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Strategy process 

model

A framework for 

approaching strategy 

development.

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Part 2  Strategy and applications

Figure 5.4

A generic strategy process model

1

Strategic analysis

External

environment

Internal

resources

Monitoring, evaluation and r

esponse

2

Strategic objectives

• Vision

• Mission

• Objectives

3

Strategic definition

Option

generation

Option

selection

Option

evaluation

4

Strategic implementation

Planning

Control

Execution

Table 5.1

Continued

Jelassi and Enders (2008) 

Digital business strategy 

framework

Johnson and Scholes  

(2006) Parallel corporate 

strategy model

McDonald (1999) 

Sequential marketing 

strategy model

Smith (1999) 

SOSTAC

®

 Sequential 

marketing strategy 

model (see Chapter 8)

Strategy implementation 

including internal organisation, 

interaction with suppliers and 

users or customers

Resource allocation and 

monitoring (budget,   

first‑  year  implementation 

plan)

Tactics

Actions

Control

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Chapter 5  Digital business strategy

Prescriptive strategy

Strategic analysis, 

strategic development 

and strategy 

implementation are linked 

together sequentially.

Emergent strategy

Strategic analysis, 

strategic development 

and strategy 

implementation are 

interrelated and are 

developed together.

Table 5.2

Summary of approaches used to support emergent strategy

Aspect of emergent strategy

Approaches used to support emergent digital strategy

Strategic analysis

•  Staff in different parts of organisation encouraged to monitor introduction of new

approaches by competitors in‑sector or out‑of‑sector

•   Third- party benchmarking service reporting monthly or quarterly on new functionality

introduced by competitors

•  Ad hoc customer panel used to suggest or review new ideas for site features

•  Quarterly longitudinal testing of usability to complete key tasks

•  Subscription to audience panel data (comScore, Netratings, Hitwise) reviews changes

in popularity of online services

Common elements include:

1 

Internal and external environment scanning or analysis is needed. Scanning occurs both 

during strategy development and as a continuous process in order to respond to competi-

tors. Digital business requires a more continuous review of opportunities and threats as 

new digital platforms are created and adopted by businesses and consumers.

2 

A clear statement of vision and objectives is required. Clarity is required to communi-

cate the strategic intention to both employees and the marketplace since digital business 

requires a major  long-  term transformation. Objectives are also vital to act as a check as to 

whether implementation of strategy is on track.

3 

Strategy development can be broken down into strategy option generation, evaluation and 

selection.

4 

After strategy development, enactment of the strategy occurs as strategy implementation.

5 

Control is required to monitor operational and strategy effectiveness problems and adjust 

the operations or strategy accordingly. With digital business, optimisation is possible 

using digital analytics (as described in Chapter 12). This includes tracking of audience 

behaviour using desktop and mobile services and qualitative feedback via social media. 

Harnessing this insight is useful to refine the implementation, for example to gain ideas of 

how to increase conversion rate to sale for e-commerce services.

Although the models suggest that these elements, are generally sequential, in reality they are 

iterative and require reference back to previous stages.

Jelassi and Enders (2008) suggest that there are three key dimensions for defining an 

e-commerce strategy:

1 

Where will the organisation compete? (That is, which markets within the external 

 micro-  environment.)

2 

What type of value will it create? (Strategy options to generate value through increased 

revenue or reduced costs.)

3 

How should the organisation be designed to deliver value? (Includes internal structure and 

resources and interfaces with external companies as discussed in Chapter 10.)

The arrows in Figure 5.4 highlight an important distinction in the way in which strategy process 

models are applied. Referring to the work of Mintzberg and Quinn (1991), Lynch (2000) distin-

guishes between prescriptive and emergent strategy approaches. In the