In every industry, there are several viable positions that a company can occupy. The essence of strategy therefore is to choose the one position that your company will claim as its own. A strategic position is simply the sum of a company's answers to these three questions: Who should I target as customers? What products or services should I offer them? How should I do this? 1 Strategy is all about making tough choices in these three dimensions: the customers you will target and, just as important, the customers you will not target; the products or services you will offer and those you will not offer; and the activities you will engage in to sell your selected product to your selected customer and those you will not engage in. Ultimately, strategy is all about making choices, and a company will be successful if it chooses a distinctive strategic positionthat is, a position different from that of each of its competitors. The most common source of strategic failure is the failure to make clear and explicit choices in each of these three dimensions.