The Strategy Story

Corporate Level Strategy: Explained with Examples and Types

what is corporate level planning

A corporate-level strategy refers to the overarching strategic plan that dictates the direction of the entire organization. It’s the highest level of strategy, covering all of the firm’s diverse operations, and is typically set by top management and the board of directors.

Key aspects of corporate-level strategy include:

  • Growth strategy:  Determining how the corporation plans to grow, whether through internal development (new products, new markets), external methods (acquisitions, mergers, strategic alliances), or a combination of both.
  • Stability strategy:  If a corporation is satisfied with its current growth and success rate, it may opt for a stability strategy, which involves maintaining the status quo.
  • Retrenchment/turnaround strategy:  When a corporation faces significant problems, it may adopt a retrenchment strategy to realign resources, reduce the size, or improve efficiency to improve financial performance.
  • Portfolio management:  At the corporate level, the organization must manage its portfolio of businesses effectively. This can involve deciding to invest in, hold, harvest (reduce investment), or divest certain business units.
  • Geographic strategy:  Corporations must also decide on their geographic scope, from local to global. This involves deciding which markets to enter, when, and on what scale.
  • Competitive strategy:  This involves the plan of action that a company develops to gain a competitive advantage in its market, such as cost leadership, differentiation, or a focus strategy.

In large corporations with several business units, a corporate strategy also involves deciding how much autonomy to give each business unit, how to allocate resources, and how they should interact with each other. This holistic strategy must align with the organization’s overall mission, vision, and long-term objectives.

Examples of Corporate-Level Strategy

Sure, here are a few examples of corporate-level strategies that well-known companies have implemented:

  • Amazon’s Growth Strategy:  Amazon began as an online bookstore but didn’t stop there. It expanded its product line to include electronics, clothing, and more, developing into a comprehensive online retail giant. It also expanded into new business areas like cloud computing services with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has become a significant part of its business.
  • Google’s Diversification Strategy:  Google started as a search engine but, over time, diversified into various other sectors. For example, it acquired YouTube, created Android OS, launched Google Cloud, and ventured into self-driving cars with Waymo. These initiatives have helped Google stay competitive and innovative while spreading risk across various sectors.
  • Coca-Cola’s Geographic Expansion Strategy:  Coca-Cola’s corporate strategy involved expanding its geographic footprint from its original base in the US to almost every country in the world. This international expansion allowed Coca-Cola to become one of the most recognized brands globally and helped them diversify their markets, reducing dependence on any single region.
  • Facebook’s Acquisition Strategy:  Facebook’s corporate strategy involves acquiring and integrating potential competitors into its portfolio. Some notable examples include Instagram and WhatsApp. These acquisitions helped Facebook grow its user base, diversify its services, and maintain its competitive edge in the social networking industry.
  • Microsoft’s Turnaround Strategy:  In the mid-2010s, Microsoft underwent a strategic shift under CEO Satya Nadella. The company transitioned from a “devices and services” strategy to a “cloud-first, mobile-first” approach. This shift led to significant growth in cloud services like Azure and Office 365 and helped Microsoft regain its position as one of the leading tech companies.
  • Unilever’s Sustainability Strategy:  Unilever launched the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in 2010 to reduce its environmental footprint and increase its positive social impact. This strategy, which involves every aspect of the corporation, reflects a commitment to sustainability that is becoming increasingly important to consumers, employees, and stakeholders.

Remember that the success of a corporate-level strategy depends on many factors, including the company’s context, resources, and capabilities, as well as external factors like market trends and competitive landscape.

Types of Corporate-Level Strategy

Corporate-level strategies essentially focus on decisions about what business areas to compete in and how to manage these business areas to achieve corporate goals. Some of the key types of corporate-level strategy include:

  • Growth Strategy:  A corporation may decide to expand its activities. This can be accomplished in various ways, such as by developing new products, entering new markets, increasing market share in existing markets, or through mergers and acquisitions. Growth Hacking Strategy: Examples, Case Study, B2B
  • Stability Strategy:  This strategy is pursued when a corporation is satisfied with the same business and wants to continue the same activities. It’s often used in a predictable and stable environment where the business operations are successful and there are minimal opportunities or needs for growth.
  • Retrenchment Strategy:  This strategy involves reducing the company’s size or diversity, often through selling or closing certain businesses or divisions. This is typically used when a company faces difficulties and needs to refocus its resources on areas where it can be more competitive. What is a Retrenchment strategy: Explained with types & examples
  • Diversification Strategy:  Under this strategy, a corporation decides to enter into new markets with new products. Diversification can be related (where the new businesses have some connection to the existing businesses) or unrelated (where the new businesses are not connected to the existing businesses).
  • International Strategy:  Companies that expand their operations beyond their home country must adopt an international strategy. This could involve exporting, licensing, franchising, establishing joint ventures with a foreign company, or setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary in another country. International Business, Marketing Strategy & Strategic Management
  • Portfolio Strategy:  In this strategy, a corporation manages its businesses as a portfolio, similar to how an investor would manage a portfolio of investments. The corporation invests in business units expected to perform well and divests from those that do not.

Each type of corporate-level strategy provides different ways for a corporation to define and pursue its goals. The best choice of strategy depends on the corporation’s current situation, its resources and capabilities, the environment in which it operates, and the vision of its leadership.

Case Study on Corporate Level Strategy

Let’s take a look at the corporate-level strategy of Disney:

Disney’s Diversification and Expansion Strategy:

Disney, which started in the 1920s as a motion picture company, has successfully adopted a diversification and expansion strategy to evolve into a diversified global entertainment company. This strategy can be seen in the various segments of the company’s operations:

  • Theme Parks and Resorts:  Disney’s decision to create Disneyland in the 1950s was a key part of its diversification strategy. The company later expanded this segment by establishing Disney World and international theme parks in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
  • Media Networks:  Disney diversified into television with the creation of the Disney Channel and later expanded into network television with the acquisition of ABC. It also purchased ESPN to enter into the sports broadcasting market.
  • Studio Entertainment:  Disney has continuously expanded its studio entertainment segment by acquiring other studios such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm (Star Wars franchise), and most recently, 21st Century Fox. These acquisitions have allowed Disney to expand its movie portfolio and capitalize on popular franchises.
  • Consumer Products and Interactive Media:  Disney has used its brand and characters to diversify into consumer products and digital games, creating a comprehensive entertainment experience for consumers.
  • Disney+:  Seeing the success of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, Disney launched its streaming service, Disney+, which rapidly gained a substantial subscriber base.

Disney’s corporate-level strategy has been successful because of the synergy between its business units. For example, a movie from Marvel can drive consumer product sales, visits to theme parks, viewership on their media networks, and subscribers for Disney+. This synergy, along with the strong Disney brand, has allowed the company to succeed across various entertainment segments.

Disney’s corporate-level strategy shows how diversification and expansion, coupled with strong execution, can create a leading position in a competitive industry. It’s also a good example of how a company can use its resources (in this case, Disney’s brand and characters) to create synergies between different business units.

Disney’s journey to becoming the World’s greatest storyteller

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What is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Corporate Strategic Planning is a companywide approach at the business unit and corporate level for developing strategic plans to achieve a longer-term vision. The process includes defining the corporate strategic goals and intentions at the top and cascading them through each level of the organization. Many organizations confuse the annual budgeting process with corporate planning. Corporate strategic planning should come first and annual budgeting should be driven by the strategy, not by prior year’s budget spend.

Why is Corporate Strategy Important?

A corporate strategy can focus every employee and resource in a company on the same objectives, and it aims to use them all efficiently. It gives every employee a set of guidelines they can use in their everyday work to move toward certain targets, which promote the vision and mission of the company. Corporate level planning can also improve efficiency within the organization and help identify unseen bottlenecks or pain-points.

The corporate strategy gives leaders and employees ideas to use for the improvement of distinctive activities (processes and operations) that create a competitive advantage. The strategy can also help executives to protect the company from entering into costly or irrelevant opportunities. What are the steps involved in strategic corporate planning? Corporate strategic planning begins by clarifying the vision and mission of the organization and the space the business chooses to compete in. Clarifying the organizations position will help you develop and effective strategic planning framework.

1) Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis needs to be conducted, to understand the trends that could impact the success of your strategy. Common factors that could be analyzed include political, legal, social, environmental, technological. There may be other factors you may want to consider that are relevant to your business and industry.

2) Strategic Goals & Priorities

Once you have completed a competitive analysis, the corporate leadership team will set the overarching strategic goals and priorities for the organization.

Once the strategic goals and priorities are finalized, each business unit needs to define its strategic goals and plans on how it can contribute to the overall direction of the enterprise. That includes not only what is to be accomplished, but how it will be accomplished including high level plans, budgets, human resources, etc.

3) Communication

Once business unit plans and directions have been set, the information needs to be communicated and shared with leadership inside the business unit so that priorities and plans can be aligned and integrated within a single budget.

What is Strategic Business Planning?

At the corporate level, an enterprise develops a portfolio of businesses they choose to compete in. This is a high-level analysis of a business’s competitive and core capabilities, and how each business contributes to the overarching corporate goals. Supported by the corporate strategic business planning process, these businesses are then set up, sponsored, and supported as business units at the operating level.

What Are The Types of Corporate Strategy?

When looking at the types of corporate strategy, it is important to consider a positioning grid that looks at the source of competitive advantage as well as the space where the business competes (markets, geography, size, etc).

Strategy 1: Low Cost Strategy

This type of strategy is one in which your source of advantage is simply competing on cost and being the low-cost provider. With this strategy an organization must exploit all sources of cost advantage. This includes things such as:

  • Economies of scale
  • Cost of inputs
  • Operations excellence to help drive down costs
  • This type of strategy requires an organization to compete more broadly (markets, geography, size)

Strategy 2: Differentiated Strategy

In a Differentiated Strategy, the focus is on competing by being unique or distinctively different in your industry. A differentiated strategy provides a product or service in more of a niche market where customers see the importance of offerings and are willing to pay a premium price. While this strategy still has a broad focus on how and where it competes (markets, geography, size), it serves its customers in a differentiated way. Differentiation can include factors such as:

  • Technical superiority
  • Customization
  • Products or services that are difficult to copy
  • Customer Service

Strategy 3: Segmented Strategy

A segmented strategy is one in which you have clearly differentiated yourself from the competition. The space in which you compete has a narrow focus. You serve a distinct group of customers with specialized needs. In this space, there are few product or service substitutes that can be offered and while you may not have the volume of customers, profit margins tend to be higher because of the lack of substitutes. and there are few substitutes for your offerings. It is important for every organization to understand where on a strategic position grid it currently sits and where it may want to be — adapted from Michael Porter

What Is the Difference Between Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy?

Corporate strategy, in contrast, involves the plans that a larger enterprise must form when it is composed of multiple smaller businesses or entities. For example a business unit may need to examine factors unique to the industry or competitive landscape that is fundamentally different than its corporate parent.

As a large enterprise, company, or private equity group takes on more acquisitions, it must work with its respective businesses to craft a business strategy and plan that is unique to them and drive competitive advantage through their products, services, and market positioning.

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Corporate Level Strategy: Definition, Types & Examples

  • May 18, 2021

business people are discussing corporate level strategy

Setting the right business strategies can be daunting, especially to small business owners, because these strategies determine your company’s success.

It’s challenging to get familiar with different levels and types of strategies, as well as how to tie them together.

When planning, the first level of strategy you need to think about is corporate level strategy. It’ll affect all other decisions of your business, so it’s best you understand what it is and how it works.

In this post, we’ll talk about what corporate-level strategy is, its position among different levels of business strategies, its characteristics and benefits, and some examples to help you understand it further.

3 levels of business strategy

Before diving deep into the corporate-level strategy, let’s go through 3 levels of business strategies because they are related to each other.

Corporate level strategy

Corporate level strategy is the foundation of your business. It defines the purpose of your company and affects all the other strategies of your business.

The most common types of corporate-level strategies include:

Expansion/Growth

Retrenchment, combination.

For example, if your corporate-level strategy is to enter a new market, you’re planning for growth. All the other strategies and actions of your business then have to serve this big strategy.

growth strategy

Business level strategy

Business level strategy determines the competitive advantage that enables your business to outperform competitors.

Strategies at this level are more focused and specific than corporate-level strategies.

These strategies provide answers to how you can achieve what you want to achieve—whether through product development, competitive price, or customer intimacy.

