Strategy is the competitive moves and business approaches for growing the business, creating a market position, attracting and satisfying customers, competing successfully, conducting operation, and achieving target objectives.
When creating strategy, you can utilize a number of different actions:
- Gain sales and market share via lower prices, more performance and features, better quality, or appealing design
- Diversify into new businesses
- Strengthen competitive capabilities and shore-up competitive weaknesses
- Define how key organizational activities are to be handles by management
- Pursue new market opportunities and defend against threats
- Create strategic alliances and collaborative partnerships
- Establish a Merger or Acquisition with your rival
- Enter new product markets
- Respond to changing market conditions and external circumstances
Your strategy should be aimed at creating a product or service that is distinctive from what the competitors are offering or at developing competitive capabilities that they can not quite match. A powerful strategy can make you distinctive which will tilt the playing field in their favor by creating a sustainable competitive advantage.
Strategy should blend both proactive actions to improve your market position and financial performance and reactions to unanticipated developments and market conditions. The biggest portion of your current strategy flows from previous business approaches that are working well to merit launching of new initiative to strengthen the overall positions and performance.
All strategic plans should be viewed as work in progress. Changing circumstances and market conditions cause a strategy to emerge and change over time. Strategy should be considered temporary outcomes that respond to market changes and constant experimentation and modifications. A winning strategy should fit with the organizations external and internal situation, build sustainable competitive advantage, and improve the performance.