What is competitive strategy?

Competitive strategy is a company’s deliberate plan for winning against rivals: which market to compete in, which customers to serve, and what advantage — lower cost, meaningful differentiation, or narrow focus — to build the business around. Porter’s generic strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, focus) remain the standard vocabulary.

A strategy is only competitive if it is grounded in what rivals actually do; otherwise it is a mission statement. That makes the intelligence loop part of the strategy itself: you choose a position, monitor how competitors respond, and adjust before the gap you picked closes.