2 common types of business-level strategy include:

  • Cost Leadership
  • Differentiation

Let’s continue with the above example. If your corporate-level strategy is entering a new market, then your business-level strategies may include:

  • Expand brand exposure to new customer segments
  • Increase marketing budget
  • Introduce a new product feature that matches the new market demands

what is corporate level planning

Functional level strategy

Functional level strategy consists of more specific strategies, goals, and actions for different teams/departments of your business. It determines the day-to-day operations of your company.

Coming back to the entering-a-new-market example, your functional-level strategies can be:

  • Marketing: Plan and implement a social media marketing campaign targeting the new customer segments
  • R&D: Research and develop a new product feature that appeals to new target customers

different teams are discussing functional level strategies

Characteristics of corporate level strategy

Corporate-level strategies are set by the highest-level people in a business. Then, business-level and functional-level strategies are planned accordingly.

Business owners, founders, board members, managers, and executives should work closely with employees and middle management to make sure the overall strategies aren’t too far-fetched and unrealistic.

Overarching

Corporate-level strategies are broad enough to affect all the other areas of your business. They can be scaling up, expanding to a new market, or cutting costs to maintain the stability of your company.

These strategies help everyone in your business strive for the same goals and move forward in the same direction.

Corporate level strategies are often set for the long term. They may take a long time and resources to implement.

Complicated

These strategies are complicated because they tie together all the smaller strategies, goals, and actions of your business.

Because corporate-level strategies are broad, they can’t be certain. They are affected by different aspects, including the performance of each department in your company, the market, your competitors, etc.

The changes in the market demands and every industry require your strategies to be flexible enough so that your company can adapt to different circumstances.

This means you can change your corporate-level strategies, as long as they’re appropriate, instead of thinking of them as something so concrete and set-in-stone.

Benefits of corporate level strategy

Setting and implementing corporate-level strategies seem to be difficult because they are broad and affect everything you do.

But your business needs them to develop in the right direction. What other benefits can you get from setting a corporate-level strategy?

Increases efficiency in business operations

Corporate-level strategy paves the way for other smaller strategies to be planned and carried out.

Having a general strategy in mind, you can create specific roadmaps and tactics to achieve your business goals.

Plus, every department knows what outcomes they’re striving for and steps they can take to reach those outcomes.

Increases the flexibility of your business

If you don’t have any plans and goals in place, everything will be done intuitively and hectically. Having clear strategies allows your business to be well-prepared for future changes. You can always adjust your strategies to keep up with the market demands and industry changes.

Increases market share

While setting a corporate-level strategy, you’ll find out more about market changes, your products/services, your customer segments, etc.

Knowing about these aspects and make changes related to them will give you powerful insights into increasing your market share and finally achieve it.

what is corporate level planning

Increases profitability

When you’re actively trying to increase your market share and business efficiency, you’re also working towards increasing your profitability.

You might not see positive outcomes right away, but as long as you set the right goals and take action persistently, you’ll see the results eventually.

Increases durability

A corporate-level strategy is the purpose and foundation of your business operations. It helps you focus on the right aspect and stay durable in any competitive industry you’re in.

With a set of goals, plans, and tactics in place, you can easily make adjustments and adapt well to unexpected circumstances.

Types of corporate level strategy

Corporate-level strategies often belong to these 4 main types: expansion (growth), stability, retrenchment, and combination. Let’s quickly go through each of them.

The expansion strategy is helpful if you’re planning to reach new customers, expand your workforce, and introduce new products/services.

Different types of expansion strategies include:

Diversification

This strategy is suitable for businesses struggling in their current markets and with their current products. To widen exposure, reach new customers, and meet growth targets, they can enter new markets or add new products:

  • Enter a new market with new products/services related to what you’re offering ( concentric diversification )
  • Add new products/services that are unrelated to what you’re offering ( horizontal diversification ),
  • Enter a new market with products/services unrelated to what you’re offering ( conglomerate diversification ).

Concentration

Focus on participation in a certain market in order to compete successfully in that market.

Forward or backward integration

Forward integration : You go forward in the supply chain and take the role of distributors —storing and distributing products to retailers or users.

Backward integration : You go backward in the supply chain and take the role of suppliers —producing the components of your main products, etc. For example, a restaurant grows its own ingredients.

Horizontal integration

This strategy is used when your business merges with another company in the same vertical.

In a stability strategy, businesses maintain the size and level of their current business activities. This strategy is often used when:

  • the industry is slowing down
  • waiting for growth opportunities
  • not wanting to take risks
  • testing the waters before deciding on a specific strategy
  • wanting to maintain the relationships between your company and your existing customers.

3 common types of stability strategy include:

Increase profits by cutting costs and expenses, adjusting pricing, selling stocks and bonds, etc.

Maintain what you’re doing, but still prepare for growth or retrenchement.

Investigation

Test the waters to see which strategy fits—expansion or retrenchment.

The retrenchment strategy helps you maintain your business’ cash flow and stay in business, especially in times of crisis. Below are 3 types of retrenchment strategies:

In this strategy, businesses sell assets that perform poorly—whether it’s a business unit, or a part of the business—to raise capital for the main products/services.

Businesses often use this strategy when they need to finance future purchases and investments, or to get out of industries that aren’t suitable for them.

This strategy requires your company to improve existing products by improving the quality control and testing processes. Or you need to eliminate the weaknesses that are holding your business back.

Liquidation

This strategy is the last resort—closing your business. And we all don’t want this to happen.

This strategy is a combination of the 3 strategies above. It’s used when you want to maintain your company’s presence and performance, while grabbing growth opportunities.

Corporate level strategy can be broad and overarching, making it sound subtle and complicated to business owners.

We hope this post will help you understand what this level of strategy is about and start creating smart strategies for your business.

Read more about the next level of strategy— business-level strategy .

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The Ultimate Guide to Corporate Strategic Planning

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Corporate strategic planning is essential to businesses and one of the basics of a business plan. It allows you to proceed toward your objectives with direction and focus. However, setting strategic goals is more complex than writing them down during a board meeting. The process requires careful evaluation and analysis to garner the best business results. 

Corporate strategy includes all the steps in strategic planning that turn your high-level goals into actionable objectives, maintain and elevate your competitive position and provide quantifiable feedback to keep a flexible and workable strategic framework. 

In This Article

What Is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Objective setting, allocating resources, making strategic trade-offs, why is corporate strategic planning important, what is the difference between corporate strategy and business strategy.

  • Formulation
  • Implementation
  • Modification
  • Establish the Your Corporate Strategic Objectives
  • Develop Strategies for Achieving Goals
  • Implement Your Corporate Strategy
  • Monitor Your Strategic Plan’s Performance
  • Analyze the Plan’s Success

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What Is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Corporate strategic planning is a branch of strategy that focuses on the organization. A corporate strategic plan manages a business’s objectives and overall direction, and the associated processes are critical to the organization’s strategic objectives.

The corporate strategic planning process includes defining companywide strategic goals from the top tiers of an organization and implementing them throughout every level. For many businesses, corporate strategic planning is the first step and strategic planning goals define annual budgeting and allocation of resources. 

Corporate strategic plans can be external, focusing on business objectives and the overarching direction for the organization, or internal, such as corporate diversity and inclusion strategic plan.

A corporate strategy — in terms of business planning basics — has four main components, each providing valuable insight through self-evaluation. The four elements of corporate strategic planning include the following:

The Four Elements of Corporate Strategic Planning

The Four Elements of Corporate Strategic Planning

Visioning involves creating a high-level direction for your business, including business plan basics like corporate values and vision and mission statements. Setting a vision for your company’s future is a robust tool in corporate leadership. In general, companies plan between three and five years ahead. 

Your vision and values will guide your daily operations and procedures, and involving key team members fosters engagement throughout the organization. 

Aligning your strategic objectives with the overarching vision for your business is the key to successful objective setting. Strategic objectives are the high-level goals of your business and describe what your team needs to do to fulfill its mission over the next three or five years.

The objective setting takes your qualitative goals into measurable objectives , which is critical to get your ideas into an actionable format. In the context of goal setting in an organization, the most effective strategic goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound (SMART). Communication is also vital in the objective-setting phase. It ensures that team members are focused on priority tasks and operating in a unified manner, aiming towards furthering the company in the future.

With your objectives outlined, you now have a clear list of priorities to allocate human and capital resources. With a clear and actionable overview of your strategic goals, you can plan, manage and assign resources to facilitate reaching them. Determining how best to allocate resources to teams and business units is integral to your overall planning process. 

Also known as prioritization is one of the most challenging core elements of corporate strategy. Taking advantage of every opportunity may not be possible, and almost all business decisions contain an element of risk. Anyone who manages strategic plans and initiatives in an organization must consider all these factors to determine the optimal strategy when setting strategic goals. 

Businesses must balance risk and reward and pay close attention to risk management processes to maximize returns and minimize threats to operational procedures. 

Why Is Corporate Strategic Planning Important?

Strategic plans are more than just abstract ideas conceptualized in a board room. When actualized correctly, they power organizational alignment and allow teams to direct their efforts in the most productive places. Strategic planning communicates your mission and vision throughout your organization to effect strategic change at every level and prioritize your most important objectives in your daily operations. 

Strategic planning can highlight your shortcomings and biases and present new opportunities to streamline your operations. Then, you can track your goal process with actionable key performance indicators (KPIs) and align them with your business processes. 

Most importantly, a well-conceived strategic plan provides a competitive advantage in your industry, allowing you to anticipate competitors’ next moves and stay one step ahead. With actionable strategies in mind, your business can accomplish goals ahead of the competition and ensure you provide the best possible results for your customers. 

What Is the Difference Between Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy?

There is a marked difference between business-level strategy vs. corporate-level strategy. Corporate strategies operate at a higher level than business strategies and focus on growth and profits. A business strategy, on the other hand, focuses on competing in the marketplace. Organizations should develop their business strategies with their corporate strategy in mind. 

Stages of Corporate Strategic Planning

Stages of Corporate Strategic Planning

Like any successful strategic plan or initiative, teams must tackle corporate strategic planning in four stages. The four stages of corporate strategic planning include the following:

1. Formulation

For an actionable strategic plan, you must take the time to create a roadmap of your most profitable action to achieve your strategic objectives. In this phase, you and your team will set your strategic plan goals and explore the best means to achieve them. Consider conducting a SWOT analysis — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — for your business to reveal growth opportunities and areas within your operations that require attention. Consider looking into successful corporate strategic plan examples as part of your research. 

Before you start, ensure you have a purpose for formulating your strategy based on your core vision and mission. You’ll consider current events and trends as part of your SWOT analysis. Ensure you set actionable and measurable goals in the formulation phase of strategic goal setting and communicate them effectively throughout your organization. 

Often, organizational leaders formulate a corporate strategy. Every team member adds a different perspective to the process, so drawing on their input could illuminate and provide a more pronounced competitive edge for your business. 

2. Implementation

Implementation is the phase where your corporate strategies become corporate actions . Your team has designed and communicated your strategy, so that all members understand their roles and responsibilities. Setting up KPIs aligned with your strategic objectives is critical in the implementation phase, as it provides quantifiable feedback on positive impacts and information on opportunities for change. 

During implementation, your team must focus on details and day-to-day processes to implement quick changes. Corporate strategy is a fluid process that requires daily attention to succeed.

3. Evaluation

Evaluating the strategies you executed in the implementation phase provides you with valuable feedback on the efficacy of your corporate strategy. Some businesses  perform a gap analysis to identify the need for new products or additions in the gap between their current and desired future positions. 

At this stage of the process, your data is vital. An   integrated plan management software allows you to track resources, changes, schedules, and the quality of your corporate strategic initiatives. With actionable data on team members and projects, you can make changes and refine your corporate strategy.

4. Modification

In the modification phase, your team can correct and refine underperforming elements of your corporate strategy. You have identified your strongest areas, which your team could leverage to assist in further implementation in areas that need further attention. 

How to Create a Successful Corporate Strategic Plan

You and your team may be used to taking a reactive route where you only deal with problems as they arise. However, this can stifle your vision and make it difficult to see the big picture or prepare for obstacles along the way. By following the fundamentals of strategic planning, your company can gain a better understanding of common issues that complicate your short- and long-term goals and make you more proactive in resolving them.

A progressive approach is critical to corporate strategic planning success, so you can pay attention to each step and garner the best results. The five steps in the strategic management process include the following: 

Establish the Your Corporate Strategic Objectives

1. Establish the Your Corporate Strategic Objectives

Corporate strategic objectives must be clear, achievable and easy to communicate. Consider what business objectives your team needs to achieve and communicate these objectives throughout all levels of your organization. Foster collaboration, allow everyone in your organization to think strategically and offer suggestions for achieving your corporate strategic initiatives. 

