That’s an ambitious title, because if you read closely enough, it means that you need to have core values for yourself and for your business in the first place.
Core values are to the human side of things like making a profit are to the business — they’re the lifeblood and need both to be through through and planned to be there.
Strategies, brands, and cultures are developed on core values.
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The essence of business strategy is choosing to perform activities different than competitors do. A strategic position your company takes can be based on customers’ needs, customers’ accessibility, or the variety of a company’s products and services. Trade-offs need to made in order to make all activities a company does operationally fit with each other.
You heard the saying: fast, good, cheap, pick two. By limiting what you offer on purpose, you work from your strengths — you can optimize what you do really well, and focus on continuing to do it very well. It’s very tempting for a company to start expanding and diversifying based on customer requests, on success in some areas, or an apparent hole in the marketplace.
However, if there is not fit — the activities are not consistent with each other, or they don’t reinforce each other, or there is no optimization of effort — your advantage is blown. Competitors may be able to match one of the activities, they may not match the interdependencies between them.
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