This podcast is a lively wrap-up to the RC Strategy course — an energetic finale called “Strategy Across the S-Curve: Module Takeaways.” Charlotte and Marc guide listeners through how great companies sustain competitive advantage as industries evolve.

They use the S-curve framework — from ferment to takeoff to maturity — to show how strategic priorities shift over time. Each stage is illustrated with a case:

• Thinx (Ferment): creating a market from scratch, testing models, and breaking cultural taboos.
• Tesla (Takeoff): scaling fast through vertical integration, shaping industry structure, and exploiting incumbents’ inertia.
• Netflix (Maturity and Renewal): repeatedly reinventing itself across multiple S-curves, from DVDs to streaming to global content.

Across all three, they highlight the strategist’s four levers — unit economics, customers, competition, and scope — and how these evolve as the industry moves along the curve.

The episode ties the whole RC Strategy course together, emphasizing that strategy is dynamic: firms must adapt their integrated choices to stay ahead. It ends on an inspiring note — strategy isn’t about standing still, but about staying alive, relevant, and ready for the next wave.

The podcast, “Corporate Strategy Module Takeaways,” features two MBA students, Sócrates and Grace, reflecting on what they learned in their Corporate Strategy course. Using the Disney and Pixar cases as examples, they explore the central ideas of corporate strategy — the better-off test (whether being part of the same company makes business units more competitive) and the ownership test (whether common ownership is necessary to achieve that advantage).

They explain how Disney illustrated the power of synergy across films, parks, and products — but only when supported by leadership, shared understanding, cross-unit capabilities, and aligned incentives. The Pixar case, in contrast, tested when two firms should actually merge, showing that even strong partnerships can fail without ownership if contracts can’t manage conflicts or align incentives.

In sum, the podcast highlights that corporate strategy is not about growing for growth’s sake, but about defining the right scope and ownership structure to make each business stronger than it would be alone.

In this episode of Crafting Strategy Module Takeaways, Macarena and Grant explore how strategy moves from analysis to creation — from diagnosing what’s broken to building something coherent, resilient, and future-ready.

They trace the module’s three-act arc:

1. The Problem (LEGO) — A case study in what happens when a firm’s choices fail the three tests of a good strategy: external consistency, internal consistency, and dynamic consistency. LEGO’s turnaround under Jørgen Knudstorp illustrates how aligning these elements can rebuild advantage from the core.
2. The Process (KITEA) — Using an options-led approach, students learn to generate multiple, integrated systems of choices, test assumptions with the “what would we have to believe” method, and craft a concise strategy statementthat captures objective, scope, and advantage.
3. The Stress Test (P.F. Chang’s) — Scenario planning in the face of radical uncertainty. By exploring alternative futures through a 2×2 grid, the firm tests which strategies remain robust across shifting conditions, blending analytical rigor with managerial judgment.

The big takeaway: strategy isn’t just analysis — it’s a disciplined act of choice. Great strategists diagnose clearly, design deliberately, and decide courageously.