Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina by observing: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition” (Peter Thiel, Zero to One)
First, I would like to differentiate between Business, Corporate and Product Strategy. While sometimes all three might overlap depending on the size of the company and the product diversification, in reality they are very different and the way I think about them, in a simplified way, is the following:
I love Peter Thiel’s quote above as it applies to all three strategic levels. I’ve seen many corporations, businesses as well as products stuck in a competitive environment for way too long competing on price or on negligible perceived differentiators that eventually ended up failing.
Finally, I would like to talk more in depth about each strategic level and what tools to employ to escape the fierce competition into a “temporary” monopoly. I say “temporary” as the competition usually catches up and then you have to escape again. Change is the only constant! But this is the fun in strategy: you follow a moving target and you get to (re)define it as well!
