Putting it Together

You will also glimpse almost every building block of good strategy: intelligent anticipation, a guiding policy that reduced complexity, the power of design, focus, unsung advantage, riding a dynamic wave of change, and the important role played by inertia an disarray of rivals.

Nvidia, a designer of 3-D graphics chips, had a very rapid rise, shooting in a few short years past apparently stronger firms, including Intel, to dominate the high performance 3-D graphics chip market.  In 2007 Forbes named Nvidia, the "Company of the Year," explaining that "Since Huang [CEO and founder] took the company public in 1999, Nvidia's shares have risen 21-fold, edging out even the might Apple over the same time period."

Nvidia jumped from nowhere to dominance almost purely with good strategy.  Follow the story of Nvidia and you will clearly see the kernel of a good strategy at work: diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action.  You will also glimpse almost every building block of good strategy: intelligent anticipation, a guiding policy that reduced complexity, the power of design, focus, unsung advantage, riding a dynamic wave of change, and the important role played by inertia an disarray of rivals.

ACTION POINT: Diagnose, establish guiding policy and follow with coherent action.