Business and Entrepreneurship Business Strategy

Business Strategy: Building Advantage in Competitive Markets

A practical framework for making better strategic choices, positioning your business, and turning plans into measurable growth

Business Strategy: Building Advantage in Competitive Markets logo
Quick Course Facts
16
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
16
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
5.1
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Business Strategy: Building Advantage in Competitive Markets Course

This Business and Entrepreneurship course gives you a clear, practical way to think strategically and compete with confidence. You will learn how to analyze markets, position your business, and turn plans into measurable growth with a framework you can apply right away.

Build a Stronger Competitive Strategy for Business and Entrepreneurship Success

  • Learn how to define competitive advantage and apply a practical framework for making better strategic choices
  • Strengthen your ability to position your business for the right customers and market conditions
  • Connect strategy to execution so your plans lead to measurable growth and clearer priorities
  • Use proven tools from the Business Strategy — Business and Entrepreneurship category to improve decision-making across your business

Business Strategy — Business and Entrepreneurship category training for building advantage in competitive markets.

Business and Entrepreneurship success depends on more than good ideas; it requires strategic thinking that helps you choose where to compete and how to win. This course starts with the foundations of strategy and competitive advantage, then moves into market and industry structure so you can make choices based on real conditions rather than guesswork.

You will explore customer segmentation, targeting, positioning, and value proposition design to better understand who you serve and why they should choose you. The course also covers business models, pricing strategy, and strategic fit, giving you a practical framework for making better strategic choices, positioning your business, and turning plans into measurable growth.

As you progress, you will learn how to align resources, capabilities, and priorities with your goals. You will study growth options, resource allocation, core competencies, metrics, KPIs, and strategic review so you can identify what to fund, build, adjust, or stop. This creates a more disciplined approach to strategy execution and helps you respond to competition and market change without losing focus.

By the end of the course, you will have a complete strategic action plan that supports smarter decisions and stronger performance. Whether you are building a startup or improving an established company, this Business and Entrepreneurship course will help you think more clearly, act more intentionally, and move forward with a strategy that is built to last.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Strategy foundations and strategic thinking

1 lesson

This lesson defines business strategy as the set of choices that determine where a business will compete, how it will win, and what it will not do. It separates strategy from goals, tactics, and plann…

Why some businesses win and others stall

1 lesson

Lesson 2: Defining Competitive Advantage

18 min
This lesson defines competitive advantage as the set of reasons customers choose you over alternatives and continue to choose you over time. We will focus on how advantage shows up in the market, how …

Reading the environment before making choices

1 lesson

Lesson 3: Understanding Market and Industry Structure

20 min
Markets do not behave like empty stages. Every business competes inside an industry structure shaped by buyers, suppliers, substitutes, new entrants, and rivals already in the game. In this lesson, Pr…

Choosing the right customers to serve

1 lesson

Lesson 4: Customer Segmentation and Targeting

18 min
Customer segmentation helps a business stop treating all customers the same and start focusing on the groups it can serve best. In this lesson, Professor Nathan Ward explains how to identify meaningfu…

How to stand out in the market

1 lesson

Lesson 5: Positioning and Value Proposition

20 min
This lesson explains how positioning helps a business stand out in a crowded market by making a clear, credible choice about who the business serves, what it offers, and why customers should choose it…

Turning direction into operating priorities

1 lesson

Lesson 6: The Strategy-Execution Link

18 min
This lesson explains the practical link between strategy and execution: how a business turns chosen direction into a small set of operating priorities that people can actually act on. You will learn h…

How the business makes money and delivers value

1 lesson

Lesson 7: Business Models and Strategic Fit

20 min
This lesson explains how a business model creates value, captures value, and shapes strategic choices. Students learn to distinguish the mechanics of making money from the broader strategy of competin…

Using price as a strategic lever

1 lesson

Lesson 8: Pricing Strategy

18 min
Pricing strategy is more than choosing a number that covers costs. It is a strategic lever that shapes positioning, demand, margin, and customer perception . In this lesson, learners will see how diff…

Expansion paths for startups and established firms

1 lesson

Lesson 9: Growth Strategy Options

20 min
This lesson introduces the main growth strategy options available to startups and established firms. Students learn how to compare the most common expansion paths: market penetration, market developme…

Deciding what to fund, build, and stop

1 lesson

Lesson 10: Resource Allocation and Tradeoffs

18 min
This lesson explains how strategy becomes real through resource allocation: where money, time, talent, and attention go, and what the organization chooses not to do. Professor Nathan Ward shows how st…

Building strengths that are hard to copy

1 lesson

Lesson 11: Core Competencies and Capabilities

20 min
This lesson explains how to identify the core competencies that actually matter in a business strategy and how to distinguish them from ordinary operational skills. You will learn a practical way to s…

From ambition to structured priorities

1 lesson

Lesson 12: Strategic Planning and Goal Setting

18 min
This lesson turns broad ambition into a usable strategic plan. You will learn how to translate a vision into a small number of priorities, set goals that are specific and measurable, and align those g…

Measuring whether the strategy is working

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Metrics, KPIs, and Strategic Review

20 min
This lesson shows how to tell whether a strategy is actually working. You will learn how to choose a small set of metrics that reflect strategic goals, separate lagging from leading indicators, and bu…

Adapting without losing focus

1 lesson

Lesson 14: Responding to Competition and Market Change

18 min
Competitive markets change fast: rivals lower prices, copy features, target your customers, or shift the rules of the game. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to respond without abandoning your strategy…

Practical strategy under limited resources

1 lesson

Lesson 15: Strategy for Startups and Small Businesses

20 min
This lesson explains how startups and small businesses can use practical strategy when resources are limited. Instead of trying to outspend larger competitors, entrepreneurs learn to make focused choi…

Bringing all the pieces together

1 lesson

Lesson 16: Creating a Strategic Action Plan

20 min
This lesson brings the strategy course to execution by turning analysis into a practical action plan. You will learn how to translate strategic choices into a focused set of initiatives, define owners…
About Your Instructor
Professor Nathan Ward

Professor Nathan Ward

Professor Nathan Ward guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.