Feb 5th, 2026

Strategy Isn’t About Competition Anymore

Most of our understanding of what strategy is (and isn’t) is based on one of our greatest pastimes:

War.

Whether it’s business, sports, education, or a CBS game show, the stage is often set in the context of a battle.

A) There is an enemy out there trying to crush you
B) You must crush them first

Today, we call this competition.

Most of our strategic ideas are based on the belief that everything is a competition — and that the ultimate goal is to best your opponent in some way.

But in the world of products and services, the game has changed in some important ways:

1. You’re no longer playing against a singular opponent. You’re playing against many — including new players who may have a strategic advantage you can’t predict.
2. The person most in charge of your success isn’t competing against you; they’re buying from you. You can’t crush an opponent without providing value to a customer, making your competitor’s next move far less important than your customer’s.
3. It’s much harder to define what winning means when your opponents, goals, game board, and rules are constantly shifting.

Very few strategic decisions now singularly lead to ruin.

Even poor choices can be reversed over time. The Metaverse, anyone?

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​A strengths-based strategy

Amazon never set out to be the best bookstore or topple Barnes and Noble. Instead, they picked one unique capability and leaned into it.

Building an eCommerce site allowed them to offer a breadth of products that physical bookstores couldn’t replicate.

They then continued to use this capability to fuel their expansion.

In the process of building the world’s largest eCommerce platform, they got very good at running large online stores. Other companies started asking Amazon to run their storefronts.

Years before Target realized it should be competing with Amazon, it was a client.

In an effort to deliver more value for these customers — and solve some internal headaches — Amazon created AWS.

They never set out to compete with Google or Microsoft in cloud computing. They just kept asking:

AWS generated $33 billion in revenue last quarter.

The Amazon journey tells us a lot about modern strategy. You no longer need to obsess over competition — or even set out to do something completely new.

Instead, you need to ask:

Strategy, redefined

Strategy = Your unique capability × the value you deliver

The process:

• Find your unique strengths
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• Match them to customer needs
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• Generate three options
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• Test and iterate
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Your unique capability is any skill, technology, or approach that others have a hard time replicating. It doesn’t need to be innate, but it should be something you’re already positioned to do well. Identifying your differentiator isn’t just a branding exercise — it’s the guts of your strategy.

A unique capability doesn’t mean much unless it delivers real value. If customers are willing to pay, you’ve found some level of value.

You don’t need a perfect answer.
You need a strong starting bet — and the ability to adjust.

That’s strategy now.

I’m writing a series on strategy. Everything from planning to defining the direction of your organization.

Read the first post: Your Most Productive Strategy Offsite Ever​

Stay tuned for the next one!

Back in the day, a mixtape served as a creative way to share your moods and passions with others. This newsletter is an effort to share a mix of my passions and the things I'm excited about in work and creativity — things like design, workplace culture, leadership, art, and yes — music too. Life is more fun when we blur the lines. Thanks for reading.

🎵 Here's what I'm listening to this week:

The first Led Zeppelin album has many bangers that get all the love, but this one might secretly be the best song on the album. I recently added it to my workout playlist. Check out the original version here...

​How Many More Times by Led Zeppelin​

— Adam Allred

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