Strategy Quotes

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), pictured right, French leader.

 

 

No 37Corporate Strategy Quotes

In the long run... we are all dead.

- John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), English economist, pictured right.

 

 

Corporate Strategy QuotesNo 38

A confused army leads to another’s victory

-Sun Tzu (lived around 500 BC) ,Chinese general, pictured right.

 

 

No 39Corporate Strategy Quotes

A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it!

(Prince Andrei in War and Peace)

- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), pictured right, Russian writer

 

 

No 40Corporate Strategy Quotes

We've got to figure out what we're going to do before we worry how we're going to do it.

John F. Kennedy ,pictured right (in the 2000 film Thirteen Days).

Free Newsletter
Enter your name and e-mail address to receive our free newsletter with analysis of business issues and new business books

Quotes