Effectiveness and efficiency. Long live the strategy.

What is at stake? In the management of the company, there are two fundamentally different decisions. One is to decide what to do. The other determines how you do it. 

The decision for the what is of a fundamental nature, it is about the direction you want to go. You are at a fork in the road and you have different options. We include a number of strategic decisions that often shape the company in the long term: Do we enter a new market? Do we want to cooperate with a company? Do we want to establish a new export market? Do we want to diversify into a field we are not familiar with in order to hedge risks? Do we want to grow? Do we want to take over a competitor? The same category of questions also includes questioning what is already in place: Is what we are doing still the right thing? Deciding nothing usually does not get us into trouble in the short term. In the medium to long term, however, not deciding can become critical for the company. 

Implementing the what leads to a series of other decisions. They determine whether one is better or worse at what one does. If, for example, the company has decided to expand into a new market, the decisions to be made are there to successfully follow the chosen path and to anchor oneself in the market. One wants to act efficiently and be best in class. 

Effectiveness and efficiency belong together. Being efficient is necessary, but it is not enough on its own to remain viable. This requires clear decisions for and against something. Long live the strategy.