Strategy Can Help You Succeed Intentionally

How premeditated strategic planning can make your company a winner!

What is strategy? Why is it so important to every business business in order to grow and prosper?  How should you go about planning the future of your company and leading it to success?

Strategic planning for a business is a consciously intended and comprehensive course of action describing the goals, objectives and actions to cultivate growth and success. In our research on strategic planning in the 21st century, we integrate the aspects of dreams and wishes as the modern and entrepreneurial addition, since entrepreneurship has emotional aspects and involves to a large degree the passion to succeed.

Whether it is a strategy for a specific product or a company as a whole, this process helps one think through the ideas and bring them to fruition. When one least expect it, businesses can be thrown off course by market downturns -- or even unexpected good fortune. While some flounder, others are better equipped to deal with sudden change. The key: creating a strategic plan so companies can track their growth and plan contingencies.

My experience working with a client in the telecommunications industry can best demonstrate these points. DT was planning to launch a new product, which was a breakthrough at the time and was about to revolutionize the industry. In our strategic plan we initially focused on a certain market niche that seemed to be a natural match, and prioritized the markets we were going to enter. By doing so, we minimized the risk of unplanned over-expansion and not being able to deliver top quality service and product in a timely manner. Also, by studying the market, budgeting our activities and listening to the market reactions, we could successfully focus on each segment, adjust minor activities, assign qualified people and find the right distributors.

What is the purpose of a strategic plan?

Make sure that decision makers have a solid understanding of the business, its strategy, and the assumptions behind that strategy, thereby making it possible for others in the company to respond swiftly to challenges and opportunities as they occur in real time. Whether you work solo or you have other partners and/or employees, putting in writing what your plans are, becomes crucial.

Increase the innovativeness of a company's strategies. No strategy process can brilliant flashes
of creative insight, but much can be done to increase the odds that they will occur. 

What to look at when putting together a strategic plan? 

When done effectively, strategic planning is among the most potent competitive weapons a company
can have. Planning helps everyone better understand the departmental and company wide objectives
they're developing, while the plan itself keeps everyone on track. If you don't have a plan, employees
won't know where they're going; let alone how they're supposed to get there.

Goals and objectives.   State what is to be achieved and when results are to be accomplished. Try to determine the overall direction of your company and its ultimate viability in the light of the predictable, the unpredictable, and the unknown changes that may occur in its most important surrounding environments.

What helps me in my career as well as personal life is trying to picture two extreme scenarios of best case vs. worse case. This approach helps me cope with the unknown. When you can picture the worse case scenario you should also be able to find the tools and tactics to develop an emergency plan.

Have a reason. ­ One has to have a reason why they are doing a certain thing. The purpose is not just to make the money; you have to have a 'why'!

From a study we conducted we learned that most entrepreneurs starting companies have other reasons for doing that than just money. Many are 'corporate misfits', others value their independence, and the majority have a dream which is to do something out of the ordinary, to make a contribution to this world either by launching a new and/or better product or service, or just doing it 'their way'. The 'why' is more complex than just making the 'big bucks'.

Make your goals and strategic positioning public. ­ Let everybody know what you are doing. People need to know not just the destination but the route -- the competitive advantage that will get the company where it's going.

Be realistic.  Those sales forecasts -- where do they come from? How detailed is the data behind them, and are sales people willing to commit to them? And those budgets: were the people affected involved in helping to determine them?

Be Flexible.   The point of a plan is not to constrain a company's actions; there are always unforeseen opportunities, and companies must often decide to make mid-course corrections. Rather, the plan serves as a point of reference -- a benchmark that helps you understand what you didn't foresee and how you'll have to change if you move off-plan.

When sitting down to write your strategy plan, ask yourself several questions:

What business are you in?
Why do you exist?
What's unique about your company?
How are you different from the way you were three years ago?
How will you be different in X years? Do I know who my competition is?
Do I know my market?
Am I aware of all the regulatory rules and the economic climate?

The final step in the strategic-planning phase of the overall planning process is to lay out specific long-range objectives for the company and devise action plans so it can meet each one. In this stage, each plan touches on the following:

Which objective it helps to meet, the measurable outcomes (what exactly will be done), the time frame, the cost, and who will be held responsible?