The study of Business Strategy is essentially the study of competition: how firms interact with other firms and with their external environment more broadly; and how those interactions affect firms’ relative performance—i.e., who wins and why? This course starts with the premise that a business strategy is a “plan to compete,” or more precisely, a plan to out-compete one’s rivals, a plan to win the competition. Ideally such a plan specifies the firm’s objectives and the key choices and trade-offs it is making to achieve those objectives in the face of competition from other firms (for example, what market position it will occupy and how it will allocate its scarce resources); in other words, how it will achieve a competitive advantage.

In this context, strategic analysis—the analysis that supports the development of a strategy—requires first an understanding of the nature of competition in general and second an understanding of the specific competitive context faced by a given firm. In particular, strategic analysis involves assessing the competitive landscape, including the structure of the firm’s industry; the firm’s own internal strengths and weaknesses; and the strengths and weaknesses of its existing and potential rivals. This course will introduce tools, concepts, and frameworks used to analyze the nature of competition and to develop a competitive strategy.

There is not a single textbook for the course. Instead, the lectures will be based on material from published papers, to be made available on LEARN or downloadable from databases available from CBS Library, and selected textbooks, several copies of which will be on reserve in the CBS Library.