In the high-stakes world of corporate strategy, success is often portrayed as the product of visionary planning and flawless execution. Business leaders pride themselves on crafting winning strategies, and many “self-made” executives bristle at the idea that anything other than talent and hard work played a role in their rise. Yet, a growing body of evidence – from academic studies to real-world corporate case studies – suggests that luck (chance events, timing, and unforeseen variables) can profoundly influence outcomes. As E.B. White once quipped, “Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men”, highlighting how underacknowledged chance can be in success stories. This Emergent Africa thought leadership paper explores the interplay between deliberate strategic planning and random chance, arguing that strategic success is part design and part serendipity. We draw on empirical research and business examples across technology, startups, finance, and more to examine how much of success is strategy versus luck, and – crucially – how firms can craft strategies that remain resilient to chance while capitalising on serendipitous opportunities.

The objective is to provide corporate decision-makers (in industries outside government) with an insightful, evidence-backed perspective on strategy development and execution. By understanding the role of luck, leaders can avoid the twin pitfalls of overconfidence (believing a good strategy guarantees success) and fatalism (believing success is pure randomness). Instead, we propose an approach where preparedness and agility allow organisations to benefit from good fortune and withstand the bad – a hallmark of Emergent Africa’s strategy consulting philosophy.

Strategy: The Deliberate Engine of Success

There is no question that sound strategy and execution are essential for any sustained success. Visionary leaders like Steve Jobs of Apple or Jeff Bezos of Amazon are celebrated for their strategic acumen. Apple’s rise, for instance, is often attributed to Jobs’ relentless focus on innovation and design, from the Macintosh to the iPhone. Amazon’s dominance owes much to Bezos’ long-term strategy of customer obsession, market expansion and continuous innovation (e.g. launching Amazon Web Services and AWS, which transformed cloud computing). Competent strategy aligns a company with market needs and builds competitive advantages through resources, innovation, and execution discipline. No amount of luck can compensate if these fundamentals are absent – a poorly run company rarely stumbles into lasting success.

Crucially, strategy creates the conditions under which luck can be harnessed. Strategy involves making choices (which markets to play in, what unique value to offer) and marshaling the capabilities to deliver. A clear strategic vision gives a company direction and increases its exposure to opportunity. For example, Apple’s strategic decision in the early 2000s to pivot towards consumer devices and digital music (iPod/iTunes ecosystem) positioned it perfectly when mobile internet technology matured – a convergence of deliberate foresight and fortuitous timing. Likewise, Amazon’s strategy of experimenting in new domains (from e-readers to cloud infrastructure) meant that when a serendipitous success like AWS emerged from internal development, the company was ready to scale it. These cases show how strategy can amplify the benefits of luck: being in the right place at the right time is only useful if you recognise and seize the opportunity.

Furthermore, strategic planning and rigorous execution are what allow companies to capitalize on a stroke of luck. An often-cited adage goes, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” History shows that many “lucky breaks” in business were only converted into lasting success by teams that had prepared diligently. The discovery of penicillin in 1928, for example, was a lucky accident – but turning it into a life-saving product required strategic development by pharmaceutical companies. In the corporate realm, when Netflix saw the rapid consumer shift to streaming video, it was strategically ready (having invested in a streaming platform early) to ride that wave, whereas rivals like Blockbuster failed to adapt. In short, robust strategy and execution create a platform from which any lucky opportunity can be launched into transformative success. Neglecting strategy will usually leave an organisation ill-equipped to exploit good fortune.

Chance: The Silent Partner in Business Success

For all the power of strategy, chance events and randomness often act as a silent partner in business success stories. Market conditions can shift overnight, disruptive technologies can emerge unexpectedly, and consumer trends can turn on a dime – factors largely outside any one firm’s control. Empirical evidence increasingly shows that luck and randomness have a significant influence on who wins and who loses in competitive arenas. Skill and effort are critical, but even a small dose of luck can tilt outcomes among closely matched competitors. A simulation study reviewed by Cornell economist Robert Frank illustrated this vividly: if success is 98% determined by merit (talent and effort) and only 2% by luck, those tiny random factors can still determine the winner in a crowded field. In Frank’s tournament simulations, with thousands of equally driven participants, the champion often wasn’t the single most skilled individual – rather, they were very capable and happened to get slightly luckier breaks than their peers. In fact, 78% of the simulated winners did not have the highest merit scores; they prevailed thanks to a fortuitous boost of luck on top of solid ability. This finding reflects reality: in highly competitive markets, many firms might have excellent strategies and teams, but chance events (a sudden regulatory change, a key client win, a viral trend) can vault one ahead of the rest.

