Michael Porter once asked, “What Is Strategy?”
Of course, he then proceeded to answer with an excellent, brief summary and a longer “The Idea in Practice” and 20 page article in the Harvard Business Review in 1996. This work was a great update and refresher for those of us who studied his books on strategy back in the day. Few works since have been as succint as his executive summary for this article.
At Strategy Outfitters we’ve built on his work, among others, and after more than 15 years still like our definition of the purpose of a business – or for that matter – the purpose of marketing. Namely…
Purpose of a Business: To sustain a competitive advantage in order to create customer value to return a profit.
That resulting profit, of course, enables one to sustain the investment necessary to maintain the advantage and this perpetual drive for business and brand survival.
Our aim is to contribute to the market’s base of insight and help marketers think about the roles of strategy, financial analysis of customer value and emerging technologies in marketing. Armed with such insight, we hope to be among those successfully navigating the marketing frontier.