CQP Advanced Level
Strategy and Governance glossary
Every term this guide defines, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it. Open it when a word in a question is unfamiliar, and test yourself on it in the last week: cover the definition and say it in one sentence.
13 terms from the free first chapter
A
- Advantage
Why customers choose this organisation rather than a rival. Without an answer, there is a plan but no strategy.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
B
- Business model
How the organisation creates, delivers and captures value.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
C
- Changing environment
Strategy is made against a moving background. A position that was advantageous is competed away, which is why sustaining advantage is a separate problem from creating it.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
- Control
The monitoring of progress and the adjustment of action or objectives that follows.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
D
- Direction
Where the organisation is going. Expressed through mission, vision and objectives, and made real by the choices that follow from them.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
M
- Mission
What the organisation is fundamentally for, expressed as its purpose. Answers why we exist.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
O
- Objectives
Specific statements of what is to be achieved, quantified and time-bound where possible.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
R
- Resources and competences
What the organisation has and what it is good at. Strategy that ignores capability is aspiration.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
S
- Scope
How far the organisation reaches: which products, which markets, which geographies, which activities it performs itself and which it buys. Deciding scope is deciding what business you are in.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
- Stakeholder expectations
Whose interests the strategy serves. This is the point at which strategy and governance meet.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
- Strategic capability
The resources and competences that permit the organisation to survive and prosper.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
V
- Values
The principles that constrain how objectives may be pursued. They are meaningful only where they rule something out.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
- Vision
The desired future state. Answers what we want to become.
Taught in Introduction to strategy
The full glossary adds every term from the other 18 chapters, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it.