A Good Strategic Plan can be one of your Strongest Assets
Strategy (definition): an integrated overarching externally-oriented concept of how the business will achieve its objectives. — Donald Hambrick/James Fredrickson
Strategic Planning is an enterprise-wide discovery process that identifies viable growth alternatives and selects the path that is most suitable to the company. A plan is the outcome of quality strategic thinking. Good strategic thinking requires knowledge of the market, as well as a company’s own capabilities; it includes identifying and evaluating multiple alternatives, carefully assessing each against selected criteria and concludes with action plans for the implementation of the chosen growth path. The plan works when it considers all key stakeholders, and aligns all operating units, driving all activities and behaviors of the organization.
When completing a strategic plan, it is important to address five key aspects of your business:
- Strategic Positioning: What you do and how you do it differently than your competitors
- Target Customer: Who you serve
- Profit Drivers: How you make money
- Channel: How you deliver your product/services to the market
- Resource Management: How you allocate resources over time to accomplish the plan
The strategic plan is a living, dynamic document, which guides direction of the business and influences daily decisions and investments. To be implemented, the organization must be aligned to achieve it, structurally and culturally, it must be appropriately resourced and it must be measured.
The macro approach to strategic planning is shown above. Reynolds Consulting, LLC focuses on the quality of the content yielded by the process, not the process itself. The process is flexible and varies with the client depending on their unique needs and situation. The emphasis is placed on the art of strategic facilitation, asking the right questions, introducing new ideas for consideration, applying the rigor of analysis and assisting the client in thinking creatively and analytically about their strategic choices.
The outcome is inspiring strategy that will propel growth, and the action plan that will ensure that the growth is attained.
Strategic Execution
Strategic implementation is often one of the biggest challenges faced by companies. Study after study cites that the lack of strategic implementation is the number one reason companies don’t achieve their performance goals. Why don’t strategies get implemented well? One common reason is because strategy is not used as a blueprint for all resource allocation. A favorite definition of strategy is, “Strategy is how you spend your money”. If your organization doesn’t align resources (budgets, time and people) with strategy, then chances are the strategic goals will not be achieved. Strategy is as important in clarifying what the company doesn’t do as in defining what it does exceptionally well.
Reynolds Consulting, LLC helps organizations improve strategic implementation in several ways. As part of the strategic planning work we do with organizations we provide tools that encourage implementation. These tools include determining the sequencing of critical projects so that resources can be allocated appropriately and developing a metric system that tracks progress while providing real time diagnostics.
Other important services include:
- developing communication plans
- providing change management services
- conducting organizational alignment
- assisting in ongoing progress evaluations
Contact us to learn more about strategic planning and execution.