The Strategic Formula System is a unified analytical system for understanding how businesses create, sustain, and lose competitive advantage by examining the structure of their business model, their chosen strategy, the presence or absence of true advantage, and the dynamics that cause some combinations to compound over time while others stall or decay.
The Strategic Formula System is designed to analyze how businesses actually work, not how they are described in plans, narratives, or earnings calls. It provides a structured way to examine how companies create value, how they compete, and why certain configurations produce durable results while others do not.
The system decomposes strategy into discrete elements, their interactions, and the economic dynamics that emerge from those interactions. This makes it possible to compare companies, diagnose misalignment between strategy and execution, and reason about strategic change without relying on generic frameworks, trend narratives, or retrospective storytelling.
The Strategic Formula System does not predict markets, technologies, or competitive outcomes. It explains tendencies and constraints, not certainties.
It does not replace execution, leadership judgment, or organizational capability. The system identifies where execution matters most; it does not perform execution.
It does not prescribe a single “correct” strategy. Multiple strategic formulas can succeed under different conditions, and the system is explicitly designed to analyze alternatives rather than recommend uniform answers.
The Strategic Formula System is centered on the Strategic Formula and composed of three interdependent components, each with a fixed and non-overlapping role:
Together, these components support and extend the Strategic Formula by defining its structure, explaining its dynamics, and diagnosing its exposure to AI-driven change.
The Periodic Table of Business Strategy is the structural taxonomy of the system. It defines the finite set of business models, strategies, and competitive advantages that can appear in any Strategic Formula. The table is used to describe what a company is actually doing today, and, in design or scenario-planning contexts, to explore bounded strategic alternatives without inventing new categories or collapsing distinctions.
Learning-Loop Economics is the strategic theory within the system that explains why some Strategic Formulas compound advantage over time while others do not. It focuses on the role of proprietary learning loops—cycles of use, learning, and improvement—and the conditions under which those loops create durability, lock-in, and increasing returns in the AI era.
The AI Susceptibility Index (ASI) is a diagnostic instrument that assesses how exposed individual strategic elements are to AI-driven disruption. It operates at the element level, not the company level, and helps identify where AI pressure is most likely to erode advantage, force adaptation, or require mitigation within a given Strategic Formula.
The Strategic Formula (book, forthcoming) is the first full articulation of the Strategic Formula System.
The Strategic Formula System was created by Eric D. Noren, a strategic leader with more than two decades of experience at the intersection of marketing, technology, and business strategy. Noren developed the system through sustained applied work across multiple industries, including healthcare, enterprise services, and multi-brand organizations, refining it through real-world use rather than academic abstraction.
The system originated with the Periodic Table of Business Strategy and was extended to address AI-era dynamics through Learning-Loop Economics and the AI Susceptibility Index. Together, these components reflect an effort to establish a shared, precise vocabulary for strategy analysis—one that separates business models, strategies, competitive advantages, and executional constraints in order to reduce confusion and improve strategic reasoning.
Noren writes and speaks about the Strategic Formula System and its applications through his ongoing research, case analysis, and public work.
