Competing Perspectives, Diverging Strategic Paths
To conduct effective business and successfully lead a company with competitive advantage, organizational leaders ought to have a defined strategy. Of course strategies are subject to change as internal and external environments shift, but possessing a clear strategy is essential to success. One way to think of strategy is as a perspective that orientates one’s navigation through the market.
Two leaders performing a SWOT analysis of an initiative, project, program, or organization might develop contrasting conclusions. This contrast is credited to different orienting perspectives; what one leader identifies as a strength another might identify as a weakness, and what one leader perceives as an opportunity another might identify as a threat. Thus, the formation of a strategic plan between these leaders will diverge, as will the ability to obtain and maintain competitive advantage, and ultimately the overall profitability.
Strategic Plan Alternatives
The capacity for a company to obtain and maintain the competitive advantage is shaped by one’s strategy, which, as aforementioned, is shaped by one’s orientating perspective. A leader’s orientating perspective and strategy might propel them to apply one of the following strategic plans:
Cost leadership: Producing products/services at lowest cost for scale, perhaps by having access to exclusive resources
Cost focus: Offering consumers the most affordable product/service, perhaps by selling high quantities at low prices, as exemplified by budget-shopping stores
Differentiation: Having a specialized product/service set apart from other offerings to reach a niche market
Differentiation focus: Reaching a niche or set apart consumer market
Two companies sharing the aim of profitability might approach an initiative with contrasting strategies, one of which will obtain [and ideally maintain] competitive advantage. Let’s examine a fabricated case study.
A Case Study
Possessing the shared goal of profit, two private for-profit academic institutes within the same neighborhood, equally sized and equally accessible by public transit, both offer educational opportunities to tenth to twelfth graders residing within the local district. Each institute’s leader approached their goal with different strategic plans.
The leader of the first institute settles on the strategic plan of differentiation. They do so by offering their students services not offered by the competitor, including access to free technology and the offering of language classes. This resulted in a higher number of enrolled students than before, but the board of directors was dissatisfied with the higher costs associated with these service offerings. Additionally, the board feared students transferring to the institute with lower tuition fees.
The leader of the second institute settles on the strategic plan of cost focus. They do so by offering private education with lower tuition rates than their competitor. This too resulted in elevated numbers of enrolled students. This organization also discovered higher operational costs with the heightened number of students, which again dissatisfied the board of directors. The board also feared students would transfer to the institute offering a broader range of courses and technologies.
Each institution’s board of directors demanded the institute’s leaders develop and utilize a new strategic plan to ensure competitive advantage. From this vantage point, the leaders each perform a SWOT analysis. The following is concluded.
The first leader concludes:
Strength: increased enrollment, speaking to current desirability of the institute within the market
Weakness: the declining global economy potentially leading consumers to perceive the cost of tuition as too high
Opportunity: offering tuition at lower prices to ensure retention of current students and attract more prospective students
Threat: operational costs not being covered if tuition fees are lower, decreasing income
The second leader concludes:
Strength: increased enrollment, speaking to current desirability of the institute within the market
Weakness: students not receiving the fullest latitude for success or return on investment
Opportunity: offering a more expansive range of extracurricular programming, including language courses and recreational sports
Threat: operational costs of increased extracurriculars not being met by current low tuition fees
Discussion Questions for Strategy Formation
For the sake of collaborative strategizing and learning from one another, I encourage you to consider, and discuss amongst your colleagues:
Which of the leaders’ analysis do you - as an emerging or experienced leader - most align with, and why?
What strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are these leaders overlooking?
Which of the institutions do you predict will obtain competitive advantage, and will this advantage be not only obtained but also maintained?
What strategic plan would you utilize if you were the leader of each institute?
Sideline Recommendation
David D. Brown, of Wondery, hosts a podcast titled Business Wars, in which a clever narrative depicts the way two companies fight for competitive advantage by enacting varying strategies. The podcast is compelling, and provokes within me the urge to predict the pending strategies and their results. Furthermore, the podcast has generally led to me developing preferential leanings toward one of two competing companies. I recommend it to all emerging and experienced leaders with a sense of business curiosity and interest in real case studies.
To Cite This Article in APA7:
Drost, A.R. (2025). Competing perspectives, Diverging strategic paths. https://TheBraidedStrategist.com/articles/competing-perspectives-diverging-strategic-paths
