Principles of Strategic Positioning
To establish and maintain a distinctive strategic positioning, a company needs to follow some fundamental principles.

Some Fundamental Principles :
First, it must start with the right goal : superior long-term return on investment. Only by grounding strategy in sustained profitability will real economic value be generated.Economic value is created when customers are willing to pay a price for a product or service that exceeds the cost of producing it. When goals are defined in terms of volume or market share leadership,with profits assumed to follow, poor strategies often result. The same is true when strategies are set to respond to the perceived desires of investors.

Second, a company’s strategy must enableit to deliver a value proposition, or set of benefits, different from those that competitors offer. Strategy, then, is neither a quest for the universally best way of competing nor an effort to be all things to every customer.It defines a way of competing that delivers unique value in a particular set ofuses or for a particular set of customers.

Third, strategy needs to be reflected in adistinctive value chain.To establish a sustainable competitive advantage, a company must perform different activities than rivals or perform similar activities in different ways.

Internet technology provides better opportunities for companies to establish distinctive strategic positionings than did previous generations of information technology. Gaining such a competitive advantage does not require a radically new approach to business. It requires building on the proven principles of effective strategy. The Internet per se will rarely be a competitive advantage. Many of the companies that succeed will be ones that use the Internet as a complement to traditional ways of competing, not those that set their Internet initiatives apart from their established operations. That is particularly good news for established companies, which are often in the best position to meld Internet and traditional approaches in ways that buttress existing advantages. But dot-coms can also be winners—if they understand the trade-offs between Internet and traditional approaches and can fashion truly distinctive strategies. Far from making strategy less important, as some have argued, the Internet actually makes strategy more essential than ever.