CHAPTER1

How We Got Here

Everyone in business is eager—sometimes desperate—to find an edge, a way to outmaneuver his or her rivals and secure sustainable long-term profits. This is where strategy comes in. A strategy is a plan or a pattern of actions that organizes the activities of a firm to meet its objectives. In doing so, strategy takes the resources of the firm and the external environment it operates in into account. In the case of a company, the overall strategic objective is primarily to attain competitive advantage, the more long-term, the better.

For organizations and strategy theorists, there are different forms of strategy. Corporate strategy is concerned with the strategy of the overall organization, its mix of businesses, and

Get Thinkers 50 Strategy: The Art and Science of Strategy Creation and Execution now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.