This chapter explains what Strategy Beyond Markets is, and why it is important to business practitioners.

Sometimes, it is possible for an industry to preempt government regulation by mitigating the societal concerns that prompt the government to intervene. This is desirable when government intervention is likely to be clumsy. Executing preemption is difficult. The challenge lies in the absence of enforcement power: not every industry player, and sometimes no single industry player, necessarily has an incentive to do what is desirable for the industry as a whole. And, by construction, there is no Institution with the power to impose change. This chapter studies two general settings in which this challenge exists and, nevertheless, the industry is able to achieve optimal preemption.

Because the rules of the competitive game are tremendously flexible, there are few limits to the amount of change that can be achieved through SBM. Therefore, it may seem that, in SBM, ``all options are on the table at any time. This is not quite the case.In practice, there are limits to what can be achieved by SBM at any given moment. Ideas that are too far from the status quo cannot even be entertained, so the practical options are limited to a window around the status quo. This is called the Overton window. Moreover, legislative (as opposed to regulatory) change does not happen gradually over time. Instead, change is punctuated: the status quo lasts for a long time and then, suddenly, all the change happens at once. Therefore, when SBM involves a legislative change, there are narrow windows of opportunity.

Who makes -- and can change -- the rules of the game? In every democratic country, the political system has institutions that make and change laws and regulations. This chapter sketches out, in broad strokes, how these institutions work. In a sense, this chapter is standard civics, except that an unconventional viewpoint is adopted: that of business instead of citizens. This chapter, therefore, may be thought of as ``civics from a business perspective.

Regulators are different from elected officials because regulators are not motivated by electoral incentives. But then, what motivates regulators? This chapter makes the case that all regulators are motivated by a desire to uphold and increase their reputation for technical expertise. In addition, political appointees are accountable to the elected officials who have the power to remove them.

In each of the following sections a business, or an industry, was forced to use SBM to deal with a risk or seize an opportunity. Some succeeded, some failed. Each section illustrates one or more specific learning points: the learning points are mentioned at the end of each section. The chapters overall message is that SBM can be crucial to value creation or destruction.

This chapter discusses what makes a coalition of interest groups powerful with elected officials, and why a coalition builder is necessary to turn a disparate set of Interests into an influential coalition. The chapter also provides a tool called Coalition Dashboard which, for a given policy agenda, helps to visually assess the power of pro and con coalitions.

The technical and market knowledge a business possesses -- its Information, in the language of the 4Is -- can be an important asset in advocating with regulators. Information can be leveraged in two ways. First, the business can share Information that is mission-relevant for the regulator. Doing so helps regulators avoid crises and, therefore, helps regulators cultivate their reputation for technical competence. Second, alternatively, the business can threaten to attack the regulators reputation for competence. Both strategies leverage the regulators desire to preserve and increase their reputation for technical competence.

This chapter describes who elected officials are, what motivates them, and how corporations advocate with them.

Voters are the MVP of any coalition if they are engaged with the coalitions Agenda. How should a business publicly articulate its agenda in order to maximize voter engagement? Or, alternatively, how can messaging reduce the publics engagement with the opposing coalitions agenda? This chapter deals with these questions.

In this chapter I address two related questions: would it be desirable to restrict the business sectors ability to advocate? And, should corporations be encouraged to interface with society in a different way? I make the case that, if business was restricted in its ability to communicate with government officials, the officials would likely make decisions less accurately, but not any more independently of business. Furthermore, I argue that allowing relatively unfettered business advocacy can help ensure that regulations are innovation-friendly and, moreover, that in comparison to other political systems, the USs openness to business advocacy actually promotes innovation. These two arguments, when taken together, amount to a cautious case against restricting business advocacy. I then discuss a different way in which business organizations operate in the political arena: namely, the leveraging of the business organizations relationship with its customers, suppliers, or workers to pursue societal goals not directly tied to its own business. I argue that this behavior, despite being well-intentioned and popular with a segment of public opinion, should be approached with some caution by business corporations.

This chapter compares and contrasts SBM with Competitive Strategy (CS). The aim is to situate SBM in relation to CS in the space of ideas.