Building Strategy To Win in Unprecedented Times
Jun 24
Today let me share something which an entrepreneur will highly appreciate when it comes to building strategy and playing smart rather than just hard. Commercial market is flooded with various business models showcasing positives and negatives of their outcome depending upon the area in which they are implemented. This talk today doesn’t qualify giving another fundamental theory to drive business but brings an insight from ancient times where dynasties did immense calculations before making a big decision based on winning livelihood for millions.
Much hyped strategic concepts like 6 Thinking Hats, Scenario Planning, Strategic Intent, etc. by various industry leaders provide focus on calculative viewpoint on various issues surrounding decision making - however we must understand that it’s not only about knowing how to act but when and at what exact time to act.
In early Middle Ages, a great war in china depicted how an efficient military strategy from a small dynasty made big empire fall overnight. They didn’t know anything about strategic planning or had time to hone their weapons to take on mighty army. Few clever decisions based on circumstances made it possible for southern warlords of china to embark the importance of thinking over knowing.
Zhuge Liang, often recognised as one of the greatest and most accomplished strategist of his era during three kingdoms period in China. He had a mammoth task of building strategy to win over Eastern Han Dynasty controlled by warlord Cáo Cāo. Eastern Han Dynasty had millions of army men and uncountable number of arrows to fight against small military - strategically headed by Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang’s ingenious strategy of borrowing of arrows with straw boats brought in over 100,000 arrows from the enemy.
Zhuge Liang came up with a plan to ‘borrow’ arrows from Cao Cao’s army to be used against them later instead of manufacturing the arrows by themselves. About twenty boats packed with human-like figures made of straw and hay were dispatched towards the Cao camp. Cao Cao’s troops noticed the incoming fleet and started to fire arrows at it, which became stuck to the straw and hay figures. However, it was in the early hours of the morning and the fleet was enshrouded in fog and haze, making it indistinguishable. As such, Cao Cao’s army lost tens of thousands of arrows to the fleet overnight and therefore the big battle of history of china.
Taking lessons from past, in commercial world too it is necessary to take advantage of surroundings and accessible resources rather than reinventing the wheel which incurs huge initial capital and time. Companies have started taking initiative in capitalising on open source and increasingly becoming popular models such as SaaS,
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home hd
Cloud Computing & Managed Services.
It is worthwhile to mention that what is more important in today’s time is VALUE rather than just SERVICES
to customers. Synverse, an organisation built on these fundamental concepts believe not only in providing VALUE but also helping organisations with strategic decisions while dealing with growing uncertainty and complexity of ever changing business.
Please visit www.synverse.com to see how we can help you act as “Zhuge Liang” and take advantage of economy even at unprecedented times.


