What is Business Strategy

jerry240377, do you want me to explain BUSINESS STRATEGY and then give you some examples?

2010-04-13 12:04:55 補充：
BUSINESS STRATEGY is strategy that is made among business units. A business unit is normally a sales entity (or a shop) which generates revenue for the group. Business strategy considers how to sustain competitive advantages through one or more than one of the following means.

(1) Pricing
For example, average price? Or above average price? Or below average price?
Parkn Shop (百佳) decides the pricing level in its supermarkets from time to time. For example, milk was on sale last week, rice is on sale this week and maybe something else will be on sale next week.
When are we going to reduce the price? Are we going to increase the price during holiday seasons?

(2) Products
What products are we going to develop/sell in what market?
For example, an electrical appliances store in Singapore or Malaysia may want to sell air-conditioners, whereas the one in England and Scotland may be selling heaters. The electrical appliances store in a young, trendy shopping mall may be selling MP3 music players. The store in a senior citizens housing area may want to sell cassette players. Fortress (豐澤) sells heaters in winter but not in summer. Instead, it sells a lot of air-conditioners.

(3) Product differentiation
CSL 1010 mobile network is of a very high quality but the monthly charges are expensive. Haagen-Dazs ice-cream is very nice but also expensive.
Some customers are willing to pay a high price for high-quality products.

(4) The lock-in of customers
As every computer runs on Microsoft Windows, I have to buy Microsoft Office.

The above are some of the business strategies that are commonly used. They are at the business level and are similar to marketing strategies.

Mick, please give some real case to let me know business strategy, tks

Strategic or institutional management is the conduct of drafting, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives.[1] It is the process of specifying the organization's mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans, often in terms of projects and programs, which are designed to achieve these objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the policies and plans, projects and programs. A balanced scorecard is often used to evaluate the overall performance of the business and its progress towards objectives.
Strategic management is a level of managerial activity under setting goals and over Tactics. Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies. In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about "strategic alignment" between the organization and its environment or "strategic consistency". According to Arieu (2007), "there is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context."

“Strategic management is an ongoing process that evaluates and controls the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment.” (Lamb, 1984:ix)[2]