The Strategy Canvas of Corporate Foreign Exchange
The pictures clearly revealed defects in the company’s strategy. EFS’s traditional and on-line value curves both demonstrated a serious lack of focus; the company was investing in diverse and numerous factors in both businesses. What’s more, EFS’s two curves were very similar to competitors’. Unsurprisingly, neither team could come up with a memorable tag line that was true to the team’s value curve. The pictures also highlighted contradictions: The on-line business, for example, had invested heavily in making the Web site easy to use—it had even won awards for this—but it became apparent that speed of use had been overlooked. EFS had one of the slowest Web sites in the business, which might explain why such a well-regarded site did a relatively poor job of attracting customers. The sharpest shocks, perhaps, came from comparing EFS’s strategy with its competitors’. The on-line group realized that its strongest competitor, which we’ve called Clearskies, had a focused, original, and easily communicable strategy: “One click E-Z FX.”