Again and again I hear managers saying that the world has become such a dynamic place that it is useless to spend time on strategic planning, since plans can be scrapped again before they can even be implemented. Some scholars have called this state of affairs “hypercompetition” – a situation in which competition becomes increasingly dynamic and firms cannot build long term competitive advantages.
With my PhD student Annesofie Lindskov and colleague Johannes K. Dreyer we tested this hypothesis for firms listed on the Danish stock exchange and over a period of almost 40 years. Our conclusion: there is little evidence of any hypercompetition. My interpretation: as a manager you can still do strategy work. You can still plan. You can still build competitive advantages. The full article can be downloaded here.