Summary:

Successful businesses are those that pay attention to the competition and know the field in which they operate. These elements are key to an organization’s thinking and the relationship that is built between customers, members, volunteers and financial resources.

All organizations should be thinking about strategies, how they go to market, serve or promote their wares.

Within these strategic thoughts, there are four questions to ask to determine if an organization can win:

1. What does the organization want to become?

2. What is the vision and strategy?

3. What assumptions are to be made?

4. What are the available resources?

There are several factors that influence strategic decisions. Some of these factors include changes in the market, economy, service, products, culture, attitude, suppliers, customers, members, volunteers and technology. Paying attention to these internal and external factors will help the organization recognize opportunities and threats.

Article Quote:

“As a reminder, the most important strategies every organization should focus on is investment, management and implementation. An investment strategy is to decide where and why to invest. A management strategy is how to achieve the desired result. The implementation strategy is how to be effective with the resources given. Implementation links the investment and management strategies together in an action plan.”

Link: http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/030710/bus_571688051.shtml

When developing your strategy, don’t forget that the core priority is always what the customer wants and is willing to pay for or subscribe to.

Beyond that, gain a a thorough understanding of where the company has been and what direction it is moving. Perform due diligence when doing research by paying attention to trends, market changes, new products or processes and decide where your organzation fits into this environment.

For more on strategic planning, see http://www.performancesolutionstech.com/category/strategicplanning/

Summary:

For years Robert Bradford, strategic planning expert, focused on four variables in the Simplified Strategic Planning Process– value, probability, management effort and financial risk when assessing strategic opportunities.  However, recently he decided to include a secondary analysis of opportunities, undertaken when reviewing opportunity screening worksheets.

The purpose of this screen is to enable your team to quickly sort out the opportunities with the greatest strategic potential for your organization. Start by asking the team to rate each opportunity on two dimensions – resource requirements and strategic impact on the organization. This process helps management prioritize initiatives and justify saying “no” to those that impede the strategic progress.

In evaluating initiatives, the no-brainers are those with high impact and low resource requirements.  The tricky discussions – and often the most strategically dangerous issues – occur in the middle level zone – opportunities with moderate impact and/or moderate resource requirements. These opportunities can mire your strategic level resources in initiatives that produce only incremental improvements in your organization’s performance, while more fundamental, truly strategic opportunities are starved for resources because they are “too difficult”.

Article Quote:

“This screening is particularly useful when you are evaluating far more opportunities than your team can realistically handle (in my experience, from three to ten strategic opportunities, depending on the team and its resources). ”

Link: http://www.cssp.com/strategicplanning/blog/?p=557

Evaluating strategic initiatives with this process creates better focus on those initiatives that provide the greatest strategic potential for the organization. The company will be in a better position if it can accomplish a few key initiatives well than to work on several with no real results.

For more on strategic planning, seehttp://www.performancesolutionstech.com/category/strategicplanning/