Question
Asked 30th May, 2014
  • Formerly Professor of HRM Management Development Institute

Are strategy and tactics similar or different?

Many times, people use these two terms interchangeably. There is a need to understand them precisely.

Most recent answer

Fernando Alonso Ojeda Castro
Universidad Piloto de Colombia
The big difference, is that, the Strategy is a long-term movement and the tactic is a short term allowing it to adjust to untimely changes in the market.

Popular answers (1)

Ljubomir Jacić
Technical College Požarevac
Maybe this picture depict the relation Strategy-Tactics!
22 Recommendations

All Answers (47)

Dear Debi,
Strategy is a decision to resolve a situation or take advantage of an opportunity.
Tactic on the other hand is how you plan to implement the strategy
10 Recommendations
Ljubomir Jacić
Technical College Požarevac
Dear @Debi, "A strategy is a larger, overall plan that can comprise several tactics, which are smaller, focused, less impactful plans that are part of the overall plan."
9 Recommendations
Ljubomir Jacić
Technical College Požarevac
Maybe this picture depict the relation Strategy-Tactics!
22 Recommendations
Aamir Mehmood
University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore (FSD Campus)
Strategy and tactics are two different terms but are inter linked. Strategy means a procedure to do something and tactics are ways being adopted to implement the strategy!
5 Recommendations
Mahfuz Judeh
Applied Science Private University
Strategy and tactics can`t be used interchangeably; they are different. Strategy refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, whereas tactics refer to procedures, or expedient for promoting a result.
6 Recommendations
A good example to define the terms.
In the picture below, the GOAL IS getting to X
STRATEGY
There are likely :to be any number of unique approaches to realizing your goal. Climbing the mountains, taking the river and crossing the desert are possible choices in this example.
TACTICS
Once you’ve determined your strategy, the tactics embody the discrete activities called for to implement it. Since we’ve decided to take the river, our tactics might include using a sailboat or swimming.
Why is it so important to know the difference? Because it’s too easy (and tempting) to jump straight from goals to tactics, without understanding why any particular strategy might be effective in the first place. And if you don’t adopt a winning strategy, no amount of tactics will get you to your goal.
13 Recommendations
Ra'Ed Masa'deh
University of Jordan
While strategy fits with general-long run plans and aims\goals, tactics refer to those actions\implementations which align with detailed objectives needed to be achieved.
4 Recommendations
Costas Drossos
University of Patras
Strategy is the general objective. Tactics on the other hand, need to analyse carefully the powers that are against the strategic objective, and to decide the steps towards the strategic objective.
6 Recommendations
Abedallah M Rababah
United Arab Emirates University
Dear @Debi, I think that strategy is way to reach a goal and it is a plan for implementation. Tactics are used to deal with the everyday issues including the issues that face the strategy.
4 Recommendations
A strategy is a blueprint which is implemented by various tactics.
5 Recommendations
Here is a nice chart I found on the Internet but it requires magnification:
4 Recommendations
Nageswara Rao Posinasetti
University of Northern Iowa
These are the two parts of the same sentence. Strategy specifies the what part of the equation. It helps you answer the question what you are trying to accomplish.
The tactics is actually the how part of the equation. It specifies the methods you will adopt to achieve the target or goal.
The attached graphic from the following web site explains
9 Recommendations
Strategy is the whole steps of the thousand mile journey. Tactic is each one of these miles walked separately but each mile leading to the next mile!!!
9 Recommendations
An interesting and necessary question ....
In a few words: the strategy aims to reach the ultimate goal, while the tactics intend to meet steps in a strategy.
Some people are meant to be strategists, while others are calling for tactics.
5 Recommendations
Emilia Mikołajewska
Nicolaus Copernicus University
I have thought about it before. As my husband, former officer, said - it is continous process:
- strategy (strategic level) usually aims at fulfilling political goals,
- operations (operational level) usually aims at fulfilling strategic goals,
- tactics (tactical level) usually aims at fulfilling operational goals,
- single soldier/person usually aims at fulfilling tactical goals.
Of course it may be redirected toward corporational policy, e.g. mission-vision-goal, etc.
7 Recommendations
Issam Sinjab
Alumni University of Leicester & University of Sussex
A good illustration for the difference:
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
--Sun Tzu
11 Recommendations
Beautiful quotation Issam!
4 Recommendations
Mohamed Benmerikhi Ph.D
EDHEC Business School Lille
Indeed Sun Tzu is a classic in strategy and a great read.
Strategy is the big higher level plan, while tactics are the detailed plans on the ground. Their aggregation represents the overall strategy.
7 Recommendations
Dony Saputra
Binus University
Strategy is framework to achieve goal usually dominan on planning and evaluation.
Tactisc more to action in achieving goals usually dominant on implementation testing and experiment part.
3 Recommendations
George Leal Jamil
Informacoes em Rede Ltda.
