What should strategy include?

• A. Marketing, operations, and financial planning
• B. Human resources and IT infrastructure
• C. Customer service only
• D. IT infrastructure alone

Answer: (A)

A strategy needs to be holistic, spanning how the organization wins in the market, how it delivers its offerings, and how it funds and resources those efforts. Marketing helps identify customer needs, shape value propositions, and decide how to reach and persuade the market. Operations turns those ideas into practical, efficient processes that produce and deliver products or services reliably. Financial planning ensures there is funding, controls costs, and guides investments and risk management so the strategy can be sustained over time. Together, these areas connect external opportunities with internal capabilities and resources, enabling a viable path to success.

Focusing only on internal IT infrastructure, or only on customer service, misses essential parts of the picture. An effective strategy must address why customers will buy, what operations will deliver, and how the organization will finance and support these choices to stay viable.