Employees throughout your organization can provide valuable input to drive your objectives forward. Gather as many insights as possible and set your objectives with as much information as possible. At the end of this step, you should have a broad view of what your business wants to achieve and how the various teams can contribute. 

2. Develop Strategies for Achieving Goals

From your broad overview, you can now break your objectives into specific projects and courses of action within those projects. Include metrics and KPIs to quantify the success or failure of each. Establish objectives and key results (OKR) framework so each goal has quantifiable key results to measure the initiative’s success. 

Pay attention to your human resources during this critical step. Think outside the box, eliminate silos within your teams, and ensure every team member has roles and responsibilities aligned with their strengths. 

3. Implement Your Corporate Strategy

It’s time to take your strategic plan off the boardroom table and implement it into your business workflow . Making your corporate strategy successful requires focus and input from every team member. Ensure everyone in your organization can clearly see and understand their role within your strategy and how their actions move your plan forward. 

You can reply heavily on your OKR framework here for each individual to have a solid view of their roles. When team members see their impact on your overall strategy, they will be more engaged and productive in their efforts to achieve your objectives. Team engagement comes from management and managers should focus on managing outcomes, not people, for the best results. 

Partnering with an integrated planned management specialist is essential for maximizing employee productivity and engagement. Strategic planning software can give you a competitive edge. User-friendly interfaces, clearly defined goals, and change management will make implementation smoother, faster and easier for team members.

Monitor Your Strategic Plan's Performance

4. Monitor Your Strategic Plan’s Performance

Remember that your strategic plan is fluid and needs regular monitoring for your organization to maintain a competitive position. Again, use your valuable human resources and consult everyone who owns a strategic objective. Foster an environment where you can receive honest input on the strategic plan’s progress so your management doesn’t feel more comfortable concentrating their team’s efforts in weak areas. 

Ensure your plan is flexible enough to catch it early if your organization’s efforts go off course. If there’s an opportunity to produce better results, you can stay ahead of the competition and execute it immediately. Measuring your team’s performance with employee performance metrics is an excellent method of assessing where you’re achieving your outcomes and where you may need to rethink the allocation of resources. 

Consider organization performance reporting to analyze how your business performance compares with your goals and initiatives. You can assess your successes and make adjustments when necessary. 

5. Analyze the Plan’s Success

Analyzing the impact of your corporate strategy is vital to set a benchmark for what elements to continue with and change. It clearly shows areas to improve and strengthens your teams’ engagement and commitment to your strategic initiatives. Include team members from across your organization when you conduct your analysis and foster open and thorough communication so they can share their insights and experiences. 

Together, you can define your plan’s strengths and opportunities for improvement . Once you have gathered input from across your teams, your strategic team can apply this insight to your new strategic initiatives and amplify your successes. 

How AchieveIt Helps With Strategic Planning

Organizations that struggle to get their important initiatives from the boardroom into reality and keep their performance on track may falter with their objectives. With AchieveIt, your business can improve visibility, uniformity and accountability within your strategic planning process.

Our automated platform and strategic planning software enable your teams to connect, execute your goals and evaluate how your essential plans are performing. Integrated plan management solutions from AchieveIt can revitalize how your organization reaches for its goals with dashboards, reporting, updates and more strategic planning tools.

Some of the many ways AchieveIt can help you with your corporate strategy include the following:

  • Streamlining your corporate strategic execution:  Create alignment and organize your strategic initiatives with our process-focused software to integrate and execute corporate strategies. 
  • Using automated updates:  AchieveIt focuses on the end user, integrating process updates from different sources for a seamless automated update system. 
  • Consistent expert support and training:  AchieveIt conducts regular business reviews, so you can measure your return on investment (ROI) and access quantifiable data about how your corporate strategy aligns with your progress. Your strategic expert is there to provide feedback if needed, and on-site training allows for excellent change management, improved adoption rates and better team engagement. 
  • Data-driven insights and accessible results:  You can filter and create outcome-specific reports aligning with your corporate strategy with a holistic view of your strategic business progress to combine your data with applicable contexts. This actionable information gives you a clear picture of what works and what needs work. 

Sharpen Your Corporate Strategy With AchieveIt

Many businesses use outcomes-based corporate strategies to drive them towards goals, benefit their bottom line and motivate their teams. With AchieveIt, your organization can improve the execution of key plans and initiatives , increase visibility and improve accountability from a centralized, integrated plan management platform. 

Whether you have an existing corporate strategy, want an implementation partner, or like some help streamlining your corporate strategy, you can use AchieveIt’s two-pronged approach to strengthen your competitive position . The combination of our management software and an experienced consultant ensures your initiatives are correctly set up for effortless execution.

Schedule a demo today if you would like to learn more about AchieveIt strategic management software. Alternatively, take a self-guided tour and experience the magic of AchieveIt firsthand. Together we can connect, manage and execute key plans and initiatives with innovative corporate strategic plan management. 

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What Is A Business Level Strategy? How To Create It + Examples

Download our free Business Strategy Plan Template Download this template

Many leaders put a lot of effort into strategic planning, but their grand strategies fall short. More often than not, the issue lies not in the strategy they formulate, but in the strategy they overlook—the business level strategy. 

This strategy concentrates on the execution of initiatives tailored specifically to a business unit. It's like “the middle level” of strategy and as it often happens with middle-level things, it remains overlooked in the shadow of the bigger picture.

Gartner’s survey shows that 67% of key functions at a company are not aligned with business units and corporate strategies. It also shows that 67% of employees do not understand their role when new growth initiatives are launched. These findings suggest that most companies focus primarily on their overarching, high-level strategies, neglecting how these strategies translate to lower levels and functions.

Thinking in terms of strategy levels is a good way of breaking down your overall strategy into manageable parts. This approach makes it easier to understand who's responsible for what and how the strategy should be carried out.

Free Template Download our free Business Strategy Plan Template Download this template

In this article, we'll walk you through the components of a strategy at a business level. We'll show you how to write a perfect strategic plan for your business and then apply it, ensuring all the pieces fit together seamlessly.

🎁BONUS: Download Your Strategy Levels eBook. It's a comprehensive guide that covers all three levels of strategy and will show you how to create both corporate and business strategies.

What Is A Business Level Strategy?

Business level strategy is a sum of the strategic planning and implementation activities that set and steer the direction of an individual business unit. These activities will generally include how to gain a competitive advantage and create customer value in the specific market the business unit operates in.

As a result, organizations with only one distinct business will often combine business strategy with corporate strategy as a single strategy level.

strategy levels pyramid

Benefits Of A Business Strategy

Before we dive deeper into business strategy, let's quickly discuss why you should have it regardless of your business model or company size. A well-defined business strategy:

  • Provides a clear roadmap and purpose, guiding decision-making and resource allocation .
  • Helps align the efforts of different departments and teams, fostering coordination and synergy.
  • Enhances competitive advantage by identifying unique value propositions and differentiation opportunities.
  • Aids in identifying and capitalizing on market opportunities while mitigating potential strategic risks .
  • Improves organizational efficiency, promotes innovation, and enables effective measurement and performance evaluation.

Ultimately, a well-planned and executed business strategy can lead to sustainable growth, profitability, and long-term success.

Difference Between Corporate Level Strategy And Business Level Strategy

There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the difference between corporate level strategy and business level strategy, so let’s clear things up and get our definitions straight.

A corporate level strategy comes into play when an organization has multiple businesses operating in different markets. It sets the overall direction for the entire organization . It decides which markets to compete in, how to allocate resources across the organization, and similar big-picture things.

On the other hand, a business level strategy zooms in on a specific business within the organization . It focuses on creating a game plan tailored specifically for that business unit to achieve success in its corner of the market.

To reiterate, a corporate level strategy is about steering the entire organization, while a business level strategy is about guiding a specific business unit to thrive in its market.

To help make the difference between the two levels clearer, let’s look at the example of a bank below and how they use strategy levels in their organization.

strategy levels bank example cascade

Types Of Business Level Strategies With Examples 

To better understand how business level strategy differs from other strategy levels, it’s useful to look at some business level strategy examples . 

When organizations are deciding on the best strategy for a specific business level, they typically consider five types. Let's take a closer look at each of them and see what kind of competitive advantage they offer:

business strategy types cost leadership and differentiation diagram

Cost Leadership

A cost leadership strategy is all about offering products at a lower price than your competitors. To become cost leaders, businesses employ economies of scale and various tactics such as improving facilities, investing in tools, reducing overhead costs, and minimizing expenses related to R&D and POS operations. The ultimate goal is to achieve the lowest cost for your product or service.

Differentiation

Rather than focusing on lower costs and passing the savings onto customers, differentiation strategies emphasize the development and marketing of products in a manner that provides greater value to customers and focuses on unique features that warrant a higher price point.

The most famous example of differentiation is Apple , which applies this strategy across all business units (laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.). Apple has heavily invested in R&D, customer service, and marketing, successfully carving a niche that allows them to charge a premium price for their products without compromising market share.

💡If you're considering pursuing a differentiation strategy, McKinsey's Three Horizons of Growth is a great framework to use.

Focused cost leadership

Businesses can concentrate their efforts by targeting a niche market or even a subset of that niche to further reduce costs.

For instance, a tool manufacturer might choose to focus their cost leadership strategy solely on the professional tradesperson market. 

By narrowing their focus, companies can better understand their customers' needs and create value more efficiently.

Focused differentiation

A focused differentiation strategy involves standing out from competitors while concentrating efforts on a smaller subset of their customer base.

This might seem counterintuitive, but deeply understanding a smaller customer segment allows businesses to anticipate customers’ needs more accurately, making value creation a smoother process.

Integrated low-cost/differentiation

Some businesses find success by combining a low-cost strategy and differentiation.

A great example is the rise of "premium fast food" restaurants, which offer the low prices associated with traditional fast-food chains while providing a differentiated range of offerings. The combination provides just enough uniqueness to cater to a particular market. The success of such restaurants is a testament to the effectiveness of this type of strategy.

📚 If you're struggling to determine the best business strategy for your business unit, consider exploring the Value Disciplines framework . It has guided many successful businesses in the right direction.

How To Write A Business Level Strategic Plan 

Once you've decided on the type of business strategy you want to pursue, you need to write a strategic plan that outlines the actions your business unit will take to achieve its vision.

If you need guidance on how to write a strategic plan , we've covered it in detail before. But it can’t hurt to quickly go over the process anyway.

1. Analyze where you currently stand

First, you need to gather and analyze key information about your business's present state and performance. 

This can include reviewing KPIs, doing a SWOT analysis , evaluating the competitive landscape , reviewing financial performance, gathering customer feedback, considering internal capabilities, and analyzing risks and challenges. 

Such an analysis will help you develop a fact-based understanding of your current position that should your strategic direction and choices. 

2. Prioritize focus areas

Identify the key areas you'll be focusing on when working towards your vision . Your analysis from the previous step should help. These focus areas should be more specific than your vision statement , but not as detailed as having particular metrics or deadlines attached to them.

3. Define strategic objectives

Strategic objectives represent what you want to accomplish . These objectives are relatively high-level but should still have a deadline associated with them. Make sure your strategic objectives align with one or more of your focus areas. Typically, you'll have 3-6 objectives for each focus area.

4. Assign KPIs

KPIs are values that help you measure progress toward your strategic objectives.  It's important to develop KPIs that directly contribute to achieving specific goals or objectives. Otherwise, you run the risk of diverting attention, time, and resources away from crucial KPIs.

5. Create projects

Projects describe what you will do to accomplish your objectives. Projects need to be specific, including clear deadlines and a description of the actions you'll take. 

Each project should align with at least one strategic objective and outline how it will contribute to achieving that objective. Typically, you'll have multiple projects for each strategic objective.

💡 Pro tip: When writing your strategic plan , it’s helpful to keep in mind that business level strategy decisions are typically based on analyzing two main factors: customers and core competencies.

👉 How Cascade can help:  

Cascade’s Planner makes it easier to create, share and execute strategic plans. To make things even simpler, you can use our template which will help break down your high-level plan into executable outcomes.

business strategy plan template planner view in cascade strategy execution platform

👉🏻 Get your free business strategy template here.  

More related business level strategy templates: 

  • Business Growth Strategy Template
  • Business Development Strategy Template
  • Business Continuity Plan Template
  • Business Expansion Plan Template
  • Business Action Plan Template

‍ 💡Don't see what you're looking for? Explore our strategy template library with over 1,000 templates catered to different business units and industries.

