Analyzing a firm’s profitability can reveal its strategy⁠—and how well it’s working. View the article: https://stephen-l-jones.github.io/articles/profitability-analysis.

(01:57) Profitability as return on invested capital

(14:00) Benchmarking ROIC

(16:11) Going deeper: Return on sales and capital turnover

(20:53) Going even deeper: Expense, asset, and unit-based ratios

(26:21) Analyzing profitability

Five strategic avenues lead to superior performance, each using a different economic logic. View the article: https://stephen-l-jones.github.io/articles/strategic-avenues-to-superior-performance.

(00:37) Value composition

(05:56) Pricing avenue

(12:01) Value-creation avenue

(16:30) Efficiency avenue

(20:34) Market-expansion avenue

(26:09) Rivalry-reduction avenue

(29:53) Choosing an avenue

Winning firms create and capture value using economic fundamentals. View the article: https://stephen-l-jones.github.io/articles/value-creation-and-value-capture.

(00:28) Industries

(04:05) Customer demand and firm profit

(12:47) Value creation

(18:06) Value capture

Strategic management theories explain why firms achieve superior performance, with each theory offering unique insight. View the article: https://stephen-l-jones.github.io/articles/a-survey-of-strategy-theory.

(03:12) Industry view

(06:30) Resource-based view

(15:51) Applying strategy theory