Strategic Management:

Planning

Strategic Planning

New Approaches for the Era of Rapid Change

"You can never plan the future by the past."

– Edmund Burke

Areas of Applications

Comprehensive strategic planning and strategic programming is more closely linked to firm performance in stable industries than in unstable industries. Dynamic organizations such as start-ups, new business ventures, and opportunity-driven businesses need a more flexible approach to business management.

The Art of War: Planning

By: Sun Tzu

Operational Plan: "We don’t have a traditional strategy process, planning process like you’d find in traditional technical companies. It allows Google to innovate very, very quickly, which I think is a real strength of the company." – Eric Schmidt... More

New Approaches to Strategy Formulation

The currently dominant view of strategy is the resource-based theory. Traditional strategy models, such as Michael Porter's five forces model, focus on the company's external competitive environment. Most of them do not attempt to look inside the company. In contrast, the resource-based perspective highlights the need for a fit between the external market context in which a company operates and its internal capabilities. According to this view, a company's competitive advantage derives from its ability to assemble and exploit an appropriate combination of resources.

Sustainable competitive advantage is achieved by continuously developing existing and creating new resources and capabilities in response to rapidly changing market conditions.

New Goals for Strategic Planning

In the new business environment of rapid changes, heightened risk and uncertainty, developing effective strategies is critical. They prepare executives to face the strategic uncertainties ahead and serve as the focal point for creative thinking about a company's vision and direction.

Many companies get little value from their annual strategic-planning process however. To meet the new challenges, this process should be redesigned to support real-time strategy making and to encourage 'creative accidents'¹.

Top 10 Essential Requirements To Be A Great Strategic Thinker

Essential Element #4: You must have an extremely high level of awareness of what is happening around you and be open to absorbing all that you can. In any business, there are clues, often subtle, both internal and external to help guide future direction and to identify opportunities. Great strategic thinkers take all of this in and then they set aside time to think about all the experience and information to guide them in the planning and working on the issues, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead... More

The Starting Point

A key starting point of strategic planning is the acceptance of the counterintuitive notion that this planning process should not be designed to make strategy.

Real creative strategies are rarely made during formal paneled discussions, they "are more likely to be cooked up informally and often in real-time – in hallway conversations, casual working groups, or quiet moments of reflection on long airplane flights."¹

Preparing Minds

A successful strategy process would help your company to react quicker to emerging opportunities and make faster decisions than your competitors do. It would ensure that your executives have a strong grasp of the strategic context they operate in before the unpredictable but inevitable twists and turns of your business push them to make critical decisions in real time.¹

Blue Ocean Strategy: 6 Principles

Blue Ocean Strategy is about revolutionary value innovation.

The six principles drive the successful formulation and execution of Blue Ocean Strategy. These principles attenuate the six risks... More

12 Essential Elements of Strategic Planning...

Increasing the Innovativeness of Your Company Strategies...

The Importance of Values and Mission...

The Keys to Designing Effective Strategy Conversation...

Strategy Management...

Strategic Programming...

New Systemic Approach to Strategic Management...

Analysis of the Business Environment...

Business Portfolio Analysis...

Milestone-based Thinking...

Strategic Innovation: Road-Mapping...

Strategic Learning...

Dynamic Strategy as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage...

Personal Strategic Planning...

References:

1. "Tired of Strategic Planning?", The Times of India

2. "Successfully Devising Corporate Plans", Brian Houlden

3. "Mergers and Acquisitions", J.Fred weston & Samuel C. Weaver

4. "The Power of Simplicity", Jack Trout

5. "Changing Strategic Direction", Peter Skat-Rшrdam

6. "Developing a Strategic Business Plan", White Paper by PlanWare

7. "The Importance of Values and Missions", Brian Tracy

8. "Develop a Clear Vision," Brian Tracy

9. "Enterprise Strategies," Vadim Kotelnikov

10. "Sustainable Growth Strategies," Vadim Kotelnikov

11. "6Ws of Corporate Growth," Vadim Kotelnikov

12. "Smart Corporate Leader," Vadim Kotelnikov

13. "Smart Business Architect," Vadim Kotelnikov

14. "Systemic Innovation," Vadim Kotelnikov