We know that strategy is a long term thing that changes rarely. For example, a company who produces an item, let say a car, has decided early on to do just this. Their strategy might be to manufacture exclusive cars, just to keep it simple.
If we then look at the “how”, the tactics, we can for example see different ways to distribute, manufacture, and advertise. This is where organisations need agility and understanding. You might ask yourself why. Because change is inevitable. Scary? Yes! However, the results of not changing is even scarier.
However, if the strategy is well defined and understood by everyone, it gets easier to adjust and develop your tactics. Simply because everyone knows where they are going, even though the way there alters. The competitive landscape is ever-evolving. Continuously adapting to others slow organisations down. To me it sounds better to drive the change, instead of waiting for others to take the lead.
If we go back to the car industry, Tesla is revolutionizing it. Electric cars are taking over. Soon they will also be self-driving. It’s a fact. How come there is only a couple of other brands who build competing electric and/or self-driving cars at the moment? Tesla can provide a complete eco-system including free charging stations to their electric vehicles who are able to cover much longer distance then the rest.
Sorry, this is not a Tesla-blog providing you with the perks of being a Tesla-owner. However, it’s an understandable example most people recognise. In this case, competition need to adapt or perhaps come up with another offering that is even better than what Tesla is offering. The slow ones will take a huge risk and might not be able to close the gap.
This is where agility and understanding comes into the picture. Tactics. What do we need to do now? How do we build a better offering? How do we beat the competition? 
How do you decide tactic and how do you change tactics?
Most of the information is sitting there in front of you. Data. Through your data you can understand, decide and create. The list goes on. Your data gives you unlimited possibilities.
There is a term called Data Innovation (Whitepaper: From Data to Action). Take your data – play with it – find out what you can do. Change. Innovate. Be better.
Some of my colleagues have been working with the Swedish Ice-Hockey Team in their preparations towards the upcoming Canada Cup (reflective blog post will come soon). Exploiting the underlying data and deciding on tactics according to the values they found will improve the chances of a medal. Impressive? Absolutely!
Until next time, I recommend you to read this article (in Swedish) by my colleague Christer Bodell and get some insight into what is happening in Sports Analytics. He is discussing how we need to allow data to make decisions, and leave our feelings to the side. Staying rational during decision making while being angry, happy, sad etc. is very difficult. Perhaps we should let the emotions flow when we have won, not before.
I believe that sports/athletes can benefit hugely from Analytics, and it is already proven in many ways. Due to the unmatched dedication to winning, it is only a matter of time until analytics has become a cornerstone of sports.
Dare to change. It is difficult, nonetheless beautiful.
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