A guide to each big decision
Pick the decision in front of you. Its guide tells the story through the companies that faced it, then shows how to run it yourself.
The cheapest way to see how it plays out
The hard part of a big call is rarely the spreadsheet. It’s picturing what happens after. Other companies’ outcomes are the closest thing to a preview.
Every fact traced to a source
Each case is built from filings, reporting and company statements. A fact we can’t trace doesn’t go in.
Start here
Find your decision
Twenty-four decisions in seven families. Each card is one decision with all its cases; the bar shows how the ones that can be judged turned out.
Decision Forks
Choosing between two paths
When the path split, why this way and not the other?
The road not taken
Why didn't they buy, build, or enter when they had the chance?
Betting the company
Why risk everything on a single move?
Reversing course
Why publicly reverse a position they'd staked out?
Business Model
Changing the business model
How does the money actually get made?
Changing how you price
Why has the pricing evolved the way it has?
Selling at a loss on purpose
Why sell something cheap — or at a loss — on purpose?
Letting one business pay for another
Which part of the business quietly funds the rest?
Boundaries of the Firm
Make or buy
Why make it themselves instead of buying it?
Going direct
Why bypass the channel everyone else relied on?
Moat & Competition
Defending an advantage
What actually protects them once the playbook is visible?
Flywheels
What self-reinforcing loop compounds the advantage?
Customer lock-in
How do they keep customers inside the walls?
Standards wars
How did they win — or lose — the fight to set the standard?
Growth & Portfolio
Entering a new market
How did they crack a market that was supposed to be hard?
Moving into the business next door
Why move from the core into the next thing over?
Cannibalization
Why kill their own cash cow before a rival could?
People & Control
Keeping the company's rules
What's the codified culture rule — and does it actually work?
Who controls the company
How does ownership or control shape the strategy?
Choosing the next CEO
What happens after the defining leader is gone?
Crisis & Reinvention
Why companies decline
Why did a dominant company come apart?
Turning a company around
How did they come back from near-death?
Handling a crisis
How did they handle the defining crisis?
What a case is
One company, one decision, four fields. Here is the Apple case from the cannibalization guide.
Apple, 2007
Cannibalize with iPhone
Apple pursued the cannibalization and the iPod line was retired on its own schedule.
Never undone
Whether it was reversed, not whether it worked.Ideas, told through their cases
- Blue Ocean Strategy: 5 Real-World Success Stories
From Cirque du Soleil to Nintendo Wii, these companies created uncontested market space. Learn how they applied Blue Ocean Strategy principles.
The evidence, counted
The record behind the decisions, counted: what happened after, with every row linked to its source.
- What happens after a billion-dollar acquisition?
When a company commits $1 billion or more to an acquisition, how often does it later write the deal down, sell it off or unwind it, and how long does that take? The base rate, counted from the verified cases.
- Acquisition integration record
How each acquisition was integrated after closing, quoted from published reporting, beside how it ended. Free to download.
- Company data sheets
One page per large company: what its filings, its economy and the market say, each finding sourced. The full files come with the Data Plan.
More from Stratrix
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Test a decision, free
Set a live decision against the companies that made it before you.
AcquisitionsThe Distance TestDivestituresThe Divestiture TestDiversificationThe Diversification TestMake or buyThe Make-or-Buy Test