Recognizing that scarcity rules our lives and that we all are constrained by time and money, free enterprise businesses and firms (whether they are small, medium-sized or large) as well as managers (employed or self-employed) are the actors that have to make the choices which ultimately guarantee economic survival. As ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’, when making choices then one faces trade- offs which means that one incurs an opportunity cost that arises from foregoing the next best alternative course of action (which is the activity not chosen). Those actors with the lowest opportunity costs will come out as the winner in the competitive race for economic profits that takes place in highly competitive markets. Making better choices than your competitors requires a better strategy that then (hopefully) results in a sustainable competitive advantage over the rivals. But what is a good strategy? [2,3]. On the one hand, strategy has to do with making good economic choices of what to produce. You have to produce and offer something unique, a good or service that is valuable in the eyes of the consumer (who then would be willing to spend his/her hard-earned money for your good or service). On the other hand, you have to decide about the way how to produce. Being under the constant pressure to improve productivity, this requires cost efficiency, that is, you have to produce the good or service at lowest cost in order to make the profit as high as possible.
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