Why do some companies succeed? What distinguishes these companies from their competitors? What do they do differently to ensure they develop and maintain their competitive advantage? This paper puts forward the hypothesis that companies, which adopt a formal strategic management function, within their organisation structure manage to maintain their competitive advantage. The field of strategic management has matured in the last few decades from a corporate planning function, to a wider and to some extent, a less quantitative oriented field. The need for strategy as a distinct management function has generally been accepted in the last few decades. It is the process by which companies identify directions, set goals and plan its execution. How effectively the company manages the strategy development and execution process is the determining factor in maintaining their competitive advantage over their rivals. Last few years has seen the emergence of the role of a Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), among senior managers. Due to increasing market, regulatory and environmental complexities, CEOs (Chief Executive Officer) are burdened with managing day-to-day operations of their companies.Therefore, many companies have been shifting the strategy making process to the CSOs or to a separate department, to ensure strategic opportunities are identified, analysed, shared and executed. This study attempts, to broadly investigate, the adoption of a formal strategy making process in Indian companies and its effectiveness. We have used the CNX 500, whichis the National StockExchange’s (NSE) broad based benchmark of Indian capital markets, to define the universe. In this universe, this study has looked at how many companies; have a formally defined strategy making process. This study haslooked at company reports, company websites, newspaper articles and existing literature reviews for identifying companies, which have adopted this management function within their overall structure. To analyse differences among industries, the data has been segmented based on industry classification. Based on the above classification, differences in the average Earning Per Share (EPS) between companies that have implemented a strategy department and companies that do not have one has been analysed.