The Key Focus Areas For Business Level Strategies

Now that we understand how to structure a business strategy, let's dive into the actual content that should be included. 

While the specifics will vary depending on the organization, there are generally two key elements that should be addressed in your business level strategy.

Core Competencies

In business level strategy, the concept of core competencies is key. 

Core competencies are the unique elements of a business that set it apart in the market and provide value to customers.

Identifying and leveraging these competencies to gain a competitive advantage is a major aspect of business level strategy.

If you're struggling to identify your business's core competencies or competitive advantages, a VRIO analysis is a great starting point that should help you out. 

👉 Grab your free VRIO strategy template here.

Understanding your customers is another essential aspect of business level strategy. 

You need to know who your current and potential customers are and how they interact with your business. 

To develop this understanding, consider the following who, what, and how questions:

Who are the customers?

Look at demographic descriptors and consumption patterns to paint a clear picture of your customer base. 

Unlike corporate strategists, business level strategists often have a precise understanding of their customers. That allows them to tailor strategic decisions in a way that just isn’t feasible at a corporate level.

What are the products that customers need?

Understanding the wants and needs of your customers is vital for developing and maintaining a competitive advantage. 

Successful businesses are the ones that fulfill customer needs and create value. That’s why you want to understand your target customers to the point where you can forecast changes in customer needs as well as anticipate fluctuations in demand. 

How can the business satisfy customer needs?

Finally, organizations need to leverage core competencies, resources, and their understanding of their target audience to ensure customer satisfaction. Businesses need to create a solution to a pressing problem and create a product or service that’s perceived as valuable in the eyes of the target market segment.

Putting it all together

Now that you have a solid understanding of your core competencies and the customers you serve, you have a powerful foundation for developing strategies that foster competitive advantage and drive value. This is the ultimate goal of the business level strategy.

How To Cascade Business Level Strategy To Functional Level Strategy

Once you've crafted your business strategy, it's important to ensure that it’s effectively communicated and translated into actionable plans at the functional level . 

This process, known as cascading, enables each department to align its efforts with the overall strategic objectives of the organization. Here’s how you do it:

  • Share the business level strategy with department heads.
  • Identify relevant objectives and projects for each department.
  • Define focus areas based on the identified objectives and projects.
  • Develop department-specific strategies and tactics. Address specific actions each department will take.
  • Align efforts and coordinate among departments.

By following these steps, you can effectively cascade your business strategy to all key departments, coordinate efforts and achieve strategic objectives.

👉 How Cascade can help: 

With Cascade's Alignment & Relationships feature , you can see every plan in your workspace and how they connect to each other from a bird's eye view. Using a simple tree structure, you'll be able to see how every plan is aligned with each other and progressing across your organization.

alignment map example in cascade strategy execution platform

Final Thoughts

Business level strategy is where abstract strategic directions from the corporate level translate into tangible initiatives that generate real-world value.

Together with a strategy execution platform like Cascade , it can help you achieve great strategic feats. The combination of the right approach and the right software empowers you to:

  • Create simple yet impactful strategies

Our most successful customers have used Cascade to zoom in on certain parts of their business, identify their core competencies, and prepare suitable objectives. Instead of overcomplicating strategies, they kept it simple and actionable.

  • Reverse engineer your strategy

Cascade enables you to see where your initiatives stand today and provides data as well as the wider context. These strategic insights will help you design metric-based strategies rooted in reality, rather than relying on disconnected numbers, outdated tactics, and irrelevant industry benchmarks.

  • Adapt quickly and effectively

You can monitor the impact of a particular approach on a smaller, business level scale, recognize what’s working, and either change course or double down. 

These benefits and everything mentioned in the article make a business level strategy combined with a strategy execution platform immensely valuable. Good and iterative strategic planning at the business level will radically impact outcomes for any organization—from the very small right up to the very large one.

Business Level Strategy FAQs

Should a business level strategy change over time if so, why .

Yes, business level strategies should change over time to adapt to evolving markets, competition, customer needs, and internal capabilities.

The ability to adapt also reflects that the business is monitoring its current performance, the impact of its strategic decisions, and is proactively thinking about improvements. The ability to adapt is crucial for sustainable success.

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Corporate Level Strategy

Corporate Level Strategy: What It Is Plus 9 Examples

  • Business Growth & Management , Templates & Guides

Success in business is not a random occurrence. It’s the result of planning, preparation, and execution. And it all starts with defining your business’s strategy. More specifically, it all starts with defining your business’s corporate level strategy.

Corporate level strategy is part of a multi-tiered process that owners and managers use to:

  • Define a plan of action
  • Hit a specific target
  • Achieve business goals

But where does corporate level strategy fit into the smooth operation of your business? The best way to answer that is to put it in context with the other types of business strategy.

The 3 Types Of Business Strategy

Coworkers discussing corporate level strategy

Why is it important to understand all three levels of business strategy if you’re only interested in corporate level strategy? Because all three levels work together to drive your business toward success.

The three levels are so intertwined that you can’t have one without the other. Think of it like a car. Every vehicle on the road today is made up of various systems that contribute to the successful operation of the whole. If one breaks down, you may be able to limp along for a while, but eventually, the car will quit running.

The same concept applies to business strategy. All three levels — corporate, business, and functional — influence each other to the point that if one fails, the others begin to break down as well.

1) Corporate Level Strategy

Corporate level strategy is the top of the planning pyramid. It is the main purpose of your business. Think of corporate level strategy as the destination toward which your business is moving. That destination affects all the strategies and decisions in every other part of your business.

So, for example, if your business has reached market saturation and you need to diversify to survive, your corporate level strategy would be to spread to new markets. That becomes the guiding force for everything your business does from now on.

2) Business Level Strategy

Staff meeting about corporate level strategy

So, you know that your business needs to break into new markets to survive (hence your corporate level strategy). Your business level strategy translates that direction into more actionable goals. Think of it as the how to the corporate level strategy’s what .

Continuing with the diversification-into-new-markets example, the business level strategies that support this goal (this corporate level strategy) would be:

  • Rebrand for a new demographic
  • Increase marketing budget
  • Tap new and emerging markets

Basically, your business level strategies are the broad strokes for how you’re going to achieve the goal set at the corporate level. Those broad strokes then influence what you do at the next level.

3) Functional Level Strategy

Functional level strategies are the actions and goals assigned to departments and individuals that support your business level strategy. These are the smallest components of the planning pyramid but are the foundation on which the success of your strategy lies.

Functional level strategies will be specific and will apply to a variety of functional areas (departments). For example, building on the diversification example, the functional level strategies that support that business level strategy might be:

  • R&D: Redesign product
  • Marketing: Implement new advertising plan
  • Production: Make changes to existing infrastructure

ADD_THIS_TEXT

Key Characteristics Of Corporate Level Strategy

1) long term.

Corporate level strategies are aimed at the long-term rather than the short-term. You may formulate them quickly, but their implementation and completion will take much longer.

2) Uncertain

Corporate levels strategies are, by nature, uncertain. That’s because they are extremely broad and often incorporate a great many moving parts (the success of your departments, the market, your competition, the economy , etc.).

3) Geared Toward Overarching Goals

Manager reviewing her company's corporate level strategy

Corporate level strategies should be geared toward the goals of your organization as a whole. Improving the performance of your kitchen staff is not a corporate level strategy. It is, however, a component of a much broader goal (such as improving customer perception) that your business is striving for.

Because corporate level strategies apply to your business as a whole, they are naturally going to be more complex. They are going to incorporate many moving parts and may be made up of a long list of sub-strategies (both business level and functional level).

Corporate level strategies shouldn’t be set in stone. You want your business to adapt and cope with consumer demands and market and industry changes. To achieve that, your corporate level strategy should be as dynamic as possible.

That doesn’t mean you have to incorporate contingency plans for every possible situation — that very well may be an impossible task. Instead, allow your corporate level strategy (and yourself) the flexibility to change along with the demands of your business.

To help you understand the essential nature of a dynamic corporate level strategy, visualize your business as a tree in a storm. The trees that weather the storm the longest are those that can bend and move. Without that ability, they are blown over and crash to the ground.

A dynamic corporate level strategy makes your business more flexible in the face of strong market and industry storms and prevents it from being blown over and crashing to the ground.

6) Far Reaching

manager studying corporate level strategies

Corporate level strategies, by nature, are far reaching and will affect the entire organization for the better — from the owners at the top down to the new employee just starting out. The strategy gives every department, every executive, every manager, and every employee a place to focus their efforts.

This is a valuable thing because business is very much like a tug of war. On one side is your organization. On the other side are your customers, your markets, and the industry as a whole. That’s a good amount of weight on the other side of the rope.

It would not benefit your business to have upper management pulling in one direction, middle management pulling in the other direction, and your employees pulling in a completely different direction. Corporate level strategy gets everyone aligned (toward your goals) and pulling in the same direction.

7) Formulated From The Top Down

Corporate level strategies are always created at the highest levels of your business. Owners, board members, and chief officers (e.g., CEO, CFO, COO) should be the ones to formulate the strategies and then put them into practice in the other levels of the business.

But that doesn’t mean you should create your corporate level strategy in a vacuum, with only input from other members of the upper management. The best way to know what’s really going on in your business is to talk to middle management as well as your employees in the trenches. Only then will you be able to create the best corporate level strategy.

Once you’ve settled on the corporate level strategy that works best for your business, the next step is to translate those goals into business level strategy. After you’ve established your business level strategy, the final step is to put those strategies to use by implementing a functional level strategy.

9 Examples Of Corporate Level Strategy

Corporate level strategy can be subdivided into three types based on what you want to do with your business:

Retrenchment

Think of these three types of corporate level strategy as the general direction you want your business to “travel.” Within those broad goals, you have a number of options for specific corporate level strategy.

1) Concentration

In a concentration growth strategy, you would focus resources in order to increase the vertical or horizontal participation in your respective market.

2) Diversification

When there’s little or no opportunity for growth in your original market, it’s time to diversify (or spread into new markets). You might choose to spread into a related market (concentric diversification) or into a market that is unrelated to your current niche (conglomerate diversification).

3) Forward Or Backward Integration

Another way to grow through a focused corporate level strategy is to harness the power of forward or backward integration.

In forward integration, you take steps to assume the role previously provided by one of your distributors (forward in the supply chain). That may mean building a warehouse and creating the infrastructure to sell to retailers or direct to end users.

In backward integration, you take steps to assume the role previously provided by one of your suppliers (backward in the supply chain). That may mean expanding existing production lines or implementing completely new ones to produce the parts you need to build your primary product.

4) No Change

If you’re happy with your business’s current position in the market, you may adopt a “no change” strategy. Continue doing what you’re doing, but plan for a time when you want to grow or retrench.

Business manager creating a corporate level strategy

Think of this strategy as stable profitability. Rather than growing to new markets, you would attempt to increase profits by:

  • Cutting costs
  • Selling assets
  • Raising the price of a product or service
  • Trimming non-core business components

6) Investigation

You would use a stable investigation strategy as an intermediary between the other extremes of corporate level strategy (growth and retrenchment). Think of it as testing the waters before committing to a specific strategy.

7) Turnaround

Turnaround strategy emphasizes efficiency in an attempt to eliminate the weaknesses that are holding your company back (e.g., causing a product line to perform poorly).

8) Divestment

As a whole, management will put retrenchment corporate level strategies in place when the company is performing poorly. The goal of retrenchment, then, is to eliminate problems and improve how the business performs.

Divestment strategy (a.k.a. divestiture) involves selling off poorly performing assets (or even high-performing periphery assets) to raise capital for the core product or service. With a properly planned divestment strategy, you can get your business back on track and in the black once again.

9) Liquidation

Liquidation is a last-resort corporate level strategy. When everything else has failed to make the business profitable, you may choose to cease production, sell all your assets, and close the business completely.

The Benefits Of Corporate Level Strategy

man drawing an example of a corporate level strategy

Implementing a corporate level strategy may seem like a complicated process — especially if you’ve never had one. But the benefits of a comprehensive corporate strategy far outweigh the time and effort required to put the strategy into effect.

Here are five ways that a corporate strategy will benefit your business:

1) Allows Your Business To Be Proactive

There are few things worse for your business than being behind the curve. When you are, you have to react to everything that comes your way. But with a strong corporate level strategy, your business can be proactive instead of reactive.

Your business will be able to anticipate future events and prepare accordingly. Staying ahead of the curve (being proactive) in this way helps your business keep up with the market and stay ahead of the competition.

2) Increases Efficiency

An efficient business is a profitable business. And a comprehensive corporate level strategy can set your business on the path to increased efficiency in all areas.

