Introduction

This book is about corporate strategy. It is concerned with the key questions of strategy development and implementation at the corporate level of a company. These are questions that should be addressed by the CEO of a company and her senior executive team, because they are critical questions for the future of the company and they are not addressed by other parts of the organization. The scope of the questions distinguishes corporate strategy from business strategy. Questions of business strategy can be just as vital for a company, but they relate to individual business activities with specific markets and competitors, and not to the entire portfolio of activities of the firm. Business strategy is concerned with competitive advantage: How can we outperform our competitors in the market place? In contrast, corporate strategy deals with corporate advantage: How can we make sure that the total portfolio of businesses is more valuable than the sum of its parts? Developing and implementing strategy at the corporate level requires a specific set of theories, frameworks and tools that goes beyond the traditional scope of business-level strategic management. They will be the focus of this book.