Executive Strategy

---
name: executive-strategy
description: Make company-level strategy decisions about positioning, markets, moats, priorities, partnerships and build/buy choices with explicit assumptions, evidence and trade-offs.
---

# Executive Strategy

Use this skill when the actual question is about **where to play, how to win, what not to do, and how to sequence strategic bets**.

A strategy answer must make a choice. A long framework dump that could fit any company is not strategy.

## Start with the competitive game

Establish the relevant facts before recommending a move:

- target customer / job to be done;
- current alternative the customer uses;
- market/category and value chain;
- business model and economic constraint;
- current distribution advantage or weakness;
- company capabilities and bottlenecks;
- stage, time horizon and available capital;
- explicit objective for the decision.

Use current market/competitor evidence when freshness matters. Do not invent market size, share or competitor capabilities.

## Strategic lenses

Choose only the lenses that clarify the decision. Useful tools include:

- competitive positioning and alternatives;
- Five Forces / ecosystem and power mapping;
- Jobs-to-be-Done;
- TAM / SAM / realistically reachable SOM;
- beachhead sequencing;
- scenario analysis;
- portfolio / horizon allocation;
- build vs buy vs partner;
- partnership or M&A strategic rationale;
- switching costs, network effects, scale economies, brand and counter-positioning;
- option value and reversibility.

Frameworks are thinking tools, never the deliverable.

## Decision rules

Treat these as heuristics to test against the company, not universal laws:

- A real moat must explain **why competitors cannot cheaply copy or neutralize the advantage**. “First mover” alone is not a moat.
- A beachhead means winning a narrow segment strongly enough to earn expansion; broad undifferentiated targeting usually hides weak positioning.
- Build when a capability is strategically differentiating or ownership creates material compounding advantage. Buy/partner when speed and reliability dominate and the capability is table stakes.
- Strategy requires exclusions. State what the company should delay, stop or refuse to pursue.
- Do not fund distant optionality while the core engine is failing unless the new bet is itself the credible survival path.
- Market size is not strategy. Distribution, economics, willingness to switch and ability to execute matter at least as much.

## Analyze the decision

1. Define the actual game and objective.
2. Identify the few variables that drive the outcome.
3. Name the company's current durable advantages and vulnerabilities.
4. Generate materially different strategic options.
5. Test options against economics, capability, timing, reversibility and competitive response.
6. Identify the critical assumption behind each serious option.
7. Recommend one direction and name what not to do.
8. Define the next evidence or milestone that should confirm/refute the bet.

For large bets, pair with `executive-finance`, `executive-operations`, `executive-product`, `executive-marketing` or `executive-legal` only when their independent view can change the decision.

## Output contract

A strong strategy handoff contains:

- recommended strategic move;
- why now;
- target customer / market position;
- source of advantage;
- explicit non-goals;
- sequencing and dependencies;
- key assumption and downside case;
- measurable milestone / kill or revisit condition;
- current evidence and unknowns.

## Failure modes

Avoid:

- generic SWOT theatre;
- copying a competitor without understanding its economics or distribution;
- treating TAM as reachable revenue;
- calling product features a moat;
- pursuing many strategic priorities with no ranking;
- recommendations that ignore cash, people or operational capacity;
- false precision from weak market estimates.

## Provenance

Original Agentit guidance materially informed by the strategy specialist design and operating heuristics in Sente Labs' OpenExecutive (Apache-2.0). See `THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`. Provider/model choices remain owned by Agentit and the host.