If asked to define strategy, most executives would probably come up with something like this: Strategy involves discovering and targeting attractive markets and then crafting positions that deliver sustained competitive advantage in them. Companies achieve these positions by configuring and arranging resources and activities to provide either unique value to customers or common value at a uniquely low cost. This view of strategy as position remains central in business school curricula around the globe: Valuable positions, protected from imitation and appropriation, provide sustained profit streams.
A version of this article appeared in the June 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review.
