Do-it-yourself strategic planning

You probably know the answers to your company's problems; here are the questions

I'm going to let you in on a precious secret: For most problems your company faces, you already know the solution.

Letting that cat out of the bag may land me in Dutch with consultant wannabes who hold themselves out as the sole source of answers to your otherwise hopeless dilemmas. But the happy truth is that - unless you just returned home from the Peace Corps to inherit control of the family ordnance plant - no one knows your business better than you.

I know what you're thinking: If I have all the answers, why is my company eating my competitors' dust? Because having the answers isn't enough. You also have to know the questions (thus the definition of "consultant" as someone who borrows your watch so he can tell you the time).

After asking you a lot of questions, your consultant may tell you that changes are occurring rapidly. That rapid change makes it difficult for you to keep up. That you can't afford a "business as usual" attitude. (You knew that, but you didn't want to acknowledge it because you don't object to change as long as you don't have to participate in it.) And he may tell you that you have to stay ahead of the power curve and empower people as part of a paradigm shift that will yield a win-win situation as you rise to the next level in the new millennium. And he'll probably tell you that you need a strategic plan.

On that last point he's probably right. Businesses that don't have a reasonably well defined strategy tend to drift along from year to year. They may be very profitable and experience relatively few serious problems. But they're not prepared for rapid response when rapid change comes knocking on their door.

Not for everyone. Not every company needs a strategic plan. If your business is circling the drain, your bank has pulled your line, the IRS is padlocking your office, Qwest just cut your phone service, and your best customer just went to Cancún with your hated competitor, it's a little late to be weighing the pros and cons of a strategic planning retreat.

But if you're launching a new enterprise, or if your old enterprise isn't reaching its potential, you need to get your key people together for an extended chat about where you are, where you're going, what may keep you from getting there, and what will get you there. The result will be your strategic plan, and these questions will help you draft it:

Status report

• Where are we as a company?
• What is our core purpose?
• What are our core competencies? What missing or inadequate competencies would help us fulfill our core purpose?
• What is our competitive position?
• What's our market share?
• Are we where we thought/hoped we would be when we started? Are our earnings satisfactory? Is the company meeting our needs?

Causes

• What factors have contributed most to our success?
• What factors have held us back? Why have they held us back? What do we have to do to overcome them?

Opportunity

• Where are we "missing the boat"?
• Where do we want to be in x years? Is that realistic? What do we have to add to get there? What do we have to give up? What do we have to overcome? How else do we have to change?

Our competition

• Who are our significant competitors? What do they do well? What don't they do well? Who are their major customers? Which are more successful than we are?
• What is it about each of our competitors that gives them an advantage over us? How can we close the gap? If we can't close the gap, can we compensate in other areas?
• What gives us an advantage over our competitors? How can we widen the gap? How can we deny our competitors what they need to increase their market share?

Our market

• What are our target markets? Are they growing or shrinking? If they're growing, is our share of that market growing? If they're shrinking, what new markets do we need to target?
• How do we reach our target markets? What impressions and messages do we want to communicate to them? Are we underserving any markets that mesh with our core competencies?

Priorities

• What issues/problems/opportunities have we identified thus far? Rank them by importance. Rank them in a linear order
• What are our action items? Who's responsible for each action item? What resources will they require? What's their deadline?
• What do we want to accomplish and when?
• How are we willing to change, and what are we willing to give up, to reach our objectives?
• Are we willing to risk failure along the way?

Back to Article Index