"you are left with one choice"

"Is your business “playing to win” or "just playing to play"
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He says good strategy starts with making the very difficult choices about what your business chooses to do and what it chooses not to do. These choices need to focus on how best to differentiate your business in a competitive marketplace.
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Entrepreneurs often kick the can down the road on making these types of hard decisions because they fear that their strategic choices may be incorrect. Or the choices may negatively impact the bottom line, especially in the short run.
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Your business cannot be all things to all people. If you don’t make choices on what markets you will serve, you won’t have an effective strategy. As Martin emphasized during his talk, “being the same as others or ‘just playing to play’ is a recipe for mediocrity.”
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He believes it’s important to remember some business basics. Enterprises compete in one of two ways ­— either by being the cost leader, or by differentiating your product or service. Since a small business typically isn’t a cost leader in their industry, you are left with one choice."[Moi ici: Uma outra forma de dizer que a estratégia do custo não é para quem quer, é para quem pode]

Depois, o resto do texto é sobre a técnica de Roger Martin para avaliar estratégias.
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E a sua empresa ... tem uma estratégia?


Trechos retirados de "Good small business strategy begins with hard choices"