It's the logistics, stupid

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Thoughts on July 19, 2010

© The National Guard

Bob Sutton paraphrases the classic "Amateurs study strategy. Professional study logistics." in his latest post "Strategy is for amateurs, logistics are for professionals" discussing how the execution matters more than the strategy that calls for it.

Execution is, of course, of greater importance in the grand scheme of things and Bob is exactly correct that an imperfect strategy, executed well, can beat a perfect strategy that has been executed poorly. Execution, making things happen the way we want, is the underserved area of business operations. It's easy to write about strategy, or even tactics; it's difficult to put that knowledge and information together in a way that applies to execution for the average reader.

But while these are all fine concepts borrowed from military thinking, Bob is off the mark a bit on what the saying means. Logistics isn't about execution; it's about putting all the resources in place to allow the execution of a strategy. Talking about execution is premature if you haven't figured out your logistics first. And they may be radically different processes, not wholly dependent upon one another. But the organization that has figured out it's logistics is going to have a far easier time executing its strategy of choice, because it will have all the pieces available to make it happen, when it needs to happen. That's why professionals study logistics.