Is There any Hope? The Idea of Strategy in Business Networks

Abstract

This paper explores some of the implications for the idea of business strategy of the networks of interlocking interdependencies which comprise the business landscape. The paper proposes a framework for analysing the strategic situations facing companies in business networks and for developing business strategy within them. The central message of the paper is that in the complex networks in which companies operate, business strategy cannot realistically be regarded as an individual-company activity. The paper argues that in these circumstances, strategy is more usefully conceived of as a matrix of interdependencies that connects the structure and process of a network and that confronts the existing with the evolving. This structure and process provide an array of evolving possibilities for the choices of any one actor and others, whether they are suppliers, customers, competitors or development partners. The paper argues that the strategy of a single company can usefully be interpreted as part of the process of interaction through which the company and others confront aspects of the status quo with new evolving possibilities, whilst conforming to other existing patterns within the network.