They are different, in the way Strategy, as a coordinated view of one organization in the future, proposes an overall guidance for Tactical planning for the set of entrepreneurial disciplines, as Logistics, Finance, Human Resources, Marketing and so on.
5 Recommendations
Mohammed Saleem Ali Shtayeh
Biodiversity and Environmental Research Center - BERC
"A strategy is a larger, overall plan that can comprise several tactics, which are smaller, focused, less impactful plans that are part of the overall plan." For the difference, please also see: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Strategy_vs_Tactic
7 Recommendations
Jorge Morales Pedraza
Morales Project Consulting
These two concepts are different. Acording to the opinion of experts on this important subject, a strategy can be defined as a larger, overall plan that can comprise several tactics, which are smaller, focused, less impactful plans that are part of the overall plan. While the original usage of the terms strategy and tactic was in a military context, they are now used in a wide variety of everyday settings, including business. Essentially, the strategy is the thinking aspect of planning a change, organizing something, or planning a war. The strategy lays out the goals that need to be accomplished and the ideas for achieving those goals. Strategy can be complex multi-layered plans for accomplishing objectives and may give consideration to tactics.
The tactics themselves are the things that get the job done. Tactics are the meat and bread of the strategy. They are the “doing” aspect that follows the planning. Tactics refer specifically to action. In the strategy phase of a plan, the thinkers decide how to achieve their goals. In other words, they think about how people will act, i.e., tactics. They decide on what tactics will be employed to fulfill the strategy.
Strategies can comprise numerous tactics, with many people involved in attempting to reach an overall goal. While strategy tends to involve the higher ups of an organization, tactics tend to involve all members of the organization.
In military usage, a distinction is made between strategy and tactics. Strategy is the utilization, during both peace and war, of all of a nation's forces, through large-scale, long-range planning and development, to ensure security or victory. Tactics is the military science that deals with securing objectives set by strategy, especially the technique of deploying and directing troops, ships, and aircraft in effective maneuvers against an enemy.
The usage of the words strategy and tactic in business is also derived from the original military context. A business strategy is different from a tactic in that different tactics may be deployed as part of a single strategy. For example, one strategy to gain market share would be brand building. As part of a company's brand building strategy, they may adopt different tactics like online advertising and celebrity endorsements.
6 Recommendations
Debi S. Saini
Formerly Professor of HRM Management Development Institute
Wow! Many thanks for your interesting threads. It is fascinating to read all the answers, each better than the other. Thanks so much indeed.
Dear Behrouz, I liked the image you added. it is such a wonderful illustration. Dear Nages, Ljubomir and Ziad, the charts you have attached are very helpful in comprehending the two terms. Dear Kamal, your imaginative framing of the answers always reflects your thoughtful disposition and brilliant mind. I am very sure there must be hundreds of admirers for precision in your surgical skills as well. Dear Jorge, your explanations are always comprehensive and contain a lot of learning fr the reader. your imaginative involvement in the exercise is always appreciable.
Dear Emilla, your husband's classification has added greater clarity to the four terms; thanks to you and him as well. Shafig's one small sentence is a great summary of the distinction; and so is two-sentence quote of dear Issam. The posts of dear Amir, Mahfuz, Alexandre, Mohamed, Dony, George, and Mohammed are value-adding too. Tonnes of thanks to you all for your participation in this exercise. .
11 Recommendations
Jorge Morales Pedraza
Morales Project Consulting
Dear Debi. Many thanks for your comments on my ideas about the subject.
2 Recommendations
Mahmoud Omid
University of Tehran
Dear Debi. Strategy and tactics are different.
in a soccer game:
-Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.
-Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
To exemplify the differences between them further I use some soccer terms:.
In Barcelona FC, The way the team plays, i.e., Tiki-Taka' football, is called tactics but the team arrangement, i.e., 4-3-3, is the coach strategy. (Barcelona and Arsenal both employ the attacking 4-3-3 formation)
5 Recommendations
Nageswara Rao Posinasetti
University of Northern Iowa
Thanks Debi for a great summary.
4 Recommendations
Debi S. Saini
Formerly Professor of HRM Management Development Institute
Dear Mahmoud
Thanks for the interesting football example. Much appreciated. It is correct that, victory is not possible without strategy. I believe, every war and every game involves adoption of strategy and tactics both. So are most business projects.
If we have tactics along with strategy, they can help a faster realization of strategy. They are the small steps taken towards a fuller implementation of strategy.
I think all teams, competing sides, etc have strategy as well as tactics. Those who do not have tactics, as you said, may be at the slowest speed, or may even lose out completely.
