Research work · 2025
Business Strategy
Anthony E. Henry
Understanding Strategic Management
Abstract
This chapter examines business strategy’s critical role in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. It analyses and evaluates Michael Porter’s generic strategies: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies, each offering a strategy for organisations to mitigate competitive forces and secure a favourable market position. The chapter then discusses resource-based view (RBV) as an internal approach to strategy formulation, focusing on how an organisation’s resources and capabilities drive competitive advantage. It also evaluates the concept of the Blue Ocean strategy which advocates the creation of uncontested market spaces through value innovation. Finally, the chapter highlights the challenges of strategy formulation in turbulent markets, with firms needing to be agile and adaptive to maintain supremacy amid constant disruptions.