Strategy is old, and even strategy as a method is old and rooting back into military conflicts of the pre middle ages. The art of war from Sunzi therefore is the first strategy book somehow and is always quoted as the base for the modern strategy term. If you want to tap into business strategy and strategic management you have a broad choice of books to do so. I have listed my choice below.
The Strategy Classics
The 80s and 90s of the last century were the glow up years for strategy as a field with brilliant minds like Porter or Mintzberg. I recommend to especially deep dive into the concepts of those two, as the tools they came up with like Porter’s 5 forces analysis or his theory of competitive advantage is still heavily used in today’s strategy work. Very good summaries on the topic give the books mentioned below from Freedman and Mintzberg. “What is strategy” from Porter from the HBR book is also a recommended must read on the topic.
The updated view
In the 2000s a lot of new perspectives on strategy emerged and great books on the topic were published. The basic concept of strategy was not radically flipped over, but rather new thinking models and strategic methods come into place with them. The strategy to create a business in a blue ocean with no competition at first, can be seen as a expansion of the differentiation concept from Porters generic strategies. Value based strategy is the underlying concept in the book from Felix Oberholzer-Gee which I tend to use were often.
A book especially for the strategy work in advertising context, is the one from Binet & Carter.
