May 12
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Erik Modig
What Is a Business Strategy Course and What Should You Learn?
Most companies confuse a good idea with a good strategy. A good idea solves a problem. A good strategy defines why you — and nobody else — should be the one solving it, in a way that is difficult to copy and sustainable under competitive pressure. A business strategy course gives you the tools to make that distinction reliably, not just once, under favourable conditions.
Business strategy = the choice of how a company creates and sustains value when alternatives are many and resources are limited.
What is business strategy — and why isn't a good business idea enough?
Business strategy is the choice of how a company creates and sustains value in a competitive environment. Not the goals. Not the vision. The choice. That is a distinction most strategy documents blur — and it is precisely what makes them useless the day after they were approved.
Michael Porter, professor at Harvard Business School, formulated the underlying logic in Competitive Strategy (1980): a company creates sustainable competitive advantage either by being more cost-efficient than everyone else, or by offering something perceived as unique enough to justify a premium price. Everything in between is strategic no man's land — too expensive to win on price, too undifferentiated to win on value.
A good business idea solves a problem. A good business strategy defines why you are the one who should solve it. Confusing the two usually ends with spending a great deal of money proving you were right, precisely as the market decides to choose someone else.
What does a high-quality business strategy course cover?
A high-quality business strategy course does not just teach you four modules. It teaches you why those four modules cannot be separated — and what breaks in your decision-making when you treat them as if they can.
The first is business model analysis: how value is created, delivered, and captured. Not as a canvas exercise, but as an analytical tool for identifying where in the chain competitive advantages actually arise. A poorly designed business model puts you in direct competition with your own partners. Most organizations discover this later than they should.
The second is competitive analysis and positioning. Get the frame of reference wrong and your entire strategy points in the wrong direction. A B2B software supplier who believes they compete with other software suppliers will make decisions that ensure they lose to someone they never saw coming — the consulting firm the customer hired instead. The correct competitive frame is the one that exists in the customer's mind, not in the industry association's membership list.
The third is portfolio strategy and pricing: which products and segments should be prioritized, and how are prices set to maximize profitability rather than volume? A pricing model is never neutral — it always communicates a value and always selects a customer. Most pricing decisions are made without understanding either consequence.
The fourth is strategic implementation. A strategy that is not translated into operational decisions is just a formulation. The decisive question is always: what changes in how we work tomorrow? A course that does not answer that question ends as a well-produced presentation, not as a better company.
How do different business strategy course formats differ?
Format matters — but not the way most people think. The question is not classroom or online. The question is whether you will actually use what you learn. And that has almost nothing to do with how the course is delivered.
Traditional MBA programs and longer university programs provide depth and breadth, but are designed for a career change or a senior leadership role. They take one to three years and are costly in both time and money. The right format for the right purpose — but for a practicing marketer or business developer in mid-career, they are often more than required.
Shorter online courses — typically four to twelve weeks — provide focused knowledge that can be applied immediately. Studies show that practitioners who pair shorter programs with real projects change their decision-making within weeks. Those who complete longer programs without immediate application rarely use the models six months later — a fact most courses do not like to admit.
The most important selection criterion is not program length. It is whether the course is built around principles and models that hold up under change, or around case studies and trends that the course materials have already made outdated by the time the course begins.
What should you look for when choosing a business strategy course?
The simple question is deceptively hard to answer: who is teaching, and how do we know their models survive contact with reality?
A course driven by research and proven practice is worth more than one driven by trends. That holds whether it is a physical program, an online course, or an internal leadership program. The difference shows up when you ask the difficult questions — the ones about your specific situation, not about the case studies from three decades ago.
Three criteria are worth prioritizing. The first is model depth: do you learn why the models work, or only how to fill them in? Someone who understands the mechanisms can adapt when reality does not fit the template. The second is direct application: does the course work with your own challenges, or with generic cases from other industries? The third is the instructor's credibility: has the teacher researched or worked practically on the problems you actually face? Most courses treat strategy as an abstract exercise. That is convenient for the course designers. It is not useful for the learner.
How do you know if a business strategy course actually delivers results?
Competence transfer is the correct measure — not completion, grades or participant satisfaction scores. Have you changed how you make decisions? Has the organization around you noticed the difference?
Fewer than one in five practitioners who complete a strategy program actively apply the learned models six months after the course ends. The reason is usually that the program treated strategic models as abstract exercises rather than tools for participants' own decisions.
