Benefits Of A Business Strategy
Before we dive deeper into business strategy, let’s quickly discuss why you should have it regardless of your business model or company size. A well-defined business strategy:
Provides a clear roadmap and purpose, guiding decision-making and resource allocation.
Helps align the efforts of different departments and teams, fostering coordination and synergy.
Enhances competitive advantage by identifying unique value propositions and differentiation opportunities.
Aids in identifying and capitalizing on market opportunities while mitigating potential strategic risks.
Improves organizational efficiency, promotes innovation, and enables effective measurement and performance evaluation.
Difference Between Corporate Level Strategy And Business Level Strategy
There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the difference between corporate level strategy and business level strategy, so let’s clear things up and get our definitions straight.
A corporate level strategy comes into play when an organization has multiple businesses operating in different markets. It sets the overall direction for the entire organization. It decides which markets to compete in, how to allocate resources across the organization, and similar big-picture things.
On the other hand, a business level strategy zooms in on a specific business within the organization. It focuses on creating a game plan tailored specifically for that business unit to achieve success in its corner of the market.
To reiterate, a corporate level strategy is about steering the entire organization, while a business level strategy is about guiding a specific business unit to thrive in its market.
To help make the difference between the two levels clearer, let’s look at the example of a bank below and how they use strategy levels in their organization.
Types Of Business Level Strategies With Examples
To better understand how business level strategy differs from other strategy levels, it’s useful to look at some business level strategy examples.
When organizations are deciding on the best strategy for a specific business level, they typically consider five types. Let’s take a closer look at each of them and see what kind of competitive advantage they offer:
