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Published on 2025-06-22 20:30:00 | words: 995
This short article is part of my "dictionary".
Few days ago, after a long while, released an article of over 11k words- (Too Big To Fail 2 In Europe: 1- introduction and the industry of industries #automotive), which is actually the first part of a series.
Most of the article was an introduction, and used an industry case study automotive, adding further references to the industry within the European Union and specifically in my birtplace, Turin, that used to be a company town for the FIAT group, the then leading Italian automotive company and industrial group.
On this website, you can find various articles about strategy and industrial policy, while already shared in the past some key concepts (e.g. argument vs. negotiations) within my "common sense glossary"-
Since I was made to return to work in Turin in 2012, I constantly saw confusion between what I shared as elements of an industrial policy, and those shared as potential components of a corporate strategy.
Before 2012, often was working in the latter, for startups, smaller companies, medium companies, and supporting others in larger companies- it was part of my role and "positioning", also if I did not necessarily appear officially to cover that role.
The distinction can be more nuanced, but basically it all connects with the ability of implementing a change.
If, as I did within the article shared above, or the articles within the EP2024 series, I share some points and concepts, the idea is that those, also if appear as a roadmap, are mere suggestions about one or more scenarios.
Then, it takes a coalition, not just a single company, to act as catalysts to nudge evolution in the desired direction.
Still, it requires bartering between priorities that transcend a single organization- and even those within that "can do" coalition.
Moreover, just because you "nudge" does not imply that that will mechanically turn into what you aimed for.
Through the interactions and feed-back of multiple parties, including those that, after seeing the inception, will try to push through a different set of choices, what you started will evolve, and your coalition should avoid the Gosplan attitude that is currently getting too familiar with Brussels.
You can fund and plan, but then action will not be in a vacuum- and the "mission-orientation" is frankly misleading when you either have too long a timeframe, or definition of your missions requires a specific context.
An example: look at the Recovery and Resilience Facility kick-started by the EU at the beginning of the COVID crisis, and look at how there have been repeated adjustments.
Even before the invasion of Ukraine, and the carpet bombing in Gaza.
A Gosplan attitude in the original version in USSR resulted in curious habits to retain control, such as asking a plant to produce left shoes and another one right shoes, and then losing the synchronization- I found this quoted often, but frankly do not know if it was true that Gosplan micro-management went that far.
What instead saw and got confirmed is how production even of equipment was spread across the COMECON, so that all had to stick together if they wanted e.g. to have a metro.
And I remember that in 1993 saw a Soviet-built metro just before the Soviets went away, while years later in Latvia my friends showed me a theatre with huge leds to show movies in multiple language with subtitles, again built just before they left.
So, you can now think that the difference with corporate strategy is that there you do have control- but, again, it would be delusional to assume so.
Even a mere organizational change to increase competitiveness (e.g. reshuffling existing roles and tasks between existing units) has to keep an eye both outside-in and inside-out, as otherwise you risk creating entropy weakening the existing informal organization, aiming to get benefits from the new "organizational posture".
Just to discover than that, as generals behind the Maginot line in WWII, you were gearing up to fight again WWI.
To close with a practical example: what I wrote in that article linked above could be useful while defining your own approach, but should be contextualized and considered just one of the potential scenarios
It does not replace doing your own assessment and choices, and define, for your own specific organizational mix of resources, constraints, potential, a roadmap that is tailored to your own aims and needs (two different things, but often mistakenly mixed up).
Why a roadmap, and not a strategy or, for those of you inclined to read about history, a "Grand Strategy"?
Because to me "strategic planning" is an oxymoron- but more about this in a future dictionary article (albeit you can read books from the 1990s and 2000s that already criticized "strategic planning").
A closing note: if invited to join forces to define an industrial policy, it is better first to revise your own corporate strategy.
If you are interested in more about the concepts hinted at above, use the search facilities within this website, as on each of those points you can find at least a dozen of focused articles.
If you have feed-back or would like to see more material, feel free to message me on Linkedin.
With a caveat: unless it is for customers, any question and any answer done for free will go online for all to benefit.