Porter guy again

For record's sake, from Harvard's Michael Porter in INSEAD's newsletter article

Essence of Strategy
"Figuring out which set of needs you are going to meet in your company, which are different from the needs that your competitors are trying to meet."

"You want to find a different kind of value that you can deliver to a different set of customers. Strategy is fundamentally about how you are going to deliver unique value."

Clarity of Strategy
"In difficult times, companies that win are the ones who are very clear about who they are and how they are trying to deliver value."

"To survive, you have to have the capacity to integrate the short term and the long term, and think about the two together."
I call this the ability to marry dichotomies.

What Porter says sounds like common sense, but in reality there is a lot of rigour and work that goes into truly understanding what your competitive advantage is, and how you can deliver value based on that. This doesn't just apply to companies; it also works in life: Figuring out where your strengths lie, and how you can leverage them to ensure you deliver unique value to your employer, which then adds to your market value. Trudging along from one task to another, or from one job to another without a clear strategy is a tactical, almost transactional way to lead a life.