Strategic competitiveness is accomplished when a firm successfully coordinates and implements a value-creating strategy. When a firm activates such a strategy that companies are unable to copy or find too expensive to imitate, this firm has a sustained, or sustainable, competitive advantage. Above-average returns are returns in excess of what an investor anticipates to earn from other investments with a similar amount of risk.
Concerned with winning competitive battles and obtaining global leadership, strategic intent implies a significant stretch of an organization's resources, capabilities, and core competencies. When established effectively, strategic intent can cause people to perform in ways they never imagined possible. Strategic intent exits when all employees and levels of a firm are committed to the pursuit of a specific (and significant) performance criterion. Strategic intent has been formed effectively when people believe profoundly in their product and industry, when they are focused totally on their firm's ability to out perform its competitors.
Strategic mission comes from strategic intent. Strategic mission is a statement of a firm's unique purpose and the scope of its operations in product and market terms. A strategic mission provides general descriptions of the products a firm intends to produce and the markets it will serve using its internally based core competencies. An effective strategic mission establishes a firm's individuality and is exciting, inspiring, and relevant to all stakeholders. Together, strategic intent and strategic mission yield the insights required to formulate and implement the firms' strategies. Basing their decisions partially on a firm's strategic intent and mission, top executives develop a strategic orientation and predisposition to adopt a certain strategy or strategies over others.