The corporate strategy gives your business a goal to shoot for and provides a road map of sorts for how to get there. It shows you where to make changes to reach said goals and how to make each component of your business function more effectively.

3) Increases Market Share

With a dedicated corporate level strategy, your organization will get valuable insight into the myriad factors that affect the way you do business, such as:

  • Consumer segments
  • Product offerings
  • Market trends
  • Service offerings

The knowledge and power you gain when you have control over these factors can help you increase your market share like never before.

4) Increases Profitability

Profitability is a direct result of increases in efficiency and market share. So when you implement a corporate level strategy, you set your business on the road to increased profitability.

It may take some time to reach the profitability you’re looking for (because you have to deal with efficiency and market share first), but when you do, you’ll see just how valuable (and powerful) the corporate level strategy is to your business.

5) Makes Your Business More Durable

Industries and markets are constantly changing. You want your business to be durable enough to weather any changes that come your way.

A strong corporate level strategy provides a foundation on which the rest of your business can rely. It gives you the focus and foresight necessary to keep your business running smooth and strong through the ups and downs of your industry.

When you set a corporate level strategy, you give your business real direction. That can make it much easier to define the specific actions that your business needs to succeed.

For more free resources to help you manage your business better, organize and schedule your team, and track and calculate labor costs, visit GetSling.com today.

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Strategic Planning in Diversified Companies

  • Richard F. Vancil
  • Peter Lorange

The widely accepted theory of corporate strategic planning is simple: using a time horizon of several years, top management reassesses its current strategy by looking for opportunities and threats in the environment and by analyzing the company’s resources to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Management may draw up several alternative strategic scenarios and appraise them […]

The widely accepted theory of corporate strategic planning is simple: using a time horizon of several years, top management reassesses its current strategy by looking for opportunities and threats in the environment and by analyzing the company’s resources to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Management may draw up several alternative strategic scenarios and appraise them against the long-term objectives of the organization. To begin implementing the selected strategy (or continue a revalidated one), management fleshes it out in terms of the actions to be taken in the near future.

what is corporate level planning

  • RV Mr. Vancil is professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School and chairman of its Control Area faculty. His most recent HBR article was “Inflation Accounting—The Great Controversy” (March–April 1976). His book, Strategic Planning Systems, will be published next January by Prentice-Hall.
  • PL Peter Lorange is the president of IMD International in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he is also a professor of strategy and holds the Nestlé Chair.

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What Is Corporate Level Strategies: Features and Examples

  • by Raymond Iboro
  • August 26, 2023
  • No comments
  • 6 minute read

Corporate Level Strategies

Table of Contents Hide

What is corporate level strategy, why is corporate-level strategy important, stability strategy, expansion strategy, retrenchment strategy, combination strategy, merger strategy, restructure  strategy, diversification, forward or backward integration, horizontal integration, corporate level strategy, business level strategy, frequently asked questions, what does corporate level strategy deal with, what is corporate level strategy in strategic management, what is the correct corporate level strategy definition.

Corporate-level strategies occupy the highest level of strategic decision-making and cover actions dealing with the objectives of the firm, allocation of resources, and coordination of strategies of various SBUs for optimal performance. Corporate-level strategy focuses on how to manage resources with risks and returns across a firm.

These strategies are normally expected to help the firm earn above-average profits and create value for shareholders. Corporate-level strategies also address the issues of a multi-business firm as a whole.

What Is Corporate Level Strategy And Why Is It Important

A corporate-level strategy can be used in outlining your company’s goal for the following year. The type of corporate-level strategy you select can be an indicator of the company’s financial success and the method it takes to generate profits.

A corporate-level strategy is a multi-tiered company plan that leaders use to define, outline, and achieve specific business goals. A corporate-level strategy can be used by a small business to increase its profits over the next fiscal year.

Meanwhile, a large corporation might be overseeing the operations of multiple businesses to achieve more complex goals like selling the company or entering a new market.

The purpose of a corporate-level strategy is to maximize its profitability and maintain its financial success in the future. A corporate-level strategy is utilized to help increase its competitive advantage over its competitors and to continue to offer a unique product or service to customers.

Now, let’s see why implementing a corporate-level strategy is important for your business;

  • Strategic Direction: Devising a corporate-level strategy prepares you for changing business environments.

It helps anticipate risks and have a plan for responding to risk factors, in all, you gain strategic direction for your business development.

  • Informed Decision-Making: The importance of corporate-level strategies lies in the way businesses make and practice decisions. They are not only preparing organizations for unpleasant situations they also motivate employees toward overall objectives.
  • Increased Sustainability: Corporate-level strategies are often developed with the goal of sustaining a business. A corporate-level strategy can measure the growth of your business and inform you whether investments and policies are relevant or not.

While designing a corporate-level strategy may be easy, getting everyone on the same page may be a little bit tough and might require more time.

Types Of Corporate-Level Strategies

When you are constructing your company’s corporate-level strategy, you are also seeking the best ways to distribute resources to serve the needs of the company to complete planned objectives.

Here are the different types of corporate-level strategies that you can employ;

The stability strategy is when you proceed in working with clients in your industry, this strategy also assumes that your company is doing well under this current business model.

You should employ a stability strategy to ensure incremental progress that would still bring in revenue, and such stability strategies include; research and development and product innovation.

The expansion strategy would be great if your company is planning on creating new products and reaching new audiences.

The expansion strategy can also be used if you are upgrading the level of activity within your business like taking on new clients and hiring more employees, you can also apply this strategy if eventually, the region you are operating in has a strong economy or if your focus is to enhance your performance.

This strategy has large earning potential for executives, which can lead to raises and expansion of employee benefits packages as well. The company can adopt an expansion strategy in the following five ways;

  • Concentration
  • Integration
  • Cooperation
  • internationalization

A retrenchment strategy requires you to strongly consider switching your business model, this may involve stopping the manufacturing of a product or reducing its functionality.

This strategy is only used when the company is looking for ways to take protective measures to keep the solvency of the business.

A combination strategy is a hybrid of the previous three strategies to create your business model. Its main purpose is to increase the company’s performance and find out which areas of your company can grow based on market conditions.

This strategy makes it easier for you to make adjustments to your strategy because you can be more flexible with your time and how much should be allocated to each function of your strategy.

Merger strategy has long been an interest to economics, a merger combines two firms leaving one surviving firm.

It also describes the case where firms who are involved in the same business line get together and form a separate firm.

Restructure strategy involves expansion and contraction of the portfolio or changes in the ownership pattern and control. It is normally not required only when a business is about to fall but rather it is required for improving the performance of the units.

Furthermore, this concept is important for the growth and expansion of the companies and it is necessary to prevent a unit from falling apart

Examples Of Corporate-Level Strategies

When you are considering the corporate-level strategies you should undertake keep these examples in mind;

  • Forward or backward integration
  • Horizontal integration
  • Market penetration

Diversification can give you the chance to build a long-lasting relationship linked to the execution and satisfaction of the products and services you render.

Forward integration is when you take the position of a company that served a previous role in your supply chain. Your business becoming a distributor changes the scope of your operations and you will need to move resources to help move and store products for companies in your area.

Backward integration entails that you start in the supply chain business and you move to be a supplier of goods and services.

Horizontal integration happens when a business comes together with another business in the same vertical.

If you merge with another company you will need to make sure you have the operational capacity to handle the merger and work with new employees eager to learn your process and how they differ from the company you acquired.

The profit strategy is only dedicated to having more capital to spend once you take out your expenses.

Turnaround refers to increasing the effectiveness of existing products, so you can sell more of them. This may require you to boost your testing processes and raise your quality assurance standards to generate more profit.

Corporate Level Strategy vs. Business Level Strategy

Business and corporate-level strategies tend to differ primarily in their objectives, corporate-level strategies function higher than the business-level strategy. Managers should develop a business-level strategy with the overall corporate-level strategy in mind.

A business strategy focuses on competing in the market place while a corporate strategy focuses on business growth and profits.

Here are the differences between corporate-level strategies and business-level strategies;

A corporate-level strategy entails a clearly defined, long-term vision that organizations set, seeking to create corporate value and motivate the workforce to implement the proper actions to achieve customer satisfaction.

Corporate-level strategy is also a continuous process that requires a constant effort to engage investors in trusting the company with their money, thereby increasing the company’s equity.

Business-level strategies refer to the combined set of moves and actions taken with the aim of offering value to the customers and developing a competitive advantage.

A business-level strategy examines how firms compete in a given industry, firms derive such strategies by executives making decisions about whether their source of competitive advantage is based on price or differentiation.

Also, business-level strategies are mainly concerned with the firms having multiple businesses, it determines how the firm is going to compete in the market with each line of business.

Corporate level strategy deals with the objectives of the corporate. this simply means that corporate-level strategies are concerned with questions about what business to compete in

Corporate level strategy is the strategic level that concerns itself with the entirety of the organization, where decisions are made with regard to the overall growth and direction of a company.

It refers to the top management’s approach or game plan for administering and directing the entire concern, these are based on the company’s environment and internal capacities.

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What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

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Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. In this article, we'll guide you through the strategic planning process, including why it's important, the benefits and best practices, and five steps to get you from beginning to end.

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. The strategic planning process informs your organization’s decisions, growth, and goals.

Strategic planning helps you clearly define your company’s long-term objectives—and maps how your short-term goals and work will help you achieve them. This, in turn, gives you a clear sense of where your organization is going and allows you to ensure your teams are working on projects that make the most impact. Think of it this way—if your goals and objectives are your destination on a map, your strategic plan is your navigation system.

In this article, we walk you through the 5-step strategic planning process and show you how to get started developing your own strategic plan.

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What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization’s mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives. The product of the planning cycle is a strategic plan, which is shared throughout the company.

What is a strategic plan?

[inline illustration] Strategic plan elements (infographic)

A strategic plan is the end result of the strategic planning process. At its most basic, it’s a tool used to define your organization’s goals and what actions you’ll take to achieve them.

Typically, your strategic plan should include: 

Your company’s mission statement

Your organizational goals, including your long-term goals and short-term, yearly objectives

Any plan of action, tactics, or approaches you plan to take to meet those goals

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

Strategic planning can help with goal setting and decision-making by allowing you to map out how your company will move toward your organization’s vision and mission statements in the next three to five years. Let’s circle back to our map metaphor. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).

When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:

Build a strong organizational culture by clearly defining and aligning on your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

Align everyone around a shared purpose and ensure all departments and teams are working toward a common objective.

Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go and achieve desired outcomes.

Promote a long-term vision for your company rather than focusing primarily on short-term gains.

Ensure resources are allocated around the most high-impact priorities.

Define long-term goals and set shorter-term goals to support them.

Assess your current situation and identify any opportunities—or threats—allowing your organization to mitigate potential risks.

Create a proactive business culture that enables your organization to respond more swiftly to emerging market changes and opportunities.

What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?

The strategic planning process involves a structured methodology that guides the organization from vision to implementation. The strategic planning process starts with assembling a small, dedicated team of key strategic planners—typically five to 10 members—who will form the strategic planning, or management, committee. This team is responsible for gathering crucial information, guiding the development of the plan, and overseeing strategy execution.

Once you’ve established your management committee, you can get to work on the planning process. 

Step 1: Assess your current business strategy and business environment

Before you can define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. Understanding the external environment, including market trends and competitive landscape, is crucial in the initial assessment phase of strategic planning.

To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders, like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather:

Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future.

Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services.

Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether about the product, business practices, or the day-to-day company culture.

Consider different types of strategic planning tools and analytical techniques to gather this information, such as:

A balanced scorecard to help you evaluate four major elements of a business: learning and growth, business processes, customer satisfaction, and financial performance.

A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business (you’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process). 

To fill out each letter in the SWOT acronym, your management committee will answer a series of questions:

What does your organization currently do well?

What separates you from your competitors?

What are your most valuable internal resources?

What tangible assets do you have?

What is your biggest strength? 

Weaknesses:

What does your organization do poorly?

What do you currently lack (whether that’s a product, resource, or process)?

What do your competitors do better than you?

What, if any, limitations are holding your organization back?

What processes or products need improvement? 

Opportunities:

What opportunities does your organization have?

How can you leverage your unique company strengths?

Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?

How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?

Is there an emerging need for your product or service? 

What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?

Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?

Have you or could you experience negative press that could reduce market share?

Is there a chance of changing customer attitudes towards your company? 

Step 2: Identify your company’s goals and objectives

To begin strategy development, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your vision, mission, and current position to identify and define your goals—these are your final destination. 

