Business Strategy

Instructor: Deepak Somaya

Intermediate Level • 6 hours to complete • Flexible Schedule

What You'll Learn

  • Explain how different functions and activities fit together in a firm and how they align with the environment to create overall business performance.
  • Describe and employ important strategic management tools and frameworks for business models.
  • Apply strategic management tools and frameworks to business contexts in an appropriate manner to arrive at insights for strategic decision making.
  • Develop a coherent and actionable strategic plan by critically analyzing and processing abundant and diverse business and industry information.

Skills You'll Gain

Analysis
Innovation
Strategic Leadership
Market Analysis
Strategic Decision-Making
Value Propositions
Business Strategy
Business Modeling
Organizational Strategy
Competitive Analysis

Shareable Certificate

Earn a shareable certificate to add to your LinkedIn profile

Outcomes

  • Learn new concepts from industry experts
  • Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
  • Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
  • Earn a shareable career certificate

There are 5 modules in this course

You will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and our learning environment. The orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required for the course.

The Leading Strategically module will lay the foundation of business strategy course. You will learn about mission, vision and values and their role in overall strategy landscape. You will learn about the VARS framework for analyzing business models and SWOT framework for understanding the fit and coherence of business strategy.

The Environmental Analysis module will focus on a key aspect of business strategy – analyzing and understanding the external environment of a firm. You will learn about the macro-environment of firms and the PESTEL framework for macro-environmental analysis. You will also learn about firms’ industry environment and understand how to predict industry profitability by using the 5-forces framework.

The module on Internal Analysis and Competitive Advantage will provide an in-depth understanding of the origins of unique company strengths and how they can produce a competitive advantage. You will learn about the origins and consequences of fundamental internal differences among firms using the analytical viewpoints of activities, resources, and capabilities. You will be introduced to the strategic tools of value chains, value networks, and the V-R-I framework to help you analyze the implications of these within-firm differences for (sustained) competitive advantage.

The Strategic Positioning and Strategic Renewal module brings together the internal and external aspects of strategic analysis to formulate an overall strategy for the firm. You will learn about the two main “generic strategies” that businesses can pursue, which can be complemented by broad or narrow scope to yield four key types of strategic positioning. You will also learn about “dual” strategies and why and how a firm's strategy must be adapted to strategically renew its positioning.