Learn how to go from strategic planning and execution to achieving profit and growth with this collection of business strategy quotes.
A clear, compelling strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have in today’s business world – it’s the essential roadmap that navigates you from initial vision to sustainable success. Sometimes, all it takes to come up with one is a flash of insight or a powerful perspective from someone who has successfully walked the path before. That’s why we’ve compiled the following list of business strategy quotes – which cover the entire journey, from the critical first steps of planning and envisioning your future, through the challenges of execution, all the way to achieving your ultimate goal: profitable and thriving operations.
(by Jonathan M. Pham)
Short Business Strategy Quotes
- Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. – Michael Porter
- In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. – Sun Tzu
- Hope is not a strategy. – Vince Lombardi
- Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. – Sun Tzu
- A vision without a strategy remains an illusion. – Lee Bolman
Inspiring Business Strategy Quotes
- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. – Winston Churchill
- The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. – Michael Porter
- Sound strategy starts with having the right goal. – Michael Porter
- To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often. – Winston Churchill
- Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. – Colin Powell
Famous business strategy quotes
Business Plan Quotes
- A goal without a plan is just a wish. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Plans are nothing; planning is everything. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Writing a business plan forces you into disciplined thinking. – David Lavinsky
- Good business planning is 9 parts execution for every 1 part strategy. – Tim Berry
- If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. – Benjamin Franklin
Business Model Quotes
- A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. – Alexander Osterwalder
- In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it’s the fast fish which eats the slow fish. – Klaus Schwab
- Don’t build a product, then try to sell it. Sell the problem you solve. – Unknown
- The business model is the story of how an organization creates and delivers value. – Joan Magretta
- Great companies start because the founders want to change the world… not make a fast buck. – Guy Kawasaki
Business Growth Strategy Quotes
- If you’re not growing, you’re dying. – Tony Robbins
- The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. – Mark Zuckerberg
- Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together. – James Cash Penney
- You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills. – Jim Rohn
- Every problem is a gift – without problems we would not grow. – Tony Robbins
Best business strategy quotes
Corporate Strategy Quotes
- Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions. – Henry Mintzberg
- It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. – Charles Darwin
- You can’t be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you can’t go south at the same time. – Jeroen De Flander
- Culture eats strategy for breakfast. – Peter Drucker
- Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless. – Morris Chang
Read more: 44 Organizational Development Quotes to Spark Change
Quotes about strategy
Strategic Planning Quotes
- Strategic planning is worthless – unless there is first a strategic vision. – John Naisbitt
- Strategy is about stretching limited resources to fit ambitious aspirations. – C. K. Prahalad
- A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all. – Michael LeBoeuf
- Strategy is thinking about a choice and choosing to stick with your thinking. – Jeroen De Flander
- The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Peter Drucker
Famous quotes about strategic management
Quotes on Strategy and Execution
- Vision without execution is hallucination. – Thomas Edison
- Execution is the ability to mesh strategy with reality, align people with goals, and achieve the promised results. – Larry Bossidy
- Execution is everything. Even the best strategy is useless without it. – Morris Chang
- You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless. – Charles de Gaulle
- A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. – George S. Patton
Business Innovation Quotes
- Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. – Steve Jobs
- The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay
- Disrupt yourself or be disrupted. – Clayton Christensen
- Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. – Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi
- If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will. – Steve Jobs
Quotes on Competitive Advantage & Differentiation
- You don’t have to be the best in the world. You just have to be the best for your customers. – Marty Neumeier
- In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running; if you stand still, they will swallow you. – Victor Kiam
- If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. – Jack Welch
- When you’re competing with everyone, the only way to win is to be different. – Unknown
- Differentiation is one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage. – Theodore Levitt
Quotes on Leadership’s Role in Business Strategy
- Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. – Warren Bennis
- A leader is a dealer in hope. – Napoleon Bonaparte
- People don’t resist change. They resist being changed. – Peter Senge
- The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. – Ralph Nader
- You manage things; you lead people. – Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
Read more: 110 Leadership Quotes to Unlock Greatness
Quotes on Business Strategy, Adaptation, and Change
- The measure of intelligence is the ability to change. – Albert Einstein
- Strategic adaptation is survival. – Unknown
- Change before you have to. – Jack Welch
- Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win. – Max McKeown
- In strategy, it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. – Miyamoto Musashi
Read more: 57 Change Management Quotes – Wisdom for Leaders
Business strategy quotes
Other resources you might be interested in:
- 55 Company Culture Quotes: Building a Great Workplace
- 80 Employee Engagement Quotes: Inspire & Engage
- 60 Learning and Development Quotes: Fueling Growth
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