To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking, “Where are we going next?” “What’s the ideal future state of this company?” This can help you figure out which path you need to take to get there.

During this phase of the planning process, take inspiration from important company documents, such as:

Your mission statement, to understand how you can continue moving towards your organization’s core purpose.

Your vision statement, to clarify how your strategic plan fits into your long-term vision.

Your company values, to guide you towards what matters most towards your company.

Your competitive advantages, to understand what unique benefit you offer to the market.

Your long-term goals, to track where you want to be in five or 10 years.

Your financial forecast and projection, to understand where you expect your financials to be in the next three years, what your expected cash flow is, and what new opportunities you will likely be able to invest in.

Step 3: Develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics

Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Take your current business position and strategy into account, as well as your organization’s goals and objectives, and build out a strategic plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your plan should be created or revisited as the quarters and years go on.

As you build your strategic plan, you should define:

Company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy.

Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals . 

Related key results and KPIs. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable. These KPIs will help you track progress and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those.

A high-level project roadmap . A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.

Step 4: Implement and share your plan

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Strategy implementation involves clear communication across your entire organization to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and how to measure the plan’s success. 

Make sure your team (especially senior leadership) has access to the strategic plan, so they can understand how their work contributes to company priorities and the overall strategy map. We recommend sharing your plan in the same tool you use to manage and track work, so you can more easily connect high-level objectives to daily work. If you don’t already, consider using a work management platform .  

A few tips to make sure your plan will be executed without a hitch: 

Communicate clearly to your entire organization throughout the implementation process, to ensure all team members understand the strategic plan and how to implement it effectively. 

Define what “success” looks like by mapping your strategic plan to key performance indicators.

Ensure that the actions outlined in the strategic plan are integrated into the daily operations of the organization, so that every team member's daily activities are aligned with the broader strategic objectives.

Utilize tools and software—like a work management platform—that can aid in implementing and tracking the progress of your plan.

Regularly monitor and share the progress of the strategic plan with the entire organization, to keep everyone informed and reinforce the importance of the plan.

Establish regular check-ins to monitor the progress of your strategic plan and make adjustments as needed. 

Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed

Once you’ve created and implemented your new strategic framework, the final step of the planning process is to monitor and manage your plan.

Remember, your strategic plan isn’t set in stone. You’ll need to revisit and update the plan if your company changes directions or makes new investments. As new market opportunities and threats come up, you’ll likely want to tweak your strategic plan. Make sure to review your plan regularly—meaning quarterly and annually—to ensure it’s still aligned with your organization’s vision and goals.

Keep in mind that your plan won’t last forever, even if you do update it frequently. A successful strategic plan evolves with your company’s long-term goals. When you’ve achieved most of your strategic goals, or if your strategy has evolved significantly since you first made your plan, it might be time to create a new one.

Build a smarter strategic plan with a work management platform

To turn your company strategy into a plan—and ultimately, impact—make sure you’re proactively connecting company objectives to daily work. When you can clarify this connection, you’re giving your team members the context they need to get their best work done. 

A work management platform plays a pivotal role in this process. It acts as a central hub for your strategic plan, ensuring that every task and project is directly tied to your broader company goals. This alignment is crucial for visibility and coordination, allowing team members to see how their individual efforts contribute to the company’s success. 

By leveraging such a platform, you not only streamline workflow and enhance team productivity but also align every action with your strategic objectives—allowing teams to drive greater impact and helping your company move toward goals more effectively. 

Strategic planning FAQs

Still have questions about strategic planning? We have answers.

Why do I need a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is one of many tools you can use to plan and hit your goals. It helps map out strategic objectives and growth metrics that will help your company be successful.

When should I create a strategic plan?

You should aim to create a strategic plan every three to five years, depending on your organization’s growth speed.

Since the point of a strategic plan is to map out your long-term goals and how you’ll get there, you should create a strategic plan when you’ve met most or all of them. You should also create a strategic plan any time you’re going to make a large pivot in your organization’s mission or enter new markets. 

What is a strategic planning template?

A strategic planning template is a tool organizations can use to map out their strategic plan and track progress. Typically, a strategic planning template houses all the components needed to build out a strategic plan, including your company’s vision and mission statements, information from any competitive analyses or SWOT assessments, and relevant KPIs.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. business plan?

A business plan can help you document your strategy as you’re getting started so every team member is on the same page about your core business priorities and goals. This tool can help you document and share your strategy with key investors or stakeholders as you get your business up and running.

You should create a business plan when you’re: 

Just starting your business

Significantly restructuring your business

If your business is already established, you should create a strategic plan instead of a business plan. Even if you’re working at a relatively young company, your strategic plan can build on your business plan to help you move in the right direction. During the strategic planning process, you’ll draw from a lot of the fundamental business elements you built early on to establish your strategy for the next three to five years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. mission and vision statements?

Your strategic plan, mission statement, and vision statements are all closely connected. In fact, during the strategic planning process, you will take inspiration from your mission and vision statements in order to build out your strategic plan.

Simply put: 

A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose.

A vision statement broadly explains how you’ll reach your company’s purpose.

A strategic plan pulls in inspiration from your mission and vision statements and outlines what actions you’re going to take to move in the right direction. 

For example, if your company produces pet safety equipment, here’s how your mission statement, vision statement, and strategic plan might shake out:

Mission statement: “To ensure the safety of the world’s animals.” 

Vision statement: “To create pet safety and tracking products that are effortless to use.” 

Your strategic plan would outline the steps you’re going to take in the next few years to bring your company closer to your mission and vision. For example, you develop a new pet tracking smart collar or improve the microchipping experience for pet owners. 

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. company objectives?

Company objectives are broad goals. You should set these on a yearly or quarterly basis (if your organization moves quickly). These objectives give your team a clear sense of what you intend to accomplish for a set period of time. 

Your strategic plan is more forward-thinking than your company goals, and it should cover more than one year of work. Think of it this way: your company objectives will move the needle towards your overall strategy—but your strategic plan should be bigger than company objectives because it spans multiple years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a business case?

A business case is a document to help you pitch a significant investment or initiative for your company. When you create a business case, you’re outlining why this investment is a good idea, and how this large-scale project will positively impact the business. 

You might end up building business cases for things on your strategic plan’s roadmap—but your strategic plan should be bigger than that. This tool should encompass multiple years of your roadmap, across your entire company—not just one initiative.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a project plan?

A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan. 

What’s the difference between strategic management vs. strategic planning?

A strategic plan is a tool to define where your organization wants to go and what actions you need to take to achieve those goals. Strategic planning is the process of creating a plan in order to hit your strategic objectives.

Strategic management includes the strategic planning process, but also goes beyond it. In addition to planning how you will achieve your big-picture goals, strategic management also helps you organize your resources and figure out the best action plans for success. 

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Chapter 8: Selecting Corporate-Level Strategies

Portfolio Planning and Corporate-Level Strategy

Learning Objectives

  • Understand why a firm would want to use portfolio planning.
  • Be able to explain the limitations of portfolio planning.

Executives in charge of firms that are involved in many different businesses must figure out how to manage such portfolios. General Electric (GE), for example, competes in a very wide variety of industries, including financial services, insurance, television, theme parks, electricity generation, lightbulbs, robotics, medical equipment, railroad locomotives, and aircraft jet engines. When leading a company such as GE, executives must decide which business units to grow, which ones to shrink, and which ones to abandon.

Portfolio planning  can be a useful tool. Portfolio planning is a process that helps executives assess their firms’ prospects for success within each of its industries, offers suggestions about what to do within each industry, and provides ideas for how to allocate resources across industries. Portfolio planning first gained widespread attention in the 1970s, and it remains a popular tool among executives today.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is the best-known approach to portfolio planning ( Figure 8.20 “The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix” ). Using the matrix requires that each businesses unit owned by a firm be categorized along two dimensions: its share of the market and the growth rate of its industry. High market share units within slow-growing industries are called cash cows . Because their industries have bleak growth prospects, profits from cash cows should not be invested back into cash cows but rather diverted to more promising growth businesses. This is not to suggest that cash cows are not to be carefully managed to ensure that the maximum total profits are not “harvested,” just that investments decisions must be grounded in a different set of values for cash cows.

Low-market-share units within slow-growing industries are called dogs .  These units are good candidates for divestment because of the low return on investment in maintaining a market presence. High-market-share units within fast-growing industries are called stars . These units have bright prospects and thus are good candidates for growth and form the basis of the future success of the firm. Finally, low-market-share units within fast-growing industries are called question marks . Executives must decide whether to attempt to build these units into stars or to divest them.

The BCG matrix is just one portfolio planning technique. A different technique, developed with the help of a leading consulting firm for GE, is the attractiveness-strength matrix, which also examines diverse activities. This planning approach involves rating each of a firm’s businesses in terms of the attractiveness of the industry and the firm’s strength within the industry. Each dimension is divided into three categories, resulting in nine boxes. Each of these boxes has a set of recommendations associated with it. (Internet Center for Management and Business Administration Inc, 2009-2010).

Limitations to Portfolio Planning

Although portfolio planning is a useful tool, this tool has important limitations. First, portfolio planning oversimplifies the reality of competition by focusing on just two dimensions when analyzing a company’s operations within an industry. Many dimensions are important to consider before making strategic decisions, not just two. Second, portfolio planning can create motivational problems among employees. For example, if workers know that their firm’s executives believe in the BCG matrix and that their subsidiary is classified as a dog, then they may reduce their effort and motivation. Similarly, workers within cash cow units could become dismayed once they realize that the profits that they help create will be diverted to boost other areas of the firm. Third, portfolio planning does not help identify new opportunities. Because this tool only deals with existing businesses, it cannot reveal what new industries a firm should consider entering.

Key Takeaways

  • Portfolio planning is a useful tool for analyzing a firm’s operations, but this tool has limitations. The BCG matrix is one of the most widely used approaches to portfolio planning.
  • Is market share a good dimension to use when analyzing the prospects of a business? Why or why not?
  • What might executives do to keep employees within dog units motivated and focused on their jobs?

Internet Center for Management and Business Administration Inc.  (2009-2010).  GE/McKinsey Matrix . Retrieved from http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/matrix/ge-mckinsey/

The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. 1973   Reprint No. 135.  The Experience Curve – Reviewed. IV.  The Growth Share Matrix or the Product Portfolio. Retrieved from http://www.bcg.com/documents/file13904.pdf

Image description

Figure 8.20 image description: The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is the best-known approach to portfolio planning – assessing a firm’s prospects for success within the industries in which it competes. The matrix categorizes businesses as high or low along two dimensions — the firm’s market share in each industry and the growth rate of each industry. Suggestions are then offered about how to approach each industry.

Return to Figure 8.20

Media Attributions

  • Cara de quem caiu do caminhão… © Anderson Nascimento is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
  • Figure 8.20: Attribution information for all included images is in the chapter conclusion.

A process that helps executives make decisions involving their firms’ various industries.

High market share units within slow-growing industries.

Low-market-share units within slow-growing industries.

High-market-share units within fast-growing industries.

Low-market-share units within fast-growing industries.

Mastering Strategic Management - 1st Canadian Edition by Janice Edwards is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is Business Level Strategy? Definition, Types, Examples

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Tactical and strategic planning is crucial to the success of your business model. Every company needs it to experience real growth across all key areas and to be prepared for different business cycles . Discover and integrate modern business tactics into its corporate strategy.

Incorporating a business-level strategy, the middle layer in the overall strategy hierarchy, enhances the productivity of your company’s department. It leads to market expansion and better use of business resources.

This guide will cover the A-Z of business-level strategy, including how to implement a business-level strategy.

What is a Business Level Strategy?

The primary business level strategy definition is the strategic planning and implementation processes incorporated by successful businesses in their niche market.

Your choice of business-level strategy is configured to gain a competitive advantage, improve customer satisfaction, and maintain above-average returns.

Most organizations that operate one business often combine their business-level strategy with the corporate-level system to devise a single level of the process.

An effective business-level strategy adequately defines a business's goals and policy standpoint to deliver customer value and gain a tremendous competitive advantage over competitors by using the business's core competencies.

Adopting the right business strategy for your business cannot be overemphasized. It determines the company's direction, defines how it serves its customers, and helps the company establish its brand.

A business can have a corporate-level strategy, a business-level strategy, or a functional-level strategy, depending on the business's organizational structure. In an organization having multiple business units, each unit is a strategic business unit ( SBU ).

Creating a business-level strategy is the best way to bridge the gap between your hyper-specific functional strategy and the more general corporate strategy.

