Free white papers

Become A Strategic Thinker

Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The strategic thinking business owners and marketers think, plan, and act strategically. Inexperienced business owners and marketers make the mistake of focusing only on stopping things; therefore becoming reactive to situations versus becoming proactive. Their only action is reaction.  They maintain the status quo and actually lose in the long run because the rules never change and there are all sorts of things not being stopped.

Strategic action is necessary in situations where an adversary blocks the way to an objective. In such cases, sharp business owners and marketers use strategic thinking to identify where an adversary is vulnerable, and then determine a way to exploit that vulnerability.  Strategic thinking can be used to solve problems before they happen, while examining the pros and cons of various moves in order to identify the best course of action.

CREATING A STRATEGY
Creating a strategy for a company’s best results involves: 

Defining goals with intermediate and short-term objectives

Identifying competitors

Carrying out a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis

Imagining and playing out scenarios

Identifying primary and secondary target markets
Identifying alliance business partners

Deciding what resources are required (salaries, expenses, etc)

Devising tactics

Drawing up an action timetable

Developing and implementing a systematic process for making decisions and managing work will guide everyone in the company toward desired outcomes. Decisions need to be made with an awareness of the future and the implications if the decisions are not well thought out before implemented.  Organize teams and individuals to carry out those decisions and measure the results against expectations. Remember - Pareto’s Law: 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results! 

Strategic thinking is the ability to step back from day-to-day activities and develop a long-term plan for sustained growth and development. This involves the ability to evaluate and understand the competition, keep a close eye on industry trends and have a strong grasp of basic business concepts. 

Strategic thinking is called for when considering company goals, management plans, staffing issues, career planning and the long-term development of people. Using strategic planning allows you to systematically and efficiently plan for the company and team. 

People often confuse strategic thinking with tactical thinking. Strategic thinking is focused on the long term while tactical thinking is focused on short-sighted “urgent” action items. Strategic thinking is the big picture.  It challenges the status quo and looks at the future payoff by taking into account the preparation needed to reach the long-term goals. Tactical thinking, on the other hand, is “in the moment”, often the safe and conservative solution and it looks for the immediate payoff and involves automatic and routine execution of a task, the immediate “what to do and how to do it.” 


Delicious Bookmark this on Delicious
Comments
Post has no comments.
Post a Comment
Captcha Image
Trackback Link
http://www.fullbrainmarketing.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=9145&PostID=299367&A=Trackback
Trackbacks
Post has no trackbacks.

Recent Posts


Tags


Archive