Competitive (or Business Unit) Strategy is fundamentally about products and markets: how you deliver more value to your customers and differentiate your offerings from those of your competitors.

The essence of competitive strategy is to do things differently than your competitors and to stake out your unique position on the competitive landscape, thereby creating a competitive advantage.

Competitive strategy should be singular in its value positioning: you cannot position yourself on more than one value level at the same time. You cannot identify yourself as the low-cost leader and the innovator; you cannot be the leader in customer service and the low-cost provider. You must choose the basis on which you want to compete. You must perform in all areas to industry standards, but you must position your identity around one and surpass the industry in that area.

You must understand your corporate DNA and the source of your unique competitive strengths. Understanding how you create and capture value is the first step to knowing which opportunities you should pursue and which you should decline. One feature of strategy is that it provides for abbreviated decision making. Strategy is as much about what you choose not to do as what you choose to do. Clarity in strategy provides the discipline to be able to say no to adjacent opportunities that do not reinforce the core. Next, your business model and operational structure must be in alignment with your positioning in the market.

Every element of the value chain must reinforce the strategy. A well-crafted strategy is not a plan: it is a lever that bends the laws of competition in your favor. Our strategy consultants can provide the principles and discipline to enable your team to develop winning competitive strategies and determine where you are, where you need to be, and how you get there.