6 Recommendations
Thank you dear Debi for your nice and warm words!
5 Recommendations
Mahfuz Judeh
Applied Science Private University
Tactics are not for long term. Strategy can be for the short-, med-, or long term.
4 Recommendations
Asmat Ali
Survey of Pakistan
Strategy is a set and tactics are subsets. Therefore, a strategy can be composed of applying many tactics. Both also differ in hierarchy. Strategy is vertical whereas tactics are horizontal hierarchy.
2 Recommendations
Jaya Vikas Kurhekar
Dr. Patangrao Kadam Mahavidyalaya, Sangli
TACTICS are practical and sensible methods of implementing STRATEGY.
3 Recommendations
Strategy is a company’s game plan for achieving its goals. After we have created the strategies, we have to execute them, on what’s known as the tactics. they are very different but related as one can’t work well without the other.
6 Recommendations
Taras Pasternak
University of Freiburg
There are so many excellent comments in discussion, thanks a lot for all! There is my 2 cents: Strategy is constant, but tactics is highly variable. In the other words, tactics may change every minutes, and it highly dependent from "environment". It like in football: the tactics to win were dependent from the weather, for example. But the most important point that one should always keep in mind global aim and have an understanding how each you step participate in the reaching of the aim.
3 Recommendations
Donald Ibama Hamilton
Rivers State University
STRATEGY IS THE ENTIRE BRIDGE .EACH EXPANSION JOINT ON THE BRIDGE IS A TACTIC
4 Recommendations
Ebrahim Sabermaash Eshghi
University of Tehran
the strategy and tactic difference can be displayed with an example.
a person decide to study for a better life( strategy).
when he or she will going to university or college can go with bus ,taxi or metro ( tactic)
this shown respectively and level of strategy and tactic. the strategy is target and the tactic is instrument or ways for achieving to target
Tactics are low level manager affair while strategy is top level affair. Tactics are helpful for strategies. 
Donald Ibama Hamilton
Rivers State University
Strategy and Tactics are different constructs .The best way to differentiate them will be to see strategy as an entire BRIDGE that connects an organisation to its OBJECTIVE whereas the EXPANSION JOINTS on the bridge defines the various TACTICS
Haitham Hmoud Alshibly
Al-Balqa' Applied University
Strategy is a pattern of decisions; it determines and reveals objectives, purposes, goals, it produces the principal policies and plans for goal achievement, and defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the kind of economic or human organization it is or intends to be, and the nature of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities. Strategic decisions cover long periods of time and commit large amounts of resources. The pattern defines the central character of the company, its image, and its position in its industry and markets. The pattern will allow the specification of action plans and resource allocations. Parts of the pattern will rarely change, while other parts will change greatly. Company character is likely to persist. A strategy must be set of integrated goals and policies that crystallize from the formless reality of a company's environment a set of problems an organization can seize upon and solve.
Ljubomir Jacić
Technical College Požarevac
Dear @Haitham, there is no need for plagiarism. You must cite original resource! Here it is!
STRATEGY, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT, STRATEGIC PLANNING AND STRATEGIC THINKING by Fred Nickols
Professor Sushil
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Strategy relates with long-term direction and means to achieve the organisational goals, whereas tactics appear during the course of strategy execution.
3 Recommendations
Dickson Adom
Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science and Technology
Strategic is the long term plan while tactics are the short term measures or mini plans undertaken in ensuring full implementation of the strategy. Best regards
Dickson
3 Recommendations
Houda Kawas
Damascus University
• Strategy is the commitment to the plan that the thrust of the tactic is to adapt the plan according to the situation
• Strategy is the overall plan to reach the ultimate goal while the tactic is a partial plan to achieve a partial goal.
• The strategy is long, slow and long-term if the tactic is a reaction and short-term. • The strategy is developed for future results while the tactic is for current results.
• Strategy is based on planning and logical thinking in the case of tactics is more creative.
Tactically win a battle and strategy win the war!
Tactics should always be subject to a general strategy to ensure that interventions are consistent with goals
Ali Alhayany
University of Diyala
Strategy means putting a plan for achieve during along time (5,10,20yrs ),whereas tactic means how to achieve part of this plan during a short period(1 year for example),or achieving something at a current time.
1 Recommendation
Qais Almaamari
Gulf University
During achieved Tactic that leads to achieve strategy So, tactic is short term objective but strategy is long term objective . in other hand, Can't reach to strategy if not achieve the tactic. in addition of that, the strategy consists into many tactics.
6 Recommendations
Fernando Alonso Ojeda Castro
Universidad Piloto de Colombia
The big difference, is that, the Strategy is a long-term movement and the tactic is a short term allowing it to adjust to untimely changes in the market.

