Brewing a Competitive Strategy

How to turn industry pressure into a strategic advantage

A few weeks back, I wrote a piece on strategy and why understanding the external environment is an essential early step in developing a business strategy.

Drawing on the classic business tool of PESTLE analysis, I used the fictional Unscrambled Beans Café, an independent speciality coffee shop based in a large international city with growth plans, to illustrate in this article how business founders can begin to anticipate and adapt to external changes.

Here’s that article:

I argued that, by using tools like PESTLE, businesses can gain early clarity on political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental shifts that affect their future, helping them craft a strategy that prevents strategic drift and positions them to thrive in a changing environment.

PESTLE helps map the broad, systemic forces shaping the business landscape. However, to build a truly resilient strategy, business leaders also need to focus on the specific industry dynamics and competitive pressures they’re facing.