The (first) one on planning
The Strategy Omnibus, part I
Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours, and that this e-mail finds you on a boat with shoddy connection, in the tropics, three months after I sent it.
Now accepting keynotes for 25Q3-25Q4
The 2025 lineup:
What to do when you don’t know what to do.
How to create a sustainable competitive advantage through superior adaptability. (Based on the new book by the same name.)
Succeed big, fail small.
How to use experimentation to drive efficiency and effectiveness of innovation at scale.
Managing radical uncertainty.
How to steer an organization through a sea of change.
Retail 3.0.
How to build a profitable retail business in the modern marketplace. (Based on the 2026 follow-up to the 2022 smash hit white paper The Gravity of e-Commerce.)
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The TL;DR
The most common definition of strategy is “a plan”, which means that the most common interpretation of strategizing is planning. Almost all firms do some form of it or another.
We like to plan. Planning implies control over the environment, which in turn means fewer surprises.
The theoretical reasons for planning are legion, but so too are the practical challenges. From a desire to plan for the future come side-effects that often are anything but desirable.
There is also nothing about planning, nor the supposedly rational pursuits that underpin it, that is inherently strategic.
Apple is still having issues with AI. And now, much like how it disrupted BlackBerry, it might stand to be disrupted itself.
Meta is threatening the core business model of advertising agencies.
A very important note for premium subscribers
In September last year, I reluctantly raised the subscription fees. My hands were effectively tied; related fees had increased and the financial viability of the newsletter was therefore under question. However, I recently noticed that the price increase was only applied to new subscribers. Anyone who was subscribing before September was (and remains) able to continue paying the old price.
It turns out that there was an error on Substack’s part, but one that will now be amended. Consequently, by early next week, paying subscribers should receive a notification of a price increase via email. To be absolutely clear, this will ONLY affect those who are paying the OLD prices.
Nobody will be charged a dime retroactively. I will take the financial hit.
This is only an adjustment to set the 2024 September prices for everyone equally. It is also the first, last, and only price increase that I will ever make. You have my word on that.
I hope for your understanding and continued support. Again, the change is not one that I wanted to make, but I had little choice. It was either increase prices or stop writing altogether.
So, once again to those who choose to pay: you are literally making this newsletter possible. If it were not for you, these words would not be written. I genuinely mean that. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything.
Personal updates before we go-go
There are pros and cons to each country. One of the biggest pros of Sweden: our healthcare system. A day and a half of tests, ultrasounds and whatever else, plus an overnight stay at the hospital including dinner: a grand total of $13. Yes, you read that correctly. Thirteen. Dollars.
It is interesting to see my youngest daughter’s personality start to emerge; she is very different from her older sister. Highly energetic and almost entirely unafraid, but not in a reckless sense. She will stare down people she does not know, and is more than happy to stand up to her three years older sister.
She is also insanely strong for a nine-month old. I have taken to calling her Bamm-Bamm.
We do wish that she would take up her sister’s sleeping habits though. The eldest started sleeping twelve uninterrupted hours a night when she was only a few months old. The youngest will fall asleep at 7pm, wake up again around 9.30pm, fall asleep (eventually), and then - if we are lucky - sleep to about 5am.
Very happy to see Jak Malone from Operation Mincemeat follow his Olivier Award with a Tony win. Utterly genius performer in an utterly genius show.
Moving on to markets.