Similar questions and discussions

Can one estimate linguistic information from language and face neurons?
Question
Be the first to answer
  • Edward J TehovnikEdward J Tehovnik
If you have ever been a witness of a serious crime, you will understand that a witness is initially required to make a verbal statement of the criminal event along with a description of a suspect’s visual appearance; you then might be asked to identify the suspect from a lineup for which you must view different profiles of each face before making a positive or negative identification. Both language and face recognition are highly distributed functions in the neocortex of primates. In the case of language, studies have been ongoing for over a century and it is well-accepted that it is a highly networked process (involving at a minimum Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas) with every individual having a unique distribution of language content based on an individual’s learning history (Bloom and Markson 1998; Corkin 2002; Chomsky 2012; Everett 2017; Hebb 1949; Kimura 1993; Miller 1996; Ojemann 1991; Penfield and Roberts 1966;): whether they are mono- or poly-lingual, whether their speech is advanced or mono-syllabic, whether they write and read as well as they speak, whether the content of their language is general or expert, and so on. In short, we should never expect the stored content of language across individuals to be the same. It is for this reason that Chomsky’s observation (Chomsky per. com. 2008, colloquium at MIT) that ‘there is no consistency across individuals using fMRI for language’ is indicative of the unique configuration of language-storage between individuals such that the only commonality across subjects is that they have a posterior and anterior region in their brain (i.e., Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas) often located in the left hemisphere that subserves the linguistic process (Penfield and Roberts 1966). How the brain is filled with linguistic information can only be established by tracking the learning history of a person and then coming up with an estimate of total bits of information for language (see Footnote 1). As mentioned in previous communications, the neocortex of humans has a storage capacity of 1.6 x 10^14 bits, which is 2^(1.6 x 10^14) possibilities (Tehovnik, Hasanbegović, Tehovnik 2024); this should be more than enough capacity for 100 years of life (see Footnote 2).
So, what about face recognition? It is now believed that at least in primates a network of neurons located in the temporal cortex (mainly in the infratemporal portion) contains a chain of neuronal patches that respond to different profiles of a face such that at the anterior pole of the temporal lobes multiple profiles of a face are stored by individual neurons and that these neurons are connected to ventrolateral prefrontal cortex immediately anterior to the face representation of M1 (Brecht and Freiwald 2012; Bruce et al. 1981; Schwarzlose et al. 2005; Schwiedrzik, Freiwald et al. 2015; Freiwald and Tsao 2010). The cells in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex respond to facial gestures, thereby integrating the face cells of the temporal cortex with the cells in the frontal cortex that are responsible for evoking gestures (Romanski 2012). An obvious function here is to learn the various facial gestures of one’s species (through vision and the other senses) to thereafter enhance facial communication between conspecifics.
