Strategy

Lotus New Market Strategy

Something I threw together for a bit of fun. What if the car brand Lotus wanted to expand into a new market? The PPTX deck can be found here.

Wednesday, November 22, 2023 | 1 minute Read

BYD Auto Analysis: 3Cs, Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, SWOT, 7Ps, Porter’s Five Forces, STEEPLE

A quick review of BYD Auto, focussing on EVs, using a number of frameworks.

Wednesday, September 27, 2023 | 4 minutes Read

Business Model Innovation (HEC Paris)

https://www.coursera.org/learn/business-model General notes Business vs strategy Business model: a description of how a company generates profit Versus strategy: a business model can be used for competitive analysis, portfolio analysis (corporate strategy), business analysis Business models Odyssey 3.14’s business model components value proposition (what, for who, price) value architecture (how - value chain, resources, competencies) profit equation (revenues, costs) Business model canvas overlap customer segments, customer relationships, value proposition = value proposition key partners, key activities, key resources, channels = value architecture revenue stream, cost structure = profit equation Innovation What: Product, process, managerial, business model

Wednesday, August 30, 2023 | 5 minutes Read

Business Strategy from Wharton: Competitive Advantage

https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:Wharton+StrategyX+1T2023/home Strategy Definition a distinctive … different from competitors …array of… more than one …interdependent choices that… complementary …address certain questions objective where to compete (product, customers, geography) value proposition source of competitive advantage (price, costs; activites, resources, capabilities) Evaluation Internal Fit Strategy, CA and OE vs SP Competitive advantage Fundamentally higher prices and/or lower costs Operational effectiveness (OE) Best practice → absolute but not relative improvement (often through copying) Necessary but not sufficient, as often leads to strategic convergence, meaning the value proposition too similar for consumers (low differentiation) Strategic positioning (SP)

Wednesday, July 12, 2023 | 5 minutes Read

Corporate Strategy (UCL/UoL)

https://www.coursera.org/learn/corporatestrategy Introduction Corporation = multiple businesses Businesses differentiated by who, what, how (customer, product, place) Corporate strategy = portfolio selection + portfolio organisation Ownership Ownership matrix: Parent vs business, public vs private Shares ≠ votes. Example: Family owns 80% of parent, which owns 40% of business (but 60% of voting rights). Family have 32% of shares and 48% of votes. But as family has 80% of parent (majority), they can control all 60% of voting rights.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023 | 11 minutes Read

Launching an Edible Insect Business, Part IV: Go-to-Market

We’ve assessed the potential market size and we’ve seen who’s currently in the market, along with their product lines. Next: based on everything we’ve found so far from our research, what’s our go-to-market strategy? Product-market fit In my previous article, I hypothesised that larger insects (likely crickets and/or locusts) would be a good product to sell, for three reasons: It is an unfulfilled niche - most insects sold in the UK are small. It could increase our price:weight ratio, making them more comparable with substitute products. Customers may prefer the more satisfying experience of eating a larger insect. Of course, when you have a hypothesis, what do you do? Systematically test to prove its validity!

Wednesday, June 14, 2023 | 7 minutes Read

Applying Core Mental Models to Strategy Consulting

As a Farnam Street post states: Mental models are how we understand the world. A mental model is simply a representation of how something works. The page provides a long list of mental models, with summaries, and books that go into further detail. According to FS, there are nine “core” mental models: The Map is Not the Territory Circle of Competence First Principles Thinking Thought Experiment Second-Order Thinking Probabilistic Thinking Inversion Occam’s Razor Hanlon’s Razor Given I’m a consultant, I thought it could be fun to invent a consulting scenario utilising all these. Note this is entirely a creation and has no relation to any client I or my company have worked with (not that I know of anyway!)

Wednesday, January 11, 2023 | 4 minutes Read