Business Level Strategy

Business-level strategy addresses the question of how a firm will compete in a

particular industry 
Business-level strategy, in simple words, is a layout, plan, or roadmap that
helps a business to provide value to the customers and gain a competitive
advantage by making the best use of its core competencies.

A business-level strategy may be of different types, but it must always

consider three integral elements;

 providing value to the customers

 Developing and maintaining a competitive advantage.
 Avoiding a competitive disadvantage.

The business-level strategy may vary for the same organization’s different
business units (strategic business units). In such a situation, every strategic
business unit (SBU) will have its own business-level strategy.

Now, every business unit may not follow the same strategy as other units.
That is because every SBU serves a different audience and even may belong
to a different industry

Firms compete on two general dimensions—the source of competitive advantage

(cost or differentiation) and the scope of operations (broad or narrow). Four possible
generic business-level strategies emerge from these decisions.