Frontal lobe aphasia and frontal lobe apraxia (caused by damage to the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, i.e., Broca’s area—or areas 45 and 46—in humans) are two conditions that have been associated to suggest that verbal language has its roots in frontal lobe mechanisms that mediate the production of gestures in our monkey relatives (Kimura 1993), which parted from the Homo sapiens to-be line some 25 million years ago (Kumar and Hedges 1998). By computing the number of synapses of the facial network in monkeys and humans it should be possible to estimate the storage and transfer of facial information for the purpose of communication (see Tehovnik, Hasanbegović, Chen 2014) and by linking this information with the language centers in humans (which are partially overlapped, see attached Fig. 1; also see Fig. 2), a global information estimate could be deduced per individual to come up with language metrics per individual in bits and bits per second to see how well these correlate with one’s language aptitude. We are on our way to having a quantitative neuroscience that unifies the brain with behavior using information theory, as proposed about a decade ago [Tehovnik, E.J., 2014. Brain-machine Interfaces: Myths and Reality, Chilean Society for Neuroscience, Valdivia, Chile, October].
Footnote 1: Investigators may be able to eventually find a correlation between the amount of information stored and the amount of information transferred per individual; the latter for language is a fixed quantity of 39 bits per second, on average (Coupé et al. 2019), but we know there is variability between individuals based on educational level, developmental factors, and genetics.
Footnote 2: When comparing the neocortical/cerebellar information storage across animals, the capacity should be computed in terms of lifespan to establish how much residual capacity exists in particular species; the common assumption is that humans are a species outlier (through the invention of cooking being able to feed an energy-expensive brain, Herculano-Houzel 2011), for which one might expect a massive residual capacity for information storage, as well as an extreme information transfer ability, which depends on the musculature of an animal that sets an upper limit in the transfer rate (Tehovnik, Hasanbegović, Chen 2024). For example, the physicist Stephen Hawking with his disability could only transfer 0.1 bits per second for generating words using his cheek muscle (Tehovnik, Patel, Tolias et al. 2021).
Figure 1: A side view of the human brain is shown. Areas 45 and 44 (Broca’s area) receive information from both the posterior language area (Wernicke’s area and the auditory cortex) and the infratemporal cortex housing the neurons encoding objects such as faces in area 37.
Figure 2: A fMRI study of speech and gestures found that in the frontal lobes two regions were activated by either behavior: viewing a person performing gestures or listening to speech describing the gestures performed by the person. For both, the gestural and verbal presentations, areas 44 and 45 (Broca’s area) and area 47 were activated. In posterior neocortex, Wernicke’s area/the face region (area 37) was activated. Figure from Xu et al. (2009, Fig. 2).

Related Publications

Article
Full-text available
El propósito del trabajo es ofrecer un recuento de las características principales y algunos rasgos que definen las estrategias competitivas seguidas por firmas líderes en el procesamiento de alimentos a nivel mundial, particularmente las relacionadas con las ramas de molienda de trigo, procesamiento de carne y la industria vitivinícola. Se adviert...
Article
Research on first mover advantages is interested in the performance effects of the order of entry into new markets. However, with a few exceptions, the competitive strategies used by different cohorts of entrants have not been studied. We advance research on first mover advantages by arguing that pioneers and followers differ in terms of the compet...
Got a technical question?
Get high-quality answers from experts.