Multiple studies have underlined how outcomes depend on both skill and luck. A 2018 statistical analysis (“Talent vs Luck”) found that the most successful individuals or companies are rarely the absolutely most talented; instead, they are above-average performers who encountered positive random events. In the simulation, the top-performing agent wasn’t a genius outlier in talent – they had just above average talent – but benefited from a series of lucky breaks that compounded over time. Meanwhile, the most talented participant ended up with trivial success due to unlucky circumstances. The researchers concluded plainly: “Our simulation clearly shows that [the factor] is just pure luck” behind the highest success. While real life is more complex than a simulation, we see parallels in business: an immensely skilled team can be stymied by unfortunate timing, whereas a competitor with a comparably good (or even slightly inferior) offering might skyrocket due to coincidental early advantages.

Another recent study from Cornell University demonstrated how early random advantages can have long-term effects, even among equally capable individuals. In a controlled experiment, scientists observed 104 young lab mice with similar genetic traits put into a competitive environment. Some mice happened to get small “lucky” head starts in infancy (e.g. slightly better initial access to resources). Over time, those minor initial lucky breaks compounded into significant disparities in outcomes by adulthood. Translating this to business: a startup that by chance secures a big client or a timely press mention in its early days can gain momentum that propels it far ahead of an equally promising rival. Many veteran entrepreneurs acknowledge this. As Richard Branson bluntly put it, “Most entrepreneurs will admit luck plays a part in success.” Likewise, the late media icon Larry King quipped that anyone who has succeeded and doesn’t credit luck is kidding themselves.

Real-world corporate history abounds with examples of luck – both good and bad – influencing outcomes. Consider Apple’s resurrection in the late 1990s: Steve Jobs returning to a near-bankrupt Apple in 1997 was fortuitous timing (for Apple and for Jobs himself). He brought bold new products like the iMac and later the iPod. But even Jobs acknowledged being “lucky” to have found his passion early and to have partnered with talented people like Steve Wozniak. If Jobs hadn’t crossed paths with Wozniak in the Homebrew Computer Club by chance, Apple’s story could have been very different. Similarly, Amazon’s rise was not pre-ordained solely by strategic genius; Jeff Bezos has humbly remarked, “I’m very, very lucky. I’ve won a lot of lotteries in life”, from having supportive family circumstances to benefiting from the internet’s rapid growth. Bezos acknowledges that being in the right place at the right time – for example, launching an online bookstore in 1994 just as web usage exploded – was a huge lucky break, albeit one he grabbed with both hands strategically.

There are also cautionary tales of bad luck. The COVID-19 pandemic, a classic “Black Swan” event, suddenly upended entire industries in 2020. Well-formulated strategies were rendered obsolete overnight for airlines, hospitality firms and brick-and-mortar retailers through no fault of their own – an abrupt reminder that chance can derail even the best-laid plans. Conversely, some businesses found themselves lucky beneficiaries of the pandemic: videoconferencing providers, e-commerce platforms, and logistics companies saw demand skyrocket unexpectedly. Those that prospered (Zoom, for example) certainly had strategic strengths (a good product, scalable infrastructure) but also happened to be positioned in the right segment at the right time. Such stories underscore that randomness in the business environment – economic swings, technological breakthroughs, societal shifts – can dramatically shape corporate fortunes. The line between strategic brilliance and serendipity is often blurrier than retrospective success stories imply.

Strategy and Luck: Learning from High-Profile Cases

Rather than viewing strategy and luck as opposing explanations, it’s more insightful to examine how they interact in practice. High-profile cases from tech, finance, and corporate history show that winning companies leverage luck as part of their strategy – whether intentionally or not – and that flexibility can convert chance into long-term advantage.

Take Slack, the workplace messaging platform. Slack is celebrated as a product of smart iterative development and a keen understanding of user needs. However, its origin story is one of strategic adaptation to serendipity. The founders of Slack originally built a gaming startup that failed, but in the process they luckily developed an internal communication tool that they realised had broader appeal. Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s co-founder, essentially pivoted the company to focus on this accidental invention – a move that turned a failed game into a $26 billion enterprise. This “fortuitous pivot” story is echoed by many startups: Twitter famously emerged from a podcasting platform (Odeo) that stumbled; Instagram began as a cluttered app called Burbn before the founders noticed a lucky insight – users loved its photo filters – prompting a strategic refocus on photos. In each case, the entrepreneurs did not start off with the perfect strategy, but they stayed agile and open-minded enough to recognise a lucky discovery and change course. As a result, they capitalised on serendipity while competitors stuck to more rigid plans.

