When planning strategically, it is imperative to look at both internal and external factors that may impact the company, both positively and negatively.

Internal/Positive: These are considered the company’s overall strengths and what the company is doing well. 

Internal/Negative: These are the company’s weaknesses or what the company could be doing better.

External/Positive: These are opportunities, what are the company’s biggest prospects for growth and success?

External/Negative: These are the obstacles, the company’s roadblocks to growth and success. 

All of this is also known as a S.W.O.T. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to evaluate your company. This analysis specifies the factors that are favorable and unfavorable relative to a specified objective. When used in conjunction with the specified objective S.W.O.T analysis can help define a strategy which can then be developed into a business plan that includes overall marketing strategies for growth. 

Here’s an example of a Marketing S.W.O.T. analysis: 
 



Strengths: Attributes of a company helpