Modern Economy, 2011, 2, 575-583
doi:10.4236/me.2011.24064 Published Online September 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/me)
Analysis of Strategy by Strategy Typology and Orientation
Framework
Ville Isoherranen, Pekka Kess
Elektroniikkatie, Oulu, Finland
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Faculty of Engineering, University of Oulu, Finland
Received June 12, 2011; revised July 22, 2011; accepted July 31, 2011
Abstract
This study analyses the two case businesses strategy by using the strategy orientation and typology frame-
work. The framework is build as synthesis from market and product orientation characteristics found from
literature as well as the Miles and Snow strategy typology. This framework is used to evaluate Nokia mobile
phones and Amer strategy. Nokia’s and Amer’s successful business and business transformations contribute
to the selection. The findings show that the created framework is able to find orientation and typology
changes in both of the case businesses.
Keywords: Strategy Analysis Framework, Strategy Typology, Market Orientation, Product Orientation
1. Introduction
The increasing power of buyers in highly competitive
markets forces companies to get closer to customers in
order to maintain their business and to create value-
adding solutions to capture more revenue from their cus-
tomer base [1-3]. Strategy creation and its challenges in
highly competitive market has been discussed e.g. by
Porter [4], Hamel and Prahalad [5], Moore [6], and Kim
and Mauborgne [7].
Market orientated companies, focused on market pull,
build their strategy by having a long-term commitment to
understand customer needs, and thus developing innova-
tive solutions by discovering hidden customer needs and
new markets ([8,9]). Product oriented, product focused,
strategy can be seen as internally focused company’s
strategy that pursuits competitive advantage by deliver-
ing cutting-edge products with best features, based its
core-competences. [3]
Strategy typology as presented by Miles et al. [10]
proposes a strategy classification of four distinct types:
prospectors, defenders, analyzers and reactors. Any of
the three first strategies can be successful in the market
place. Reactor strategy can be considered as failure to
execute one of these strategies.
In this study, we examine the two above-mentioned
approaches to strategy: the market oriented and product-
oriented views in the context of Miles et al. [10] strategy
typology by building synthesis framework of these theo-
ries. Focus is also to do analysis of case businesses
strategies by using this framework.
The case business NOKIA is an old Finnish company.
Company has been founded in 1865. In 1995, it focused
on telecommunication businesses and in 2007 in mobile
phone products and services, when the network systems
business merged with Siemens and Nokia Siemens Net-
works was established. Nokia is the global leader in mo-
bile telecommunications and has dominated the telecom
market for years. Nokia shipped 2009 over 430 million
units of mobile devices, average of over 1.1 million units
a day and thus reaching market share of estimated 35%
of mobile devices market. The transformation of Nokia
from a company constructed of several different business
areas, such as car tyres, cables, TV’s and industry elec-
tronics, to company that has focus on telecommunication
has been remarkable. Nokia made strategic decision to
focus on one of its business areas, and has been able to
grow significantly due to this strategic choice. Especially,
this choice has been followed by long growth in sales of
Nokia’s mobile phones and thus Nokia has gained lead-
ing market position in mobile phone market. This suc-
cess and growth makes Nokia mobile phone business
interesting case example to study strategy orientation due
to its ability to maintain competitiveness. In addition, the
ongoing transformation of Nokia from mo- bile phones
focused company to also as a provider of internet-based

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL. 576
services, also make Nokia’s mobile phone business rele-
vant research case for strategy orientation. Nokia’s
strategy has been especially discussed by Doz and Kos-
onen [11], from the viewpoint of strategic agility. Other
academic papers written about Nokia cover e.g. topics
from open innovation and innovation networks [12],
Nokia’s growth success factors [13], and the fun- da-
mental change that Nokia brough to telecommuniation
industry [14].
The second case company AMER operates interna-
tionally, and focuses on marketing and manufacturing of
branded sports equipment. The parent company Amer
Group is a publicly listed company that was established
on 1950. Amer has long history on multiple business
areas, such as tobacco, sporting and leisure goods and car
importing. Amer divested its entire Paper division on
1994, and sold the entire Publishing and Printing division.
Later on same year, Amer acquired the Atomic sports
equipment manufacturing company to strengthen its po-
sition as manufacturer of sporting branded goods. Since
then Amer has acquitted several sport equipment compa-
nies. Amer’s most famous sporting brands are e.g. Wil-
son, Atomic and Salomon.
This study can be condensed to the following research
questions:
RQ1: What is the framework to analyze strategy ori-
entation with strategy typology?
RQ2: How does the case businesses strategy orienta-
tion and typology change?
2. Strategy Orientations
2.1. Market Orientation in Strategy
Brem and Voigt [15] summarize the market pull to be
“characterized by unsatisfied customer that creates new
demand, which requires problem solving”. The impulse
comes from individuals or groups that state their demand;
this impulse is then used for focusing company targets,
resources and activities so that this demand can be satis-
fied. Day [9] lists the market-driven company features to
be a set of beliefs that puts customer’s interest first, abi-
lity to generate and use information about customers and
competitors, and the ability to coordinate resources for
customer value creation. Day [9] also adds that market
orientation represents superior skills in understanding
and satisfying customers. According to Day [16] market-
driven companies know their markets deeply so that they
are able to identify valuable customers. Thus these com-
panies are able to make strategic choices and implement
those consistently. These choices can be e.g. prioritiza-
tion of customer requirement in the favor of most valu-
able customers or the service levels of which are offered.
According to Day [16] the characteristics of market-
driven organizations following market oriented strategy
can be listed as following: offering superior solutions
and experience, focus on customer value, ability to con-
vert customer satisfaction into loyalty, drive to energize
employees, anticipation of competitor moves by intimate
market understanding, viewing marketing as investment
and not as costs and leveraging brands assets. Customer
value is something fundamental which the buyer, cus-
tomer, recognizes to create benefit, so that is without any
doubt something that the customer is willing to invest to
get this service or product in to use. Slater and Narver [8]
summarize market orientation to be continuous collec-
tion of target customers’ needs and competitors’ capabi-
lities. This means that market orientation strategy drives
the operational mode and organization of the company to
be able to collect and analyze customer’s needs. This is
consistent with Hartline et al. [17] stating “market orien-
tation to be organizational culture that creates effectively
and efficiently superior value to buyers and thus excel-
lent business performance”. Slater and Narver [18] de-
scribe the market-oriented approach to be “long-term,
proactive, commitment to understand customer needs,
both expressed and latent, and develop innovate solu-
tions for ensuring high customer value”. At the same
time, market-oriented companies, understands, that dif-
ferent types of customers provide different levels of in-
formation and that customer voice is only one source of
information for building strategies. This notion of bal-
ance is important part of the market-oriented strategy
execution, in order to prevent loose of company’s profi-
tability, or that e.g. over executed customization efforts
can lead loosing company’s identity, company’s branded
assets. Sustainable competitive advantage achieved by
the market-oriented strategy can be summarized to be
based on the intimate knowledge of customers, ability to
select the customers which to serve, and finally offering
them unique product or service, which has been build
based on the customer knowledge, and delivering it effi-
ciently and effectively based on strategic focus.
2.2. Product Orientation in Strategy
The biggest difference of view for product oriented and
market oriented company is the approach of which com-
pany following product oriented strategy drives to find as
many uses and customers for its product as possible, in
contrast to company focused to listening it customer,
which tries to find the most suitable products as possible
for its customers and then integrating these for value
adding solutions [3]. Galbraith [3], [19] defines the cha-
racteristics of product-centric company from 13 different
viewpoints. We consider the most important views from

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL.577
strategy point of view to be the goal, main offering, value
creation route, customer definition, organizational setup,
reward priorities, the priority setting basis and the pricing.
According to Galbraith the goal of product product-cen-
tric company is to create the best product for customer.
The definition of best product is something that separates
the product from the competitors and can be sold-in for
the customer using these rationales. The value creation
route is the cutting-edge products, useful features and
new applications. The organizations are built around pro-
duct creation, as there are e.g. product business units.
The organizational setup focuses on product profit cen-
ters and the reward focuses e.g. on the market share. Top
managements focus on product reviews and the logic is
that more features, capabilities of the products also create
more value to product thus driving sales. The priority
setting of strategic actions is thus based on portfolio of
products, which is the product oriented strategy point of
view the main offering. Highest customer priority is
given to most advanced customers which take into use
the new features and applications created by the product
oriented company. This is important due to fact that pro-
duct oriented strategy fundamentally focuses on creation
of competitive advantage by ultimate product capabilities,
thus the adaption of new features is essential. Customers
want to be locked to the feature richness thus preventing
them to consider competitive options with less features
or lack of applications.
Thompson [2] describes the transformation journey of
inward-focused product driven company via market-
focused company to customer-centric company. The cha-
racteristics of company focused on the core competences,
with certain inward-focus, also can be identified as part
of the product oriented company’s strategy [5].
Also the aspects of organizational setup and reward
priorities together with measurement principles of suc-
cess are essential aspects to consider. Product oriented
company measures its success by the market share posi-
tion, number of new products created, and the capability
to lead by latest product features and top end applica-
tions.
We define the product focused or product-centric strat-
egy in this research to be referred and synonymous as the
product oriented strategy.
The characteristics of both market orientation (Market
pull) and product orientation (Product push) are summa-
rized in the Table 1. The summary has been built around
four dimensions: strategy focus, value creation, opera-
tional driver and culture.
2.3. Strategy Typology
Miles et al. [10] and Miles and Snow [20] have proposed
Table 1. Strategy orientation characteristics summary.
Strategy orientation
characteristics by
drivers
Market orientation,
‘Market pull’
Product orientation
‘Product push’
Strategy focus
a) Delivering most
suitable product for the
customer
a) Creating the best
product
Value creation b) Customer value b) New features and
applications
Operational driver
c) Ability to generate
information about
customers, “portfolio of
customer information”
c) Creating portfolio
of products
Culture
d) Long-term proactive
drive to understand
customer needs
d) Inward-focused,
‘core competences’
a strategy classification of four distinct characters: de-
fenders, prospectors, analyzers and reactors. The classi-
fication is based on assessment of how the company re-
sponds to the following three problems or challenges:
 entrepreneurial, which defines the organization’s pro-
duct-market domain
 engineering, which focuses on the choice of tech-
nologies and process for production and distribution
 administration, which involves the formalization,
rationalization and innovation of an organization’s
structure and policy processes.
The defenders are companies which have a stable set
of products or services and compete primarily on the
basis of price, quality, and service. Defender organiza-
tions face the entrepreneurial problem of how to main-
tain a stable share of the market, and hence they function
best in stable environments. A common solution to this
problem is cost leadership, and so these organizations
achieve success by specializing in particular areas and
using established and standardized technical processes to
maintain low costs. In addition, defender organizations
tend to be vertically integrated in order to achieve cost
efficiency. Defender organizations face the administra-
tive problem of having to ensure efficiency, and thus
they require centralization, formal procedures, and dis-
crete functions. Because their environments change slowly,
defender organizations can rely on long-term planning.
The defender strategy entails a decision not to aggres-
sively pursue new markets but rather drive to seal off
portion of the total market to create stable, hard-to-enter
domain for competitors.
In this classification the prospectors are defined as
companies which are first in the market and have a very
broad product-market definition. Prospector organiza-
tions face the entrepreneurial problem of locating and
exploiting new product and market opportunities. These
organizations thrive in changing business environments

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL. 578
that have an element of unpredictability, and succeed by
constantly examining the market in a quest for new op-
portunities. Moreover, prospector organizations have
broad product or service lines and often promote create-
vity over efficiency. Prospector organizations face the
operational problem of not being dependent on any one
technology. Consequently, prospector companies priori-
tize new product and service development and innova-
tion to meet new and changing customer needs and de-
mands and to create new demands. The administrative
problem of these companies is how to coordinate diverse
business activities and promote innovation. Prospector
organizations solve this problem by being decentralized,
employing generalists (not specialists), having few levels
of management, and encouraging collaboration among
different departments and units. The prospector strategy
can be seen as the most aggressive on of all these four.
For prospector it is important to have reputation as inno-
vator both in product and market development.
The analyzers have been defined as companies, which
have characteristics from both of the prior strategies and
they seek a balance between stable and changing do-
mains. Analyzer organizations share characteristics with
prospector and defender organizations; thus, they face
the entrepreneurial problem of how to maintain their
shares in existing markets and how to find and exploit
new markets and product opportunities. These organiza-
tions have the operational problem of maintaining the
efficiency of established products or services, while re-
maining flexible enough to pursue new business activi-
ties. Consequently, they seek technical efficiency to
maintain low costs, but they also emphasize new product
and service development to remain competitive when the
market changes. The administrative problem is how to
manage both of these aspects. Like prospector organiza-
tions, analyzer organizations cultivate collaboration
among different departments and units. Analyzer orga-
nizations are characterized by balance, a balance be-
tween defender and prospector organizations, analyzer
drivers for strategy are minimizing risk while maximiz-
ing the opportunity for profit.
The reactor organizations do not have a systematic
strategy, operational driver, or structure, they exhibit
actions both of inconsistent and unstable. They are not
prepared for changes they face in their business envi-
ronments. If a reactor organization has a defined strategy
and structure, it is no longer appropriate for the organiza-
tion’s environment. A reactor has no proactive strategy.
They react to events as they occur and their response is
inappropriate for the situation. Miles et al. (1978) have
identified three reasons why organizations become rea-
ctors:
 top management may not have clearly articulated the
organization’s strategy,
 management does not fully shape the organization’s
structure and processes to fit a chosen strategy and
 tendency for management to maintain the organiza-
tion’s current strategy-structure relationship despite
overwhelming changes in environmental conditions.
Also the failure to execute defender, prospector or
analyzer strategy can lead the organization actual strat-
egy to be reactor approach.The strategy types of Miles
and Snow [10] are presented in the Table 2.
2.4. Analysis Framework
Based on the literature synthesis we have created strat-
egy orientation framework that will use be used for the
analysis (Table 3). In this framework the two different
orientation characteristics, product and market orienta-
tion, are fitted together with the Miles et al. [10] typol-
ogy. The framework highlights the trade-off nature of the
different orientations but orientations can also co-exist
within strategy focus. The framework is build from six
dimensions: strategy focus, product-marketing domain,
value creation, operational driver, culture and organiza-
tion. The characteristics are then combined under these
dimensions.
3. Empirical Study
3.1. Research Process
The research process is described in the Figure 1. The
strategy orientations and strategy typology [10] were
studied by using existing literature as a source. The out-
put of the literature review was the synthesis in form of
the analysis framework. This phase where followed by
the case material empirical data collection. This empiri-
cal data was collected from the annual reports of the two
case businesses. For the first case empirical material was
collected through the years 1990 - 2009. This empirical
data consisted of 20 case business annual reports (Ap-
pendix 1). Time span of nearly 20 years was considered
to be sufficiently wide in the fast changing telecommu-
nication markets and to bring extensive knowledge on
the case business strategy development. These reports
where available in printed format in Finnish and in elec-
tronic format both in Finnish and English. Both the
printed and electronic version where used to achieve rich
insight on the case business strategy. For the second case
company Amer empirical material was collected from
years 1994 to 2008 (Appendix 2). The year 2007 annual
report was missing from the records and could not be
used for the research. However, the time span of almost
15 years was considered to give wide enough perspective

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL. 579
Table 2. Strategy typology characteristics summary (adapted from Gallen [21]).
Strategy type/Dimension Defender Prospector Analyzer Reactor
Product–market domain Narrow and stable Broad and continuously
expanding
Segmented and carefully
adjusted Not clearly defined
Operational driver Cost-efficiency Flexibility and
innovativeness Technological synergy Inconsistent and not optimized
Organization Functional and line
authority
Products and/or market
oriented Matrix oriented Independent business units with loose connections
Table 3. Analysis framework.
Strategy typology
Strategy
orientation Defender Prospector Analyzer Reactor
Market
orientation
Strategy focus:
-Delivering most suitable
product for the customer
Product-Market domain:
-Narrow and stable
Value Creation:
-Customer value
Operational Driver:
-Cost-efficiency
-Customer information
Culture:
-Long-term proactive drive
to understand customer
needs
Organization:
-Functional and line au-
thority
Strategy focus:
-Delivering most suitable
product for the customer
Product-Market domain:
-Broad and continuously
expanding
Value Creation:
-Customer value
Operational Driver:
-Flexibility and innova-
tiveness
-Customer information
Culture:
-Long-term proactive drive
to understand customer
needs
Organization:
-Market oriented
Strategy focus:
-Delivering most suitable
product for the customer
Product-Market domain:
-Segmented and carefully ad-
justed
Value Creation:
-Customer value
Operational Driver:
-Technological synergy
-Customer information
Culture:
-Long-term proactive drive to
understand customer needs
Organization:
-Matrix oriented
Strategy focus:
-Delivering most suitable product
for the customer
Product-Market domain:
-Not clearly defined
Value Creation:
-Customer value
Operational Driver:
-Inconsistent and not optimized
-Customer information
Culture:
-Long-term proactive drive to
understand customer needs
Organization:
-Independent business units with
loose connections
Product
orientation
Strategy focus:
-Creating the best product
Product-Market domain:
-Narrow and stable
Value Creation:
-New features and
applications
Operational Driver:
-Cost-efficiency
-Creating portfolio of
products
Culture:
-Inward-focused,
‘core competences’
Organization:
-Functional and line
authority
Strategy focus:
-Creating the best product
Product-Market domain:
-Broad and continuously
expanding
Value Creation:
-New features and
applications
Operational Driver:
-Flexibility and innova-
tiveness
-Creating portfolio of prod-
ucts
Culture:
-Inward-focused,
‘core competences’
Organization:
-Products oriented
Strategy focus:
-Creating the best product
Product-Market domain:
-Segmented and carefully ad-
justed
Value Creation:
-New features and applications
Operational Driver:
-Technological synergy
-Creating portfolio of products
Culture:
-Inward-focused,
‘core competences’
Organization:
-Matrix oriented
Strategy focus:
-Creating the best product
Product-Market domain:
-Not clearly defined
Value Creation:
-New features and applications
Operational Driver:
-Inconsistent and not optimized
-Creating portfolio of products
Culture:
-Inward-focused,
‘core competences’
Organization:
-Independent business units with
loose connections

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL. 580
Figure 1. The research process.
to the research. The annual reports were available in
electronic format on English language.
The created strategy orientation and typology frame-
work was then used to analyze the empirical case data of
both of the case businesses. The analysis was conducted
in four parts for the first case business (mobile phones
case business). The phase’s selection and timing was
based on the analysis done in the previous research. For
the second case company the analysis was conducted
similarly using the framework but looking the data to
find logical points when there was strategy focus change.
3.2. Results and Analysis
The mobile phone case business strategy during the 1990
to 1994 can be categorized as product oriented prospe-
ctor. The strategy focus during this period is to create
best product for the new market. This new market is cre-
ated by the Global system for Mobile Communications
(GSM) standard, the new digital communications stan-
dard. The case business is one of the first ones to pursuit
this new product-market domain created by technology
advancement in wireless communication, thus the value
creation channel is to be able to create new applications
to for this new technology. The operational driver is to
invest on research and development activities, so that
new market opportunities can be exploited on full scale.
The product orientated strategy drives focus on internal
capabilities development, together with securing enough
productization capacity. This organization product ori-
ented focus can be seen by establishment of new research
and development sites.
The period of 1995-2000 the mobile phone case busi-
ness continues to have the characteristics of product ori-
ented prospector in the strategy according to the analysis
framework criteria. The case business strategy focus and
operational driver is on creation of broad portfolio of
products with the most advanced features. Focus is on
creation of the best product with the latest industrial de-
sign. The case business is involved in several technology
areas, and drives to create efficient product creation ca-
pabilities. The product market domain is being con-
stantly expanded by finding new segments of customers
to serve. Thus the drive from strategy point of view is to
find as many customers as possible for the products the
case business is creating.
During the period of 2001 to 2006 the mobile phone
case business strategy can be categorized as product
oriented defender. The case business has established its
position as market leader, and it is strategy has focused
on to protect its position. Case business has established
product business unit to achieve economies of scale to its
product creation and delivery. During this examined pe-
riod the case business launches on several consecutive
years over 40 new mobile phone models, thus aiming to
create widest portfolio of products in the industry. These
new models contain the latest features, form factors, such
as computer like keyboard for messaging and digital
camera capabilities.
The period of 2007 to 2009 the case business can be
defined as market oriented analyzer. During this last
analysis period there can be noted significant change in
the case business strategy. The case business is searching
for new market areas while maintaining its position on
the current market it operates. The product-market do-
main is carefully adjusted and case business operates in
matrix mode organization. There are indications from the
strategy point of view to get closer to customers, and
establishing specific solutions unit to serve the needs of
customers to get the most suitable product. Similarly, the
strategic customization efforts are raising their priority as
well has customer information collection.
The second case company follows the strategy of pro-
duct oriented analyzer during the years 1994 to 2000.
The drive is within this period to go for the position of
leading sports equipment manufacturer in the world. To
achieve this target the case company consistently divests
in the selected existing business areas, such as car and
forklift importing. In the other hand, case company pur-
suits new business area opportunities by organic growth
and most importantly acquisitions of several companies.
The existing business is kept in good condition, support-
ing the financial operations needed for the new business
domains search. In these existing business areas, focus is
to maintain efficient production and operations. The new
business domains acquired during this timeframe are e.g.
Atomic, the ski equipment manufacturer, Suunto and
DeMarini. All of the acquisitions broaden the product
portfolio of the case business. The case business strategy
shows during this timeframe considerable focus on the
products. The innovation within research and develop-
ment is focused on improving the existing capabilities of

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL.581
the products and also to create new technological solu-
tions to be able to broaden the product portfolio. Impro-
vements to products characteristics are searched from
new material compositions or design of the products.
World know brands play essential role in the efforts to
achieve broad and widely known product portfolio.
During the period from 2000 to 2008 the case com-
pany strategy can be categorized as product oriented
defender. During this period the case company achieves
the position of leading sports equipment manufacturer in
world. This is supported by strong financial position. The
position is defended by creation of wide product portfo-
lio, which is build from summer and winter sports, and
also from outdoor to indoor sports equipment products.
This is aimed to protect the company against seasonality,
and other sudden causes for volatility e.g. weather condi-
tions. Case company focuses on building long term rela-
tionships with retail and distribution, and making sure
that the supply chain operations are efficient, thus sup-
porting the leading position of the company. Integrated
and transparent supply chain management aims to cost
efficiency. The narrow definition of the target product-
market domain also supports the thinking of the strong
focus on the core competences and building unbeatable
position within this segment/product domain. Case com-
pany also continues acquisitions to further focus on the
core business area of sports equipments and divest from
the original business area of tobacco license manufac-
turer. Case company does significant reorganizations and
searches for efficient cost position to secure the competi-
tiveness, and making the business domain hard to enter
for any new competition.
4. Managerial Implications
The strategy analysis framework (Table 3) build from
literature references combines the two dominating di-
mensions in the current strategy thinking: the market
based (demand based) strategies and the product based
strategies with the Miles et al. [10] presented strategy
typology. Examples of the market based strategies can be
found from the thinking of Porter [4] (differentiation or
cost leadership) and the thinking of Hamel and Prahalad
[5] (core competences) presents good example of the
product-based strategies. It is evident that the first of all
that companies are pursuing with their strategy work
sustainable competitive advantage. The roadmap to this
can be based on either on the competences which the
company has or it can analyze the market to find such
market segment or even single customer which the com-
pany focuses, so that it will be the best company to serve
that segment or customers needs, thus building special
position for itself.
The framework build in this study can help outsider
observer to dissect the examined company’s strategy.
This “dissection” can give the fundamental information
to understand the strategy orientation within the exam-
ined firm. Secondly the orientation knowledge together
with the strategy typology can help to position the ex-
amined company in the strategy continuum to defensive
(Defender) or aggressive (Prospector) position. Also the
potential failures in strategy execution can be acknow-
ledged (Reactor).
The strategy orientation analysis framework fitted to
Miles et al. [10] strategy typology enables managers re-
sponsible of strategy development to analyze their com-
pany’s position in the demand-based or product-based
domains and mirroring this positioning to the strategy
typology types.
Also important applications for the strategy analysis
framework, used by the strategy managers are to under-
stand the competitors’ strategy orientations together with
their typology characteristics. If one company follows
the product-oriented defender strategy in markets where
the main competitor is pursuing market-oriented pro-
spector strategy, first one can assume aggressive cus-
tomer targeting and acquisition from the competitor side.
It is however notable that defender, prospector and
analyzer strategies can all be successful in the market
place, however in markets which are constantly changing
and e.g. new technologies cause interruptions, the lack of
market understanding can lead the company to be slow
on response to changing customer demand or to new
customer requirements.
5. Conclusions
The purpose of this study was to build analysis frame-
work for two dimensional strategy orientation fitted to-
gether with the strategy typology, both parts based on
literature references, and then the framework was tested
with two case businesses strategy evaluations.
The research questions were stated to be following:
RQ1: What is the framework to analyze strategy ori-
entation with strategy typology?
RQ2: How does the case businesses strategy orienta-
tion and typology change?
Answering to research questions:
RQ1: The framework to analyze the strategy orienta-
tion with the strategy typology is presented in the Table
3.
RQ2: The case businesses strategy orientation and ty-
pology change is summarized in the Table 4 and Table 5.
The findings show the mobile phone case business mov-
ing from product oriented prospector position to product
oriented defender and then by the end of the period to the

V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL. 582
Table 4. Mobile case business strategy analysis summary
for examined periods.
Strategy typology
Strategy
Orientation Defender Prospector Analyzer Reactor
Market
Orientation 4th period:
2007 - 2009
Product
orientation
3rd period:
2001 - 2006
1st period:
1990 - 1994
2nd period:
1995 - 2000
Table 5. 2nd Case company strategy analysis summary.
Strategy typology
Strategy
Orientation Defender Prospector Analyzer Reactor
Market
Orientation
Product
orientation
2nd period:
2000 - 2008 1st period: 1994 - 2000
position of market oriented analyzer. The second case
company strategy in the examined timeframe starts from
the position of product oriented analyzer the moving
more and more to the position of product oriented de-
fender.
As conclusion from both of the case businesses results
can be stated that the created strategy analysis frame-
work (Table 3) is able to detect strategy change in both
of the case businesses strategy
The limitations of this research are originated from the
definitions of analysis framework dimensions. Also the
empirical material of both of the cases businesses has
limitations due to its nature, as it gives overview on the
examined period but many detailed or fine scale nota-
tions cannot be examined in further details.
The areas for further research can include the frame-
work testing in case businesses from different industrial
areas, such as business to business markets or in the
highly regulated markets. Overall the product and market
orientation as source of competitive advantage are inter-
esting area for further research
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V. ISOHERRANEN ET AL.583
Appendix 1
1st case business
Number of pages
Year
Annual report CEO’s/Board of
Directors report
1990 72 2
1991 64 2
1992 64 2
1993 64 2
1994 71 2
1995 72 2
1996 76 3
1997 80 2
1998 56 2
1999 52 2
2000 42 4
2001 56 4
2002 66 3
2003 70 3
2004 78 3
2005 83 3
2006 87 5
2007 86 5
2008 89 5
2009 98 5
TOTAL 1426 61
Appendix 2
2nd case company
Number of pages
Year
Annual report CEO’s/Board of
Directors report
1994 43 5
1995 42 6
1996 42 7
1997 50 7
1998 56 4
1999 52 3
2000 56 5
2001 56 4
2002 60 5
2003 76 4
2004 85 6
2005 107 8
2006 112 10
2008 154 6
TOTAL 991 80