Strategy training - developing business strategy

Strategy is a word that is so often misused that we felt the need to define what we mean by it. Similarly there is a wide variation in what people understand by a "Business Plan and how one is created.

Strategy

The path by which you create sustainable competitive advantage. It is long-term and is concerned with the type of decisions that require substantial investment of time, resources and capital; decisions that will have an impact far into the future.

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Strategy is about focusing - what will you do and what will you not do with regard to:

• markets
• products
• customer and supplier relationships
• skills ... etc

Developing strategy means stepping back from the business to gain a broader perspective.

Marketing and developing business strategy

"Failure to understand the importance of market segmentation , market share, service, and reputation, among other things, is the principal reason why companies fail to compete successfully in so many world markets. Making what they consider to be good products and then giving them to the sales force to get rid of is just not enough."     Malcolm McDonald

Marketing is at the core of Hard Management's strategy training programmes. It is absolutely essential that managers understand the source of revenues. How can one develop an effective strategy if one does not understand marketing concepts such as:

• brand - what it is, how it is shaped, what effect it has, its value
• segmentation - why it is the foundation of marketing and how it should affect everyone in the firm
• positioning - something that takes place in the mind of the customer
• how customers buy - their criteria and processes, factors that influence their choices
• competitors - who they are (not always obvious), their likely actions     ..... and so on

For more information on our marketing expertise, please click here.

The pitfalls associated with developing strategy

Our strategy training programmes help managers to avoid the pitfalls associated with strategic plans!

• the weight of detail blurs the critical success factors
• conventional financial analysis discourages investment
• resentment as the people closest to the "coalface", interacting with customers and suppliers, are told what is important by people furthest from the coalface.
• action plans are not integrated into daily plans

The Hard Management approach overcomes these dangers by:

• ensuring that the performance drivers in the business are clearly identified and measurement systems established - what gets measured gets done!
• conventional financial analysis is balanced by new approaches that value intangibles such as brand, relationships, skills
• involving people throughout the organisation in the planning process. As Deming said, "If you want to know how to put the wheel on a car better; ask the man who puts the wheel on the car."
• using approaches such as the Balanced Scorecard; making strategy an integral part of everyone's everyday job. Developing the leadership skills of managers.

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