The UNITE Strategy-Execution Framework

The framework provides an overview of the non-core, core, and differentiating aspects of a business and connects them to matching Business Objectives, Business Strategies and IT strategies. You can see that as the differentiation potential increases, the strategic importance of the area increases, and decisions are driven by the desire to increase the value of your product. In the non-core areas, the strategic importance is lower, and these are places that you can cut costs through standardization, automation, and outsourcing. The core activities are where you are going head-to-head with your competition, so clearly you want to maintain the ability to compete. At the same time, these activities are not adding to your competitive advantage, so you want as much as possible to keep costs down here so that you can invest resources in differentiating activities. Typically, 80% of a business is non-core. Even if an activity refers to a key aspect of the business, like logistics or manufacturing, if you are not doing anything radically different than your competitors, this is not contributing to your differentiation. As such, the best strategy is to apply standard practices to optimize efficiency and reduce costs. Your differentiating areas, which are typically about 5% of your business, are what set you apart and allow you to charge premium prices. You should seek to become best in class in these activities and continue to develop your differentiation through innovation both in your product and in your Business Model.