Strategic Advice For Executives
Most executives know that strategic planning is important, but almost all find it scary, because it forces them to confront a future that they can only guess at. Worse, actually choosing a strategy entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and options. An executive may well fear that getting those choices wrong will wreck her career.
The solution is to make a plan based on research and a review of the company's existing situation. Specifically, the company's assets (people, money, intellectual property) and liabilities (customers, reputation, business environment) should be examined. Then, a time-tested method called the SWOT analysis can be used to examine a company's strengths and weaknesses, as well as its opportunities and threats. The objective is to use this information to develop a roadmap that will allow a company to get from where it is now to where it wants to be in the future.
why strategies fail can gather information from inside the organization by talking with executives, pulling in customer insights and collecting industry data, as well as from outside the company by conducting market and competitor research. It is essential to be honest and candid throughout the process so that a true picture of the company's situation is achieved.
Once a strategy has been developed, it should be communicated to the entire management team and to employees in every division of the company. It should then be used to guide the day-to-day operations of the company and serve as a framework for making annual operating plans.
The over-riding goal is to use the strategic plan to align all of the company's resources and actions from bottom to top to move the business in the direction of its vision for the future. This is the only way to turn a strategic plan into reality.
As a result, it is essential to create an effective structure for managing the strategic plan. This includes having a leadership team that is able to commit the time and energy needed for strategy development, planning sessions and for following through on action items. It is also necessary to establish a system for keeping track of action items and their progress throughout the year.
It is also crucial to understand that, while a strategic plan may change slightly over the course of a year, it will always be subject to the changing dynamics of the business environment within which your company operates. The most successful companies are those that can keep up with the changing landscape and continuously adjust their strategies accordingly. This means letting go of old strategic goals and adopting new ones as necessary. It is also crucial to recognize that, even though strategic planning is an activity conducted by senior management, it should involve the entire company. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and can contribute to making strategic planning a success.
