Beyond Forecasting: Creating New Strategic Narratives - Essay Example

The authors study the events as they unfold for close to 8 months and come up with a new way of making strategies. The case study is supposed to help managers make working strategies that go beyond forecasting. According to the authors, managers have to do more than forecasting when coming up with new strategies (Kaplan & Orlikowski, 2014).
Issues

After eight months of studying the strategy-making process in CommCorp, the authors argue that strategy is more than just forecasting. The authors argue that is important for managers to consider the past, present and future of the company when coming up with strategies. By interpreting and reinterpreting the past, future, and present of the company managers can be able to come up with new workable strategy narratives that can steer their companies from uncertainty. The authors argue that strategy making does not revolve around making accurate forecasting. This is due to the fact the future is unpredictable.

Secondly, it is important to consider the past when coming up with new strategies. The past can help predict the future and ensure that there is continuity from the past. Thirdly, managers should focus on coming up with strategy narratives that will help the company in times of uncertainty. This means that the narrative should not be perfect but rather be 'good enough for now. Lastly, breakdowns in the strategy-making process should not be considered as a failure but rather a way of provoking thinking that will produce workable narratives (Kaplan & Orlikowski, 2014).
Criticism

The backbone of any company revolves around making workable strategies whenever when faced with uncertainty (Hill, & Jones, 2012). Managers have to know and understand how to come up with workable strategies during these crucial moments. The article offers priceless information on how managers can come up with strategy narratives. Backed with evidence from a case study of CommCorp, the author lays a foundation on which managers can use to come up with workable strategies. Forecasting will not allow managers to come up with workable strategy narratives but rather evaluate and reevaluation the present, past, and future of the company.

However, the authors only refer to one case study when making their arguments. It would have been important if the authors decided to include several other case studies to prove that this method of coming up with strategies works.

Implications
By being able to evaluate and reevaluate the past, future and the present, managers may be able to come up with working strategies. These strategies narratives do not have to be to be perfect, but rather, they should be good enough to steer the company from uncertainty. This method may help managers come up with strategy narratives whenever their companies are faced with technological changes, regulatory changes, stiff completion and changes in customer preferences issues, which are likely to affect their companies in a negative way. Read More