The best way to ensure the course has impact is to identify a concrete strategic problem you want to solve before the course starts — and then use the course as a laboratory for exactly that problem. That sounds obvious. Most course designers do not structure it that way. Most participants do not ask for it.
Strategy = the choice of which effect is most important to create first. The course should help you make that choice — not hand you a hundred tools and leave you guessing which one applies.
Why is business strategy a core competence for marketers, not just for executives?
Most organizations still separate marketing strategy from business strategy as if they were different disciplines. That division works until the day a competitor understands something about your business model that your marketing team does not — and wins because of it.
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia has shown in repeated studies that brands with clear strategic differentiation achieve significantly stronger mental availability among consumers, and mental availability is the metric that best predicts actual purchase behavior. That is not an argument for making marketing more strategic in theory. It is evidence that the two disciplines are already measuring the same underlying phenomenon.
A strategy course that connects the logic of competition with the science of how humans make decisions is genuinely rare. Most courses treat them as separate subjects. They are not. They are the same problem approached from two angles.
The Business Strategy diploma at Marketing Levels
The Diploma in Business Strategy (Affärsstrategi) at Marketing Levels is built for marketers who need to work with business strategy as a tool for daily decisions — not as an occasional strategic retreat exercise. The course covers eight modules, with four hours of video material, structured to be completed in approximately 1.5 days.
The eight modules are: Introduction to business strategy; Analysis of how companies create value; Introduction to business models; Analysis of competitive advantages; Analysis of the product portfolio; Introduction to distribution and retail strategy; Introduction to pricing strategy; and Strategies for increasing price worthiness. Each module connects directly to decisions a marketer or business developer faces in practice — which portfolio to prioritise, how to frame a competitive position, where pricing sends the wrong signal.
The course is part of the Marketing Levels diploma catalogue for Spring 2026, based on Erik Modig's research, and sits within the analysis-to-strategy sequence alongside courses in market analysis, customer insight and market positioning. The honest promise is this: the course helps you understand the business logic needed to make better decisions. Whether you actually change your decisions depends on whether you bring a real problem to solve.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between business strategy and business planning?
Business strategy is the choice of how a company creates and sustains competitive advantage — it defines direction and priorities. Business planning is the operational translation of that choice into timelines, budgets, and responsibilities. A plan without a strategy is a to-do list. A strategy without a plan is a well-formulated intention. Both are necessary, but they answer different questions and require different thinking.
How long does a business strategy course take?
Course lengths range from intensive two-day workshops to twelve-week online programs and full MBA modules lasting several months. The right length depends on the depth of understanding required and how quickly you need to apply it. Practitioners who pair shorter programs with real projects change their decision-making faster than those who complete longer programs without immediate application. The Marketing Levels Business Strategy diploma is structured to be completed in approximately 1.5 days.
Do you need prior experience in strategy to take a business strategy course?
Most professional-level business strategy courses assume basic commercial experience — typically two to five years in a business or marketing role. That practical foundation is what makes the models meaningful rather than abstract. A course taken too early in a career tends to be remembered as interesting but rarely applied, because the learner does not yet have the organizational context to use it.
What is the most important model to understand in business strategy?
Michael Porter's generic strategies framework — cost leadership, differentiation, and focus — remains the most foundational model in business strategy education, introduced in Competitive Strategy (1980). Understanding why the middle ground between cost leadership and differentiation is structurally weak helps practitioners make sharper positioning choices. Roger Martin's "playing to win" framework extends Porter's logic into practical strategic choice-making and is worth studying alongside it.
Can business strategy be learned online, or does it require classroom discussion?
Business strategy can be learned online — provided the course includes structured reflection on real problems, not just video lectures and multiple-choice assessments. The key learning mechanism in strategy is testing models against your own situation. What online formats cannot easily replace is peer challenge, which is why the best programs build in cohort discussion or coaching to create the friction that sharpens strategic thinking.
WRITTEN BY
Erik Modig, Ph.D.
Erik Modig är en av Sveriges främsta experter inom marknadsföring, kommunikation och kundpsykologi. Han har hjälpt hundratals företag att nå sina affärsmål genom att omsätta forskning om beslutsfattande, motivation och effektiv kommunikation i praktiken. Modig är forskare och lärare vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm.
