Traditional thinking about strategy is woefully incomplete in its focus on the positioning of products or services. Porsche Automobil Holdings SE, for example, sells expensive sports cars to wealthy individuals who covet status and a thrilling ride, while Kia Motors Corp. sells more utilitarian vehicles to frugal consumers who are merely looking to get from point A to B in a cost-effective manner. Defined this way, strategy is about staking out and defending a unique competitive position.1
While useful, this approach to strategy underplays much of what most people would agree makes a company truly competitive. Not only does it give short shrift to what a company knows; it completely ignores the fact that in today’s dynamic economy, organizations have to continually reinvent who they are and what they do in both large and small ways. One important means of doing this is through innovation.
An effective strategy thus is comprised of three key components that must be aligned: product/market, knowledge and innovation. And as the competitive landscape changes, organizations need to continually revisit their alignment among these positions.
This article introduces the notion of competing based not only on what an organization makes or the service it provides but also on what it knows and how it innovates. Each aspect represents a competitive position that must be evaluated relative to the organization’s capabilities and... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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