Customer retention.

Effective business strategies focus on customer retention. In order for a company to grow, it must keep customers satisfied and continue to create value for old as well as new clients.

Fast growing companies identify market opportunities that haven't been captured by other competitors in the industry. Leading companies understand where their competitors have positioned themselves in the marketplace and where they may migrate to next. With a well-defined business strategy, a company is able to create uniqueness in a marketplace that is full of competitors.

Effective business strategies are diversified and flexible. Great plans are ones that need to be changeable. They have to be adaptable enough to take into account changes in market conditions, customer preferences and competitive aggression. New business strategies need to be constantly under review and have multiple methods and tactics in order to be executed successfully.

The power of an effective business strategy helps companies turn business models into winning game plans.

Arnold Ng is a new business strategist for Insight Learning Go. Insight works with privately held companies.

Entrepreneur's Notebook is a regular column contributed by EC2, The Annenberg Incubator Project, a center for multimedia and electronic communications at the University of Southern California, Contact James Klein at [phone] with feedback and topic suggestions.