Bruce Henderson Quotes

Business strategy is the battleplan for a better future.

Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential.

If you don't have a viable strategy, you will be defeated by someone who does.

Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.

The hype that accompanied the promotion of successive strategic fashions exaggerated the importance of the enlightened manager and played down the importance of chance and circumstance in explaining success.

You cannot change strategy due to a trend.

Even the best team, without a sound plan, can't score.

Strategic planning is the continuous process of making present entrepreneurial (risk-taking) decisions systematically and with the greatest knowledge of their futurity; organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decisions; and measuring the results of these decisions against the expectations through organized, systematic feedback.

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations

Strategic management is not a box of tricks or a bundle of techniques. It is analytical thinking and commitment of resources to action. But quantification alone is not planning. Some of the most important issues in strategic management cannot be quantified at all.

Competitive strategies is a concept or philosophy that's as American as apple pie.

Execution without a long term strategy leads nowhere. Likewise a long term strategy without execution leads nowhere.

When you don't have the deepest pockets, you better have the best scouting and development.

Our job is to find out what's the next thing that is going to be advantageous to us and contribute to winning.

The purpose of business is to make a reasonable return by making products and services that people want and value. If you are not, you are wasting resources.

Benchmarking is an ongoing exercise in any company that aspires for leadership.

I have learned lessons in America about how you go about things, and what I know is that you find the best people, empower them, give them the resources, and hold them accountable.

With experience also comes the understanding that you have to beat the rally before you can beat the competition.

Leaders of companies of any size, at any stage of development spend a lot of time focused on growing the business. We develop our game plan and ensure that we are optimally executing on our objectives. We concentrate on looking forward.

You want to put yourself in the best position to try and win.

My entire business model is to go on offense.

Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean everything is very easy.

Whatever you shoot is dead for a while before it starts to stink. The same goes for strategies. How many organizations carry this dead thing around with them, unaware of its irrelevancy until it is too late?

You've got to keep things simple. Just identify what you need to do to launch, figure out what resources you need, and surround yourself with people who are much smarter than you!

The best strategy is always to be very strong.