Visualizing the future and making adequate provisions to deal with it objectively can be termed as strategy. Strategy is an exercise that visualizes or anticipates the future and acts accordingly to achieve some form of competitive advantage. Hence, strategy is an intellectual process, the conscious determination of course of action, the basing of decisions on purpose, facts and considered objectives. Moreover, strategy involves creating plans through alternative courses of action, with a view to implement the same in future to synchronize with the changing environment. Strategy can give results only after it is followed with considerable consistency. In other words, a strategy needs to be stuck with for a reasonable time, in order to get results. A strategic plan considers this long-term perspective and configures the actions to achieve the desired objectives. However, it is seen that strategic plan sometimes misses its mark completely. The reason for this radical miss is explained through the complexity of the elements that creates inertia in the organization. The framework proposed in this paper is crisis-driven strategy that brings in flexibility with the help of complexity theory, which holds the potential to aid strategic planning, explain the approach to strategy, and overcome the organizational inertia, as well as to indicate the idiosyncrasies that exist in achieving the turnaround objectives. The methodology considered is the analytic induction technique with the case of Xerox Corporation that has found some good turnaround CEOs internally, who happen to be women.

Strategy1 can be seen as a capstone activity of management. A systemic holistic approach forms the basis of strategy and can be seen as a calculated choice that considers both predictable and unpredictable factors. It is relatively easy to address predictable factors but for unpredictable factors, appropriate provisions are needed. Having a consistent strategy has the chance to provide results, but being stuck with it for too long may not provide the sought objective as the environment change might make the chosen strategy, redundant. Having a flexible strategy may be an answer, but the organizational inertia2 that stems from the culture of being stuck to a successful past strategy, inhibits the necessary change over. This becomes a critical issue in situations of a turnaround.

Significant strong correlation of factors can be argued between future profile and past strategies. The current objective or strategy pursued will affect future strategic change and will limit multiple future opportunities that can be pursued. Hence, it is evident that strategy directly depends on the past for future activities. However, it is important to note that for changing strategy for something new—such as a new offering, or a new base of competitiveness—where past history is inexistent or turbulent, some qualitative polishing needs to be done before extending the past into the future. For this, causal model of planning serves well,3 to the extent where causal link can be established. For seemingly inexistent causal link, the theory of complexity promises to establish a plausible explanation to the dynamics of need for strategic change that the environment exerts4 and envisage threats, which remains one of the objectives of this paper.

Business Strategy, Journal, Crisis-Driven Strategy, Case of Xerox Corporation, Research Puzzle, Unit of Study, Methodology, Analytic Induction Technique, Strategy Complexity.