The main difference between business and corporate level strategies is that the former is more focused.

Compared to the corporate strategy level, business-level strategists can develop a more detailed and accurate description of their customers than at the corporate strategy level.

Difference between business and corporate level strategies

Types of Business Level Strategies

There is no best generic strategy for your business. The best business strategy for you depends on two factors: your customers and competitors.

Although you can incorporate different business-level strategies into your business to give it the needed competitive advantage, some of them stand out.

Here are the main business-level strategies available for you to choose from.

1. Cost-Leadership Business Level Strategy

A cost-leadership business strategy allows businesses to increase their overall efficiency by reducing operational costs. It will enable companies to charge lower prices for their products than their competitors.

With consumers being more aware of their choices than ever before and constantly looking to increase their purchasing power, the onus is on you to use an effective price strategy that distinguishes you in the market and can not be turned down.

There are two main cost-leadership business-level strategy types: broad cost leadership and focused cost leadership. What differentiates them is that the broad cost leadership’s competitive scope is broad in target, while that of focused cost leadership is narrow and focused.

Cost leadership strategy is best suited for businesses capable of lowering their operational costs low enough to post profit margins while outpricing their competition. Businesses offering a lower price than their competitors can use this strategy.

Cost Leadership Strategy

2. Differentiation Business Level Strategy

A differentiation strategy provides a product or service with differentiated features compared to competitors.

Differentiation strategy is characterized by innovation. You must conduct extensive market research , identify exploitable gaps in the market, and tailor your business to offer a product or service that bridges that gap or improves an existing product or service.

This business-level strategy is best suited for any business or industry. A wide range of companies uses it to compete for market share as long as they can identify gaps in the market that need to be filled.

3. Focused Differentiation Business Level Strategy

A focused differentiation business strategy targets a specific and narrow segment of customers . It offers them differentiated products with unique features tailored to the target customers.

The former’s focus on a very narrow segment of the market is what separates the focused differentiation business level strategy from the general differentiation strategy.

Focused differentiation is best suited for markets where understanding product comparison is critical. New businesses find competing with companies using a robust differentiation business strategy challenging.

This strategy is effective for businesses that have identified a niche in the market to tailor their products or services. Focusing on a target audience ensures new businesses can get significant demand for their products or services.

Choosing a Generic Business- Level Strategy

4. Focused Low-Cost Business Level Strategy

The focused low-cost business strategy only focuses on a small niche of customers and comes at a lower cost than a strong strategy. It is best to tailor your focus to a particular niche for businesses that do not seem to appeal to the broader market.

By offering the lowest cost provider in your market niche, your business tends to stand out against a wide range of competitors.

A focused low-cost strategy is best suited for businesses with many competitors. Despite the low cost, they are not market strong, or only a small market segment of specific customers can generate the required revenue for your business.

5. Integrated Low Cost/Differentiation Strategy

Businesses employ an integrated low-cost or differentiation strategy with differentiated products offered to customers at a lower cost than competitors.

As a hybrid business strategy, the integrated strategy is quickly gaining ground brought about by increasing global competition.

The benefit that companies that choose this hybrid business level strategy have over those that rely on a single system is that by integrating these two business level strategies, you position yourself better to adapt to quicker environmental changes.

You can use flexible manufacturing systems to maintain superior quality in the product development process while reducing operating expenses.

This hybrid business level strategy is best suited for businesses that operate in a market niche where the buyer's needs and preferences are entirely different from the rest of the current market.

New Perspectives on Competitive Strategy

How to Implement a Business-Level Strategy

You need to identify and implement your business objectives in a way that will offer numerous benefits to your business to implement a business-level strategy successfully.

Apart from identifying your goals, you need to have a detailed plan to help your business achieve all of its highlighted goals.

Here is a list of steps to successfully implement a business-level strategy for your business.

1. Identify Target Market and Consumers

The first step in implementing a successful business-level strategy is identifying all relevant target markets and consumers.

Before successfully implementing the needed changes to your business organization, you need to spell out the market you are seeking to penetrate and the ideal business’s customers to which the market will likely open your business.

Consider your competitors that have already experienced significant success in that same market you are about to venture in, their average pricing, the target market, and customers that patronize their products and services.

2. Find Out the Needs of Your Identified Market

Your competitor's sales should closely guide the needs of your customer base. You need to identify your customer's particular needs and then relate them to the products and services you hope to offer.

Consider the price standpoint of your customer and build your product price around the average price a large majority of your customer base can afford.

3. Find Effective Ways of Catering to Your Customer's Needs

Figure out ways to address your highlighted needs. You need to go back to the table with your company executives and build strategies, including where to seek vendors, getting your products to the desired target, and making them within reach of your customers.

Pick a fair price for your product or service that is favorable to the business and your customer base, as you already have established competitors.

4. Compare Your Business Level Strategies with Competitor's Strategies

Considered the business level strategy your competitors employ that still enables them to post massive profit margins.

Most businesses use cost savings as an effective business-level strategy to return large sums of profits and build brand loyalty.

This strategy is of great help if you are looking for how your competitors' business model is geared at improving and adapting to evolving changes in the narrow market segment.

5. Set Common Goals with the Company's Goals

Your goals must be met by all stakeholders of the company and the company as a whole.

Devise a plan for company-wide goals that positions you to consolidate and strengthen your potential within the market. Your business should leverage core competencies to create value that satisfies customers.

Business goals should be specific and should be attainable. You are in constant competition; your goals must be geared towards that solid fact. Successful businesses use the SMART goal framework to set their business and financial goals .

Setting Goals to Improve Your Career

6. Set Unique Goals for your Departments

Individual department goals help the business better segment responsibilities that play a massive role in ensuring the success of the overall company's goals.

Constant communication must be maintained among all quarters of your organization, especially between the corporate level and the employees, to generate the result required and translate into the success of department-assigned tasks.

7. Complete Routine Checks at Each Company Level

Schedule monthly checks that help track your level of progress and ensure you are not diverting from the organization's set goals and objectives.

Your monthly review is done on the corporate level to give room for relevant information to be disseminated down the corporate ladder from department heads to individual department members.

Examples of Business Level Strategies

A breakdown of business-level strategy examples and their application is a good way of understanding how business-level strategy differs from other strategy levels.

The ideal business-level strategy is the one that helps reduce costs and increase return on investment ( ROI ).

Popular business-level strategy examples to aid your understanding include

1. Cost Leadership

An example of business-level strategy businesses employs under cost leadership is offering a product or service at the lowest cost attainable to competitors to gain a considerable market share.

Businesses strive for cost reduction by improving or constructing new and adequate facilities, investing in tools and equipment, and reducing the overhead and administrative expenses of the company.

Cost leaders are companies that are the cheapest manufacturers of a product and providers of a service.

One common misconception about this strategy is that profit margins are lower. You can use rigid cost controls and better facilities for mass-producing products at scale to drive costs and increase your profit margins.

With a focused cost leadership strategy, businesses compete on price with their competitors but focus on a niche market. This strategy helps you better understand your customers’ needs and serve them better.

2. Differentiation

In the case of differentiation, instead of reducing the business operational cost and diverting the money saved to customers, differentiation strategies focus on developing and marketing products to offer customers the most significant value.

There are two forms of differentiation strategy: broad and focused differentiation strategies. What differentiates them is that a broad differentiation strategy focuses on a vast range of customers while a focused differentiation strategy focuses on a smaller number of customers.

The Apple brand, which has created a niche in the smartphone market, is a perfect example. Apple invested heavily in customer service, research and development, and marketing, allowing it to charge a premium price without affecting its market share.

3. Focused Low Cost

Apart from reducing costs from their operations, businesses decide to tailor and divert all their focus and attention to a particular market subset for maximal value as their business-level strategy.

Consider a business that produces and sells manufacturing tools. This business can focus its tool manufacturing strictly on the professional tradesperson market.

4. Focused Differentiation Strategy

This business-level strategy involves a business choosing to differentiate itself from its competitors while focusing a large chunk of its efforts on a smaller subset of its customer market.

The idea behind a focused strategy is that with a smaller target market comes the ability to better understand the business customer base and their needs and successfully deliver the value the customers need.

An example of the focused differentiation strategy is the automobile company Rolls Royce which focuses on offering premium-priced cars for a sub-niche of the global car market.

5. Integrated Low Cost/Differentiation

A hybrid strategy that combines low-cost and differentiation techniques is the most effective approach for several businesses.

The premium fast food restaurant industry is a business venture that utilizes the integrated low-cost/ differentiation strategy to near perfection.

They offer low prices that characterize established food chains and a differentiated range of offerings that take them a step higher than most fast food chains.

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Anastasia has been a professional blogger and researcher since 2014. She loves to perform in-depth software reviews to help software buyers make informed decisions when choosing project management software, CRM tools, website builders, and everything around growing a startup business.

Anastasia worked in management consulting and tech startups, so she has lots of experience in helping professionals choosing the right business software.

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Levels of planning, page actions.

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There are several levels of planning , including:

  • Strategic planning : This involves setting long-term goals and objectives for an organization , and determining the best course of action to achieve them.
  • Tactical planning : This involves developing specific plans and actions to implement the strategic goals and objectives.
  • Operational planning : This involves the day-to-day management and execution of plans and actions to achieve the tactical goals.
  • Contingency planning : This involves developing plans and procedures to respond to unexpected events or emergencies that could disrupt operations.
  • Emergency planning : This involves developing plans and procedures to respond to an imminent threat or crisis that could have a significant impact on an organization.
  • 1 Levels of planning in relation to organizational structure
  • 2 Levels of planning in relation to time horizon
  • 3 Example structure of plans in a company
  • 4 Strategic, tactical, operational planning in detail
  • 5 Contingency and emergency planning in detail
  • 6 References

Levels of planning in relation to organizational structure

In a corporate structure, the levels of planning can be related to different functional areas and levels of management . These can include:

  • Corporate-level planning : This involves setting overall strategic goals and objectives for the entire organization, and determining the best course of action to achieve them.
  • Business-unit level planning : This involves developing specific plans and actions for individual business units or divisions within the organization to implement the corporate-level strategic goals.
  • Functional-level planning : This involves developing plans and actions for individual functional areas within the organization, such as finance, marketing , or operations, to support the business-unit level goals.
  • Operational-level planning : This involves the day-to-day management and execution of plans and actions to achieve the functional and business-unit level goals.
  • Contingency and emergency planning : This involves developing plans and procedures to respond to unexpected events or emergencies that could disrupt operations, both at the corporate and functional levels.

Levels of planning in relation to time horizon

The levels of planning can also be related to different time horizons, such as:

  • Long-term planning : This involves setting goals and objectives for a time horizon of several years or more, and determining the best course of action to achieve them.
  • Medium-term planning : This involves developing specific plans and actions for a time horizon of one to three years to implement the long-term goals.
  • Short-term planning : This involves developing specific plans and actions for a time horizon of one year or less to implement the medium-term goals.
  • Operational planning : This involves the day-to-day management and execution of plans and actions to achieve the short-term goals.
  • Contingency and emergency planning : This involves developing plans and procedures to respond to unexpected events or emergencies that could disrupt operations, regardless of the time horizon.

It's worth noting that different organizations might have different time horizons for their planning, and the specific labels and time frames may vary.

Example structure of plans in a company

The structure of plans in a company can vary depending on the organization's size, industry , and specific needs . However, a typical structure of plans in a company might include the following:

  • Corporate-level plans : These plans set the overall strategic direction and goals for the entire organization, and may include a corporate mission statement, vision, values, and long-term strategic objectives .
  • Business-unit level plans : These plans provide specific strategic direction and goals for individual business units or divisions within the organization, such as product lines, customer segments, or geographic regions.
  • Functional-level plans : These plans provide specific direction and goals for individual functional areas within the organization, such as finance, marketing, or operations.
  • Operational plans : These plans describe the day-to-day activities and processes that will be used to achieve the strategic, business-unit, and functional-level goals.
  • Contingency and emergency plans : These plans provide procedures and protocols for dealing with unexpected events or emergencies that may disrupt the normal operations of the organization.
  • Project plans : These plans provide specific steps and actions to achieve specific goals within a specific time frame, usually for a one-time project or a specific initiative.

All of these plans should be aligned, and work together to achieve the organization's goals and objectives. The structure of plans can also be supported by policies, procedures, and guidelines that provide specific instructions and guidelines for employees to follow.

Strategic, tactical, operational planning in detail

Strategic, tactical, and operational planning are three different levels of planning that organizations use to achieve their goals and objectives.