Even in established corporations, serendipitous innovation plays a role. 3M’s iconic Post-it Note was born when a scientist’s attempt to create a super-strong adhesive failed, yielding a weak glue that stuck papers gently together. It could have been written off as bad luck in the R&D lab, but 3M had a culture that encouraged exploring odd ideas – turning that “failure” into one of its best-selling products. Pfizer’s Viagra is another often-cited example: initially developed to treat heart conditions, it produced an unexpected side effect. The company astutely recognised the commercial opportunity in that unintended outcome. These cases show how a strategy of experimentation and tolerance for failure can turn chance into profit. Companies that foster innovation pipelines and allow employees to pursue curious findings effectively create more opportunities for lucky accidents to be recognised and scaled.

On the flip side, consider companies that fell from great heights, where one might argue bad luck met poor strategic response. Blockbuster was the king of video rental with a solid strategy for physical stores, but it underestimated the significance of DVD-by-mail and later streaming – technologies that arose at a moment that Blockbuster failed to seize. Netflix, a then-small competitor, offered to sell itself to Blockbuster in 2000 for $50 million – an opportunity Blockbuster famously laughed off. The rest is history: as broadband internet proliferated (a bit of luck for Netflix’s model), Netflix executed a bold strategy to shift to streaming, while Blockbuster’s strategy remained inflexible. What appears as Blockbuster’s “bad luck” in timing was exacerbated by a strategy that did not adapt. Meanwhile, Netflix’s foresight combined with fortunate timing (being early in the market) enabled its dominance. The lesson here is that strategy must account for change; even a strong current strategy can be swiftly undone if a company is unlucky enough to face a disruptive innovation and fails to respond. In contrast, a strategy that’s attentive to emerging trends can harness luck – e.g. if a new technology takes off, being prepared allows a firm to surge ahead.

Finally, we should note the role of financial luck in strategic success. Often, a difference between a startup that scales and one that stagnates is the lucky break of finding the right investor or hitting the market at just the right economic cycle. For instance, many innovative startups in 1999 with solid strategies were wiped out in the dot-com crash simply because the timing of capital and demand turned against them. Years later, similar ideas succeeded when tried again under more favourable conditions. Even major merger & acquisition deals can hinge on chance – a sudden change in market sentiment can turn a well-planned merger into a disaster or, conversely, make an opportunistic acquisition a goldmine. When Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, some called it luck that Instagram hadn’t yet been scooped by others; Facebook’s strategic boldness in that moment, combined with a bit of luck on timing, yielded a purchase now seen as one of the greatest tech acquisitions ever (Instagram’s value has since grown exponentially). The interplay of foresight and fortune in such deals is clear in hindsight.

Designing Strategies Resilient to Chance

In an unpredictable world, how can firms design strategies that hold up against randomness and even take advantage of it? The answer lies in building resilience and agility into strategic planning. A resilient strategy is not one that assumes everything will go right, but one that anticipates that some things will go wrong (or unexpectedly right) and positions the company to respond effectively.

1. Embrace Scenario Planning and Optionality: One proven approach is to use scenario planning to imagine different futures – including worst-case and best-case scenarios – and develop contingent strategies. Royal Dutch Shell famously used scenario planning in the 1970s to prepare for potential oil shocks. When the 1973 oil crisis hit, Shell stood out as better prepared than its competitors, precisely because it had considered the once-unthinkable scenario of an OPEC supply squeeze. By visualising multiple outcomes (instead of betting on a single forecast), Shell’s strategy was flexible enough to adapt swiftly to the actual event. Modern companies can similarly use scenario analysis for key uncertainties (e.g. regulatory changes, new technologies, economic downturns). Strategic optionality – making small investments in emerging opportunities or maintaining “plan B” projects – is another tool. It’s akin to keeping irons in the fire so that if a particular opportunity suddenly heats up (by luck), the firm can scale it quickly. For example, Google’s practice of allowing employees 20% time to work on side projects gave birth to products like Gmail – essentially a structured way to generate and be ready for serendipitous innovations.

