Organizations at all stages of their life cycle have visions for how they see their future, including medium to long term performance objectives. One would also expect organizations to have a general idea on how to reach their defined goals and ultimately maximize their value creation potential. However, how do you achieve this, i.e. how do you translate your vision into an executable mission? We believe that the best and most efficient manner is trough devising a clear strategy, playing to your strengths. An integral component of this process is strategic planning, which represents the output of the decisions made with regards to the future strategy of an organization.
What is strategy?
In the literature, which is extensive, there exists an almost infinite number of definitions of the concept strategy. Below are some citations and explanations that we like and which we believe represent and clearly summarize what strategy is about.
A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin in their book “Playing to Win – How Strategy Really Works” state that
“A strategy is a coordinated and integrated set of where-to-play, how-to-win, core capability, and management system choices that uniquely meet a consumer’s needs, thereby creating competitive advantage and superior value for a business. Strategy is a way to win—and nothing less.”
Alfred Chandler in “Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the history of industrial enterprise” focuses on courses of action to achieve goals, defining it as
“the determination of the basic long-term goals of an enterprise, and the adoption of courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out these goals.”
Michael Porter, in his book “Competitive Strategy“, focuses on policies and means to achieve goals, calling it
“…the broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be, and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals” and
“…the combination of the ends (goals) for which the firm is striving and the means (policies) by which it is seeking to get there.”
To us strategy is about
- Defining the direction of an organization
- Making choices and decisions to support the chosen direction
- Utilizing available resources in the most efficient and value creating way
All of the above should be done with the ultimate objective of maximizing the value of an organization for its stakeholders
Strategic planning
The objective of creating a strategic plan is to maximize the value of a business for its stakeholders. This is equally relevant for SMEs and multinationals, start-ups and established companies. Most organizations have an informal overall and general idea of the direction it is heading and its long term objectives, but our experience leads us to believe that many organizations, particularly in the SME segment, do not fully leverage the power of strategic planning as a value creator. As a consequence they make sub-optimal strategic decision, thereby not maximizing their potential and valuation.
Strategic planning is about formalizing the strategic direction decided upon by an organization. This is done through an iterative and formal process where the outcome and output is the strategic plan. The plan, which should incorporate the retained strategic actions and initiatives, including the basis upon which decisions were made, should serve as a medium to long term road map for the organization, including for execution tracking.
To us, strategic planning is a value adding exercise for organizations. We believe that formalizing an organization’s strategy ensures focus and structure to the process. Further, having a plan in place is driving execution discipline and accountability. Finally, having a proper process and analytical tools in place for making strategic decisions helps ensuring that conclusions drawn are based on solid foundations, including comparison of alternative options, which should lead to better choices being made.
We offer a range of services adapted to various situations. If you already have a formal strategic planning process in place we can review it with the objective of finding areas of improvement. On the other hand, if you manage your corporate strategy on an ad-hoc basis, we can support with setting up a formal process. Our solutions include reviewing your current strategic planning process and tools, with the objective to find areas of improvement, and devising a strategic planning process adapted to the size and profile of the company.
Areas of intervention
We provide a comprehensive service offering covering all facets of strategic planning. Examples of how we can assist include
- Analysis and evaluation of strategic options
- Development of strategic plan
- Business case development for strategic initiatives
- Valuation of organic and inorganic options
Mandates can be both global, covering the entire process, or on one particular aspect, depending on context and your specific needs.
Our objective is to be a value creative resource for all our clients, and we believe the best way to achieve this is through offering customized solutions that are adapted to each client individually and their particular situation.
More information
We invite you to contact us for an initial discussion on how we can assist your value creating efforts through our comprehensive strategic planning offering.