  • Strategic planning : Strategic planning is the process of setting long-term goals and objectives for an organization, and determining the best course of action to achieve them. This level of planning typically involves high-level decision-making and is focused on the overall direction and vision of the organization. It is often done by top management and stakeholders , and it can take into account both internal and external factors that may impact the organization's success.
  • Tactical planning : Tactical planning is the process of developing specific plans and actions to implement the strategic goals and objectives. This level of planning is typically focused on a time horizon of one to three years and involves a more detailed analysis of the resources and capabilities needed to achieve the strategic goals. It is often done by middle management and is focused on the specific steps and actions that need to be taken to achieve the strategic goals.
  • Operational planning : Operational planning is the process of the day-to-day management and execution of plans and actions to achieve the tactical goals. This level of planning is focused on the short-term and is often done by front-line managers and employees. It involves the management of resources, such as people, equipment, and materials, and the coordination of activities to achieve the tactical goals. This level of planning is often called "business as usual" and is focused on the day-to-day operations of the organization.

It's worth noting that the levels of planning are not always distinct and separate, and there's often overlap and interaction between them. The main goal is to have a clear and aligned set of plans and actions that will help the organization achieve its goals and objectives.

Contingency and emergency planning in detail

Contingency and emergency planning are related but distinct types of planning that organizations use to prepare for and respond to unexpected events or emergencies.

  • Contingency planning : Contingency planning is the process of developing plans and procedures to respond to unexpected events or disruptions that could impact the normal operations of an organization. This type of planning is focused on identifying potential risks and vulnerabilities, and developing plans to mitigate or manage them. The goal of contingency planning is to minimize the impact of an unexpected event on the organization and its stakeholders, and to ensure a quick and efficient recovery.
  • Emergency planning : Emergency planning is the process of developing plans and procedures to respond to an imminent threat or crisis that could have a significant impact on an organization. Emergency planning is focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of employees, customers, and other stakeholders, and on minimizing damage to the organization's assets and reputation. The goal of emergency planning is to minimize the impact of an emergency on the organization and its stakeholders, and to ensure a quick and efficient recovery.

Both contingency and emergency planning involve identifying potential risks and hazards, developing plans and procedures to respond to them, and conducting training and exercises to test and improve the plans. It also involves involving the right stakeholders, such as employees, customers, and other key partners, in the planning process .

  • Dzurik, A.A., Theriaque, D.A., (2003). Water Resources Planning , Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Grenning, J. (2002). Planning poker or how to avoid analysis paralysis while release planning . Hawthorn Woods: Renaissance Software Consulting , 3, 22-23.
  • Pandey, A.K., (1990). Local Level Planning and Rural Development , Mittal Publications.
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Study Suggests People In Urban Areas With More Green Space Have Better Mental Health

A photo of a woman sitting at a table on a plaza surrounded by trees and fall leaves.

A  new study  from the  Texas A&M University School of Public Health  suggests that city dwellers who have more exposure to urban green spaces require fewer mental health services.

The study, published in the  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , was conducted by  Jay Maddock , Ph.D., Regents Professor of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M, and colleagues from the Center for Health and Nature , a collaboration between  Texas A&M Health ,  Houston Methodist  and  Texan by Nature . Maddock also directs the center.

The researchers measured urban greenness with  NatureScore , which uses numerous data sets related to factors such as air, noise and light pollution, parks and tree canopies to calculate the amount and quality of natural elements for any known address in the United States and several other countries. Scores range from 0-19 points for Nature Deficient to 80-100 for Nature Utopia.

For addresses, they used data on mental health visits aggregated at the ZIP code level from  Texas Hospital Outpatient Public Use Data Files  from 2014 to mid-2019. The data contained information about patient encounters, including a patient’s age, gender, race/ethnicity, educational attainment, employment status, poverty level, principal diagnosis and ZIP code, although no patients were identified.

“The association between exposure to nature and better mental health is  well established  in the United States and elsewhere, but most studies use just one or two measurements of this exposure,” Maddock said. “Our study was the first to use NatureScore, which provides more complex data, to study the correlation between urban  nature exposure and mental health .”

A total of 61,391,400 adult outpatient encounters in Texas cities for depression, bipolar disorders, stress and anxiety were selected. The sample included data from 1,169 ZIP codes in urban Texas, with a median NatureScore of 85.8. About half of the sample had high NatureScores (80+), and about 22 percent had NatureScores below 40.

Of these encounters, 63 percent were women, 30 percent were 65 years old or older, 54 percent were non-Hispanic white, and 15 percent were Hispanic. At the ZIP code level, 27 percent of the total population had a bachelor’s degree, 58 percent were employed, 14 percent lived under poverty, and 17 percent lacked health insurance coverage. The percentage of those 65 years old and older, white, Hispanic and employed were higher in areas with a higher NatureScore. In addition, the ZIP codes with a higher NatureScore had lower percentages of people who were Black, living in poverty or without insurance.

The trend for various mental health encounters decreased as the NatureScore of a neighborhood increased, and the rates of mental health encounters were about 50 percent lower in neighborhoods with NatureScores over 60. Those who lived in neighborhoods with the two highest NatureScore categories — Nature Rich and Utopia — had significantly lower rates of mental health encounters compared to neighborhoods with the lowest NatureScore category.

“We found that a NatureScore above 40 — considered Nature Adequate — seems to be the threshold for good mental health,” Maddock said. “People in these neighborhoods have a 51 percent lower likelihood of developing depression and a 63 percent lower likelihood for developing bipolar disorders.”

The study’s lead author, Omar M. Makram, noted that these findings could have important implications for urban planning.

“Increasing green space in cities could promote well-being and mental health, which is critically important given that  more than 22 percent  of the adult population in the United States with a mental health disorder,” he said.

This article by Ann Kellett originally appeared on Vital Record .

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  1. BUSINESS LEVEL STRATEGY

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COMMENTS

  1. Corporate Level Strategy: Explained with Examples and Types

    A corporate-level strategy refers to the overarching strategic plan that dictates the direction of the entire organization. It's the highest level of strategy, covering all of the firm's diverse operations, and is typically set by top management and the board of directors. Key aspects of corporate-level strategy include:

  2. What Is a Corporate-Level Strategy? (With Examples)

    A corporate-level strategy is a multi-tiered company plan that leaders use to define, outline and achieve specific business goals.

  3. Corporate Planning

    Corporate planning is setting long-term objectives and goals within the organization's scope to enable an environment conducive to growth in terms of revenue and profit margins. It includes defining strategies, decision-making, and allocating resources.

  4. What is Corporate Strategic Planning?

    Corporate Strategic Planning is a companywide approach at the business unit and corporate level for developing strategic plans to achieve a longer-term vision. The process includes defining the corporate strategic goals and intentions at the top and cascading them through each level of the organization.

  5. The 4 Levels Of Strategy: The Difference & How To Apply Them

    The corporate strategy defines the organization's overall direction and the high-level ideas of how to move towards it. These plans are usually created by leadership, such as the CEO and top management.

  6. Corporate Level Strategy: Definition, Types & Examples

    Corporate level strategy is the foundation of your business. It defines the purpose of your company and affects all the other strategies of your business. The most common types of corporate-level strategies include: Expansion/Growth Stability Retrenchment Combination

  7. What Is Corporate Strategy? The Four Key Components

    Corporate-level strategy is the highest level of corporate strategic planning. (We'll dive deeper into it in this guide). Business-level strategy Business-level strategy connects the strategic goals of the company strategy with the needs and capacities of the business unit level.

  8. The Ultimate Guide to Corporate Strategic Planning

    The corporate strategic planning process includes defining companywide strategic goals from the top tiers of an organization and implementing them throughout every level. For many businesses, corporate strategic planning is the first step and strategic planning goals define annual budgeting and allocation of resources.

  9. What Is A Business Level Strategy? How To Create It + Examples

    Business level strategy is a sum of the strategic planning and implementation activities that set and steer the direction of an individual business unit. These activities will generally include how to gain a competitive advantage and create customer value in the specific market the business unit operates in. As a result, organizations with only ...

  10. 5 essential tips for creating a strong corporate plan

    1. A corporate plan is not a strategic or business plan A business plan explains how a new or existing company or project brings in money and how the business is run on a daily basis, including the budget and needed resources. Meanwhile, a strategic plan is a blueprint for where the company is going.

  11. Corporate Level Strategy: What It Is Plus 9 Examples

    Corporate level strategy is the top of the planning pyramid. It is the main purpose of your business. Think of corporate level strategy as the destination toward which your business is moving. That destination affects all the strategies and decisions in every other part of your business.

  12. What is corporate planning?

    The corporate planning process is essential to executing your business plan. Here's what you need to know to engage in corporate strategic planning. Why Corporate Strategic Planning Matters There are different types of planning in the business world, and they can sometimes run together.

  13. Strategic Planning

    Strategic planning is the art of formulating business strategies, implementing them, and evaluating their impact on organizational objectives. Corporate Finance Institute . Menu. ... The strategic planning process requires considerable thought and planning on the part of a company's upper-level management. Before settling on a plan of action ...

  14. Corporate Strategy

    There are several important components of corporate strategy that leaders of organizations focus on. The main tasks of corporate strategy are: Allocation of resources. Organizational design. Portfolio management. Strategic tradeoffs. In the following sections, this guide will break down the four main components outlined above.

  15. Strategic Planning in Diversified Companies

    Strategic Planning in Diversified Companies. by. Richard F. Vancil. and. Peter Lorange. From the Magazine (January 1975) The widely accepted theory of corporate strategic planning is simple: using ...

  16. What Is Corporate Level Strategies: Features and Examples

    A corporate-level strategy is a multi-tiered company plan that leaders use to define, outline, and achieve specific business goals. A corporate-level strategy can be used by a small business to increase its profits over the next fiscal year.

  17. Breaking Down The Three Levels Of Strategy In Any Business

    Strategy Level 1: The Corporate Level The corporate level is the highest, and therefore the most broad, level of strategy in business. Corporate-level strategy should define your organization's main purpose. It should also direct all your downstream decision-making.

  18. What is Strategic Planning? A 5-Step Guide [2024] • Asana

    Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization's mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives.

  19. Portfolio Planning and Corporate-Level Strategy

    Each of these boxes has a set of recommendations associated with it. (Internet Center for Management and Business Administration Inc, 2009-2010). Figure 8.20: The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix [Image description] Limitations to Portfolio Planning. Although portfolio planning is a useful tool, this tool has important limitations.

  20. What Is Corporate Planning? Benefits, Types and Tips

    Corporate planning is the process by which businesses create strategies for meeting business goals and achieving objectives. It involves strategy definition, strategy direction, decision-making and resource allocation. Corporate planning ensures that business operations are orderly and that the team works towards the same goals.

  21. What is Business Level Strategy? Definition, Types, Examples

    The primary business level strategy definition is the strategic planning and implementation processes incorporated by successful businesses in their niche market. Your choice of business-level strategy is configured to gain a competitive advantage, improve customer satisfaction, and maintain above-average returns.

  22. Levels of planning

    Corporate-level plans: These plans set the overall strategic direction and goals for the entire organization, and may include a corporate mission statement, vision, values, and long-term strategic objectives.

  23. 3 Types of Business-Level Strategies (With Examples)

    3 types of business-level strategies. There are three types of business-level strategies that you can use in your business. Each one caters to an increase in profit and company unity. Corporate-level strategy: This strategy is implemented at the highest level of the company. Company executives look at ways to improve and expand the company.

  24. What Is an MBA? About the Degree, Programs, Jobs, and More

    A Master of Business Administration, or MBA degree, is a graduate-level business and management degree with a focus on leadership and managerial skills. By earning this degree, you can equip yourself with the skills and knowledge to accelerate your career, transition to new industries, or even launch your own businesses.

  25. Succession Talk Looms for TD's CEO, Jefferies Analysts Say

    Succession planning is emerging as a key theme for Canada's biggest lenders this year, particularly at Toronto-Dominion Bank, according to a new report from Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analysts.

  26. Five moves Walmart is making to overhaul its business for the ...

    Walmart is boosting the average pay of its store managers to $128,000 from $117,000. The boost of 9%, the first increase in a decade, went into effect on February 1. The company said in a news ...

  27. US Jobless Claims Decline to the Lowest Level in a Month

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  28. Study Suggests People In Urban Areas With More Green Space Have Better

    A new study from the Texas A&M University School of Public Health suggests that city dwellers who have more exposure to urban green spaces require fewer mental health services. The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, was conducted by Jay Maddock, Ph.D., Regents Professor of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M, and colleagues ...