Any coherent strategy pushes resources toward some ends and away from others. These are the inevitable consequences of scarcity and change. Yet this channeling of resources away from traditional uses is fraught with pain and difficulty.

Growth based upon substitution has a clear ceiling and, once the conversion to the substitute has taken place, the growth grinds to a sudden halt.

But unless you can buy companies for less than they are worth, or unless you are specially positioned to add more value to the target than anyone else can, no value is created by such expansion.

For Stewart Resnick, and now for me, a competitive advantage is interesting when one has insights into ways to increase its value. That means there must be things you can do, on your own, to increase its value.

Good strategy work is necessarily empirical and pragmatic.