Discuss the Concept of Intended and Emergent Strategy with Examples from

the Indian Context

Intended Strategy:
It can be defined as the strategy organization make through proper formal planning and keeping
everything in mind. These strategies are made keeping in mind the goals organizations need to
reach and they are made with proper timeline and various rounds of discussions and then
converging to a common strategy to be followed. One can say that intended strategy has been
made with clarity in mind about the purpose and reason i.e. the management intentions are
clearly and explicitly visible. However one can also say that these type of strategy are rigid and
cannot be molded.
For example if a service organization want to see itself having a customer base of 10,000 in an
years time and expanding it, organization has to make efforts accordingly and has to make the
strategies in line with it. For the intended strategy the organization will plan how to engage
customers and catch their eyeballs and make them loyal by various activities and customer
engagement programs and services.

Emergent Strategy:
It is defined as an unplanned strategy that arises in response to unexpected opportunities and
challenges. It is actually not the strategy of the organization at first but has to change or adopt to
the strategy after analyzing the market condition, scenario and demand. The demand in the
present market opens an opportunity for the organization and they try to cater to those needs
along with the intended strategy they have already prepared. It is more of a collective action than
of collective intention.
Sometimes the organizations make several strategies to cater to market needs, but only some can
actually take place as per the resources, requirements and various external and internal factors.
Emergent strategies has advantages and disadvantages related to it. It is advantageous as opposite
to intended strategy it is flexible and can be changed or altered as per the reactions realized of the
outcomes of the present actions.
For example, most financial organizations have to use emergent strategy, being a financial
solution organization and entrusted with the public or customers money, organization direction
is mostly depended on the market scenario which are properly articulated and pursued in order to
give maximum customer satisfaction and profit.
One of the real life example for the emergent strategy is of KFC entering India and they have to
include vegetarian meals also as they were not able to cater to all the sections of the society.

Similarly is the case with McDonalds as to cater to vegetarian customers they come up with
Aaloo - Tikki burger.
So from the above discussions we may conclude that it is good to have intended strategy but one
must change as per the changes in the society and be flexible enough to move to emergent
strategy as and when required keeping your intended strategy at core.