Which strategy framework to use when

In one paragraph

Strategy frameworks are not alternatives to each other. Each answers one question, and using the wrong one produces a confident answer to something you were not asking.

What is going on outside us? — PESTLE for the wider environment, Porter's five forces for the industry's structure and where the profit is going.

What have we got? — VRIO tests whether a resource is genuinely an advantage or just a capability. The value chain finds which activities create the advantage.

Where should we grow? — the Ansoff Matrix for the direction, the Boston Matrix for which products fund which.

How will we compete? — Porter's generic strategies for the basic choice, Blue Ocean for whether to change what is competed on at all.

Why is the plan not happening? — McKinsey 7S for organisational misalignment, the Balanced Scorecard for whether you are measuring the things that lead rather than lag.

Everything at once, badly — SWOT, which is why it is the most used and the least useful. It is a fine way to summarise the output of the others and a poor way to generate anything.

The failure mode is running a framework because it is familiar rather than because it fits the question. Decide the question first, then pick.

How to actually use it

• Write down your actual question in one sentence before opening any framework. Half the time the sentence answers itself.
• Use two that disagree. Porter looks outward and VRIO looks inward; where they point in different directions is where the interesting strategic question lives.

Where it breaks down

• All of them are ways of organising thought, not machines for producing answers. None removes the judgement.
• They were mostly developed for large firms in stable industries, and transfer to small businesses with care rather than automatically.

If you are being examined on it

Choosing the right framework and saying why is itself worth marks. Applying three when one was asked for is not.

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