Business strategies refer to all the combinations of the decisions taken and actions performed by the business to accomplish its long term as well as short term goals and to secure a competitive position in the market structure. It is the backbone and the pathway of the business to reach its desired goals and if there is a hurdle in the pathway, there could be serious consequences for the business endeavour.
Importance of a business strategy
Entering a business without a business strategy is just a gamble. There would be no vision or goals in the clear sight and hence, the course of actions taken would prove to be less than fruitful. With an increase in competition in the market, the importance of the business strategies has also increased simultaneously.
Planning: Business strategy is a part of the business plan meaning, when business plan sets the goals and targets to be achieved, business strategy accompanies those plans with various options regarding the course of action to be taken to execute those plans and achieve the desired goals.
Efficiency and Effectiveness: This is the most intangible component of the business strategy. When the course of action is decided and when the all the needed resources are allocated, then the business strategy itself becomes more rigid, effective and efficient to be executed further.
Strengths and Weaknesses: While formulating the business strategy, a business comes to know about their strengths and weaknesses as well. This way, it helps them to think about how to strengthen their weaknesses and keep their strength consistent while resourcing from outside.
Competitive environment: After recognizing the strengths of the business endeavour, business strategy uses the same to empower its position in the market. The execution of many goals is then devised around the strengths as to use them to the maximum benefit for the business.
Control: Business strategy undoubtedly gives a sense of control to the business as it has already been discussed and decided about the future goals and problems are to be executed and tackled respectively.
Levels of business strategies
The activities to be performed under business strategies are then categorized by the levels of organisation. They are as follows:
Level 1- Corporate level:
This is the highest level of business strategy which includes the corporate structure of the business. In this level, the vision is far sighted as the goals are determined and their execution is also decided by brainstorming the courses of action. On this level the mission, vision and the objectives are decided for everyone in the corporation.
Level 2- The business unit level
The business unit level is a unit specific strategy which might differ for different units. The units may differ for example, production, marketing, budget, etc. All these units will have different goals and missions but, in some cases, two or three departments may also have similar business strategies depending from business to business.
Level 3- The functional level
The functional level determines the day to day actions for the business and is decided and differentiated by different departments. These are not limited to departments only like sales, finance, operation, etc. but also finalize how and what the employees will be doing weekly and monthly.
Different types of business strategies:
- Finding new markets for products
- Growth strategy of new products and features
- Price skimming strategy
- Product differentiation strategy
- Acquisition strategy to gain competitive advantage over the competitors
Importance of business strategies
Business strategies are the base level decisions which determine the future of an organization or a business. Without them, the whole pathway becomes a blur and even if the actions are executed, they produce no successful results. Business strategies make a business aware about their strengths, weaknesses, competitors and goals. Besides these, it also helps the business overcome hurdle and obstacle be it long term or the short term ones.
