Devising a strategy is about identifying the key challenge facing your organization and finding the best way to surmount it. Using the strategy-making processes described here will help you do both.

You should have a differentiation strategy. Differentiation is about being different in a way that causes customers to prefer you to your competitors. You can be different by doing something unique, doing something uniquely well, or both. But the difference must provide customer-perceived value.

There are four kinds of strategy. A differentiation strategy is one kind of competitive strategy. A competitive strategy is one kind of growth strategy. And a growth strategy is one kind of problem-solving strategy.

Strategic issue diagnosis (SID) is about monitoring the problems and opportunities that are coming down the road. In essence, SID is a thought process in which the inputs are diffuse, ambiguous signals and the outputs are focused, interpreted issues.