2. Build an Agile Organisation: A strategy is only as good as an organisation’s ability to execute and adjust it on the fly. Firms that cultivate agility – decentralized decision-making, rapid experimentation cycles, and a culture that rewards learning – are far better positioned to cope with chance. An agile organisation can pivot when needed without being paralyzed by a rigid plan. Startups, by necessity, often embody this agility; larger corporations can emulate it by creating small, cross-functional teams and innovation hubs. The rise of “ambidextrous organisations” (which manage core businesses and explore new opportunities simultaneously) is a response to unpredictability. By balancing exploitation of proven strategies with exploration of new ones, companies ensure that when luck or change knocks, they can answer. Capital One, for instance, famously used a relentless test-and-learn strategy in credit cards – trying thousands of experiments in marketing and products. This approach meant that if an unpredictable consumer trend emerged, they likely had an experiment in motion to address it. Agility turns randomness from a threat into an opportunity.

3. Risk Management and Buffering: A resilient strategy also involves protecting the downside. Companies can’t avoid all bad luck, but they can mitigate its impact. This means strategically diversifying – not betting the company’s future on a single product, market, or customer. It means maintaining healthy reserves (financial or inventory) to buffer shocks. Firms that entered the COVID-19 crisis with strong balance sheets and digital channels already in place had a buffer and alternate path when physical sales plummeted. Continuous risk assessment – identifying “what if” scenarios (what if a supplier fails? what if demand falls 50%? what if a new competitor emerges?) – allows a company to put contingencies in place. The goal is not to predict the exact twist of fate, but to be generally prepared for disruption. Think of it like building a shock absorber into your strategy.

4. Leveraging Data and Signals: In today’s world, one way to get ahead of luck is by closely monitoring data for early signals of change. Call it analytics meets serendipity. By employing business intelligence and trend-spotting, organisations can sometimes detect nascent opportunities or risks before they fully materialise. For example, a hedge fund might use alternative data to spot an emerging consumer preference “ahead of the curve,” effectively manufacturing its own luck by acting sooner on the insight. While this isn’t foolproof, being informed improves the odds of responding to events in a timely manner rather than being purely reactive.

5. Culture of Resilience and Openness: Lastly, strategy is executed by people, and people’s mindsets matter. Companies that encourage humility and curiosity in their culture tend to navigate luck better. Humility ensures that leaders remain aware that uncontrollable factors might sway outcomes, which in turn makes them more vigilant and less prone to complacency after success. A humble leadership will credit the team and circumstances, not just themselves – which fosters an environment where employees feel safe to voice concerns or unexpected observations (often the first hints of a change in luck). Curiosity and openness mean the organisation doesn’t dismiss outlier ideas or anomalies; instead, it investigates them. This could mean revisiting a strategy if front-line employees report an unforeseen customer behaviour, or quickly doubling down on a sudden success in one region or segment. In essence, a culture that balances confidence with openness is more likely to notice and act on serendipitous opportunities that a more closed, arrogant culture might ignore.

Conclusion: Preparing for the Unpredictable

So, how much of strategic success is due to careful planning and how much to chance? The evidence suggests that both elements are indispensable. As the saying goes, fortune favours the prepared – but fortune is still, by definition, somewhat out of our control. Great firms and leaders neither abandon strategy to roll the dice, nor cling blindly to plans in a chaotic world. Instead, they chart a deliberate course and keep a weather eye on the unexpected, ready to adjust the sails.

In practical terms, this means corporate strategies should not be static roadmaps set in stone; they should be living frameworks that guide decision-making while leaving room to manoeuvre when luck or misfortune strikes. A CEO can acknowledge, as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos did, the role of being in the right place at the right time, yet still work tirelessly to maximise the company’s chances of success through innovation and execution. By recognising the role of luck, companies actually put themselves in a position of strength: they plan for resilience, avoid hubris, and stay alert for opportunity. By believing in strategy, they give themselves direction and purpose, rather than drifting aimlessly and hoping random luck will save the day.

Emergent Africa’s perspective is that the debate of “strategy vs chance” isn’t an either/or – it’s about synergy. We help organisations develop robust strategies grounded in data and sound analysis, whilst also building the capabilities (and mindsets) to adapt when the world throws a curveball. Our approach to strategy development and execution deliberately incorporates uncertainty as a factor, ensuring that our clients are not only chasing deliberate goals but are also lucky by design, positioned to catch the winds of change when they blow. In a world where you make your own luck, with a bit of help from unpredictability, companies that marry strategic rigour with flexibility will consistently come out on top. In short, luck plays a role in strategic success, but it favours those who are prepared, responsive, and resilient.