MBA 540 ASSIGNMENT 4-1
This document is intended to be disseminated to all managers at every level to
understand business strategy, how it's created, and who is responsible for it. Business strategy is
simply the defined plan that the company intendeds to use to create value and gain a competitive
advantage within the market. This means that the company will continuously develop a plan on
how to be successful within the market the company intends to conduct business in. Business
strategies are developed using several key methods such as providing a value to customers within
a market, provide a unique set of resources and capabilities to their customers compared to the
competitors within the market, and maintain the competitive advantage by ensuring competitors
can't mimic the current strategy being executed.
The previous instances are all guided by different analyses that are conducted such as external
analysis (customer's and the market/industry), the company's mission, and internal analysis (the
company's resources and capabilities). Once all the information is gathered, the strategy is
formulated by understanding three strategic levels which are corporate strategy, business unit
strategy, and functional strategy. Corporate strategy is the understanding of what markets to
compete in at the executive level of the organization. Business unit strategy is the decision of
how to compete to gain the advantage made at the manager level. The last level is functional
strategy which is how to implement the business strategy within areas like operations,
information technology, finance, and other key areas that will align with the overall business.
Corporate strategy differs from a business unit strategy because corporate strategy focuses on the
competitive advantage in several different markets while business unit strategy focuses on a
single market. Through corporate strategy, businesses can identify other key markets that they
can vertically integrate themselves in to be competitive. Businesses can also conduct horizontal
