Michael E.Porter asked and answered this question in an HBR article in November 1996. To paraphrase him today using Twitter his response would now read something as follows “Strategy is be different. Be different is unique value. Unique value is doing different activities, doing activities differently, or both.”

Much has changed in the work since he wrote those words. However the fundamental truth of them has not changed.

The growth of the web has changed much, not the least of which is its impact on business models. We are now witnessing an explosion in the number and types of business models. Here are but five examples.

1. Skype
2. Cell phone usage in rural communities in Bangladesh
3. iTunes Store
4. Innocentive
5. Tata Motors

A wise man once said “the future arrives every minute”. And our future in business is going to increasingly revolve around business model innovation. So back to Porter. If strategy is about the unique ability to perform activities that differentiate yourself in a market, then as Alex Osterwalder so adeptly lays out in his Business Model Canvas, what Porter was really talking about was business models.

Your business model on one page

Strategy and Business Models are virtually one in the same. And in the world we now inhabit, we all need to learn to get much better at imagining compelling new business models AND. . . .

. . . . learning how to implement them.

I will return to those topics in subsequent posts.

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