Corporate strategy or portfolio strategy is important to any company with three or more business units. For the whole to be greater than the sum of the business unit parts, there must be a core strategy, understood and embraced by leadership, that defines the source of value creation common to all go-to-market plays.

A venture into adjacent opportunities without a view toward how they leverage core competencies and reinforce the positioning strategy of each part and the corporation as a whole can destroy value. Corporate strategy must also find the balance between market focus and diversified risk.

At Geo Strategy Partners, senior strategy consultants work with your corporate leadership team to facilitate strategic decision-making that adheres to the fundamentals of strategy. Our research team will ensure you understand in which markets you may be over-invested and which markets present growth opportunities that do not add disproportionately to corporate risk. Our strategy consultants will work with you to ensure all investments and operating units strengthen each other and leverage and contribute to the core knowledge and expertise of the company.

Your corporate strategy should endure and be immune from business and market cycles rather than reactive to them. Corporate strategy starts with clearly defining the business you are in. That core strategy then determines when you should say no to an opportunity falling outside the area in which you have chosen to compete.

Don’t simply benchmark to your competitors and be a “me too” player; don’t chase every opportunity that presents itself. Know your corporate strategy and communicate it to your stakeholders and employees so everyone understands where you are, where you need to be and how you get there.