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2/20/2015
Introduction to Strategy
http://eproduct.hbsp.harvard.edu/eproduct/product/cc_8097/content/OPS/html/print.html
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2/20/2015
Introduction to Strategy
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RamonCasadesusMasanell, Herman C. Krannert Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, developed this Core Reading with the assistance of Sunru Yong, HBS MBA 2007. Copyright © 2014 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
The purpose of strategy is to create a competitive advantage that generates superior, sustainable financial returns. There are two requirements for doing this successfully. The first is an understanding of the business landscape: the forces that shape competition, the dynamics among players, and the drivers of industry evolution. This informs where the firm chooses to engage with its competition. The second is the choice of a position on this landscape. The firm’s positioning shapes the choice of a business model and the underlying set of activities that sustains it. Strategy, as you can see, consists of choices. It is the integrated set of choices that positions the business in its industry so as to generate superior financial returns over the long run.a Developing a good strategy is not easy: The right set of choices may not be obvious, they must be made amid uncertainty, and then they must be executed using finite resources. A strategy can fail because the firm has chosen a particularly difficult place on the business landscape and is not able to adapt to, or change, its environment. A strategy can fail because its choices are not truly...