Strategy narrows the competitive field

An effective strategy focuses on a specific field in which to win. The where-to-play and how-to-win questions from the heart of the strategy. The winning aspiration “broadly defines the scope of the firm’s activities; where to play and how to win define the specific activities of the organization—what the firm will do, and where and how it will do this, to achieve its aspirations.^[1]

Where to play represents the set of choices that narrow the competitive field. The questions to be asked focus on where the company will compete—in which markets, with which customers and consumers, in which channels, in which product categories, and at which vertical stage or stages of the industry in question. This set of questions is vital; no company can be all things to all people and still win, so it is important to understand which where-to-play choices will best enable the company to win.^[2]

The where-to-play questions include those like the following which, when taken together, capture the strategic playing field for the firm.^[3]

narrow or broad?
demographic segments? (e.g., men ages eighteen to twenty-four, midlife urbanites, working moms)
geographies? (local, national, international, developed world, economically fast-advancing countries like Brazil and China).
services, product lines, and categories?
channels? (e.g., direct to consumer, online, mass merchandise, grocery, department store)
upstream, downstream, or vertically integrated?

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