What is Business Strategy?

Business strategy is the development and utilization of specific qualities and characteristics that set your business apart from the other businesses within your industry. Your business strategy defines your position in the marketplace and distinguishes you from your competition. It determines your market identity, reflects the core values of your business, and drives what actions you must take to maintain and support your competitive advantage. A viable and compelling business strategy is the result of a comprehensive decision-making process. Though it is also referred to as strategic planning, we prefer to call it strategic decision-making to emphasize the importance of making the tough decisions that make a difference in how you run your business.

Your "competitive advantage" is the reason why a customer chooses your products and services over your competitors. What makes your business different from the competition? Why would a customer choose to use your product or service over someone else’s? How do you manage your business in order to distinguish it from the competition? These are some of the most challenging questions business leaders will ever need to answer. The answers to these questions lead to a clearly defined business strategy.

A business strategy is created by identifying and investing in a few specific characteristics and capabilities, which distinguish your company from the other businesses in your industry. The process of figuring out which characteristics will most effectively provide your business with a competitive advantage is the central decision in Stage One of our strategic decision-making process. A CYOC® business strategy positions your company in a unique market niche that fulfills your personal definition of success, is rooted in market realities, limits the competition, and builds on your business's core capabilities. CYOC® is a comprehensive decision-making process for selecting the characteristics that differentiate your business from the competition and establishing the operational requirements that leverage your company's unique attributes.

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