Business strategy is about your organisation’s purpose, its major goals and objectives and its corresponding actions.
It involves assessing where your business is trying to get to in the long-term, which markets you should compete in, how you can perform better than your competition, what resources you will need to achieve this, what external factors will affect your business’ ability to compete and what your stakeholders’ expectations are.
The process
There is no one right way to carry out your business strategy but it’s crucial not to delegate this area and to involve your senior management in all aspects of your business strategy planning. A successfully implemented one starts with an understanding and acceptance by a majority of the parties involved. The greater support you get for your business strategy from the outset, the greater the chance it will succeed.
Next steps
To help determine your business strategy planning, undertake a SWOT analysis, which examines your business’ strengths and weaknesses, and identifies potential opportunities and threats. Another useful tool is gap analysis: this enables you to compare your business’ actual performance with its potential one. It will give you insight into areas of your business that have room for improvement. It makes more sense to develop a business strategy based on ‘why’ rather than ‘how’.
Need to know
The business strategies you develop need to be realistic – you must put in place targets that can be achieved and measured. Specify time periods and break long-term objectives down into manageable chunks. You also need to be prepared to make changes to your existing business strategy planning – nothing is guaranteed in the long-term – so any business strategies undertaken, committed to your business plan and communicated to management and/or staff must be reviewed on a regular basis.
