A · chapter

Strategy & Foundations

What it is: the upstream judgment that constrains everything downstream — who you serve, how you're positioned, how you go to market, how you price, and how much you spend on what. Strategy decides and sets targets; the other domains execute and measure against them.
The 2026 shift: budgets are structurally compressed (avg 7.8% of revenue, down from an ~11% 2021 peak — as of 2026-05-11, Gartner, ledger), AI gets a rising slice (15.3%) but only ~30% of orgs are AI-ready, and the new buyer in the room is an agent that penalizes persuasion and rewards structured specs.
The home truth: Strategy is the HOME of the budget thread. Strategy SETS the targets (LTV:CAC, the spend %, the brand-vs-performance split); Section I (Data, Measurement & Analytics) MEASURES whether they held. Keep that seam clean or every downstream number drifts.
Don't: force strategy into a single decision axis, treat 60/40 as a constant, let an agent optimize budget on platform-reported attribution, or default your positioning to B2B when half your audience is B2C.

How this domain is organized internally — and the decision logic, runnable workflows, and agent angle — are in the full map.