What is A Business Strategy?
To Be Successful in Business, There Must be A Working Strategy
Strategic Planning
Stragetic outline is crucial to your business success. It’s your roadmap, you chosen path, you contingency plans, your plan B, C and includes the “run for you life, every man for himself” plan.
Once a company has a plan, the next step is to communicate your strategy in effective ways to your employees, partners, suppliers and customers.
The first place to start is to answer some of the following questions. You might find this excercise helpful with a consultant or third party facilitator who will ask the next questions: why, what if, why not, and who says.
Before you call the board of directors or your management team, begin working with these foundational strategic questions:
- Direction: where is the business trying to get to in the short and long term.
- Markets: Which markets does the business compete in and what kind of activities are involved in such markets?
- Advantage: How can the business perform better than the competition? What’s their competitive edge?
- Resources: What resources (skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence, and facilities) are required in order to be able to compete?
- Environment? What external, environmental factors affect the businesses’ ability to compete?
- Stakeholders: What are the values and expectations of those who have power in and around the business?
Where do you run into roadblocks? How have you communicated your strategy to the game players in your company? Your comments are always welcome and others will benefit from your perspective.
