5. How should you think about company strategy?

A key consideration when starting a business is the development of a strategy and the establishment of essential capabilities. Company strategy can be defined as the integrated set of decisions made on activities to position the company where it can deliver unique value to its customers in its chosen markets while earning superior returns in the long run. In short, strategy defines how you compete in your chosen markets on a sustained basis.

Deciding Where to Compete

When I first set out in establishing businesses, I quickly realized that strategy isn’t about waiting until every piece is neatly in place. It’s about making deliberate choices about where to compete, even before you have all the resources to back them up. In those early days, we set ambitious initiatives—some that felt almost out of reach. But having those goals forced us to stretch, to prioritize, and to focus our energy on what mattered most. There are many challenges New Zealand entrepreneurs have to face in building a global business.

Too often, businesses fall into the trap of thinking strategy is a grand document produced once and then left on a shelf. My experience was the opposite. Strategy is alive. It is built through daily decisions, trial and error, and the discipline of aligning short-term actions with long-term goals. Even if you don’t have the means yet, charting the direction matters. It keeps you honest about where you’re heading.

Strategy as a Journey

It’s tempting to believe that strategy is a neat sequence—you decide, you plan, and then you execute. In practice, it is much messier. Strategy is a journey, not a destination. Along the way, you adapt to new discoveries, unexpected challenges, and market feedback.

In each of my start-up businesses, we often started with what we thought was the best possible plan, only to learn that the market wanted something slightly different. That feedback loop—listening, adjusting, and trying again—is invaluable. I learned to treat strategy less as a rigid roadmap and more as a compass. The path might twist and turn, but as long as we were moving in the right direction, we were making progress.

Your next read in the series 6. To compete how should you differentiate your business?

Building Global Businesses

A fuller explanation on this subject is outlined in my book “Going Global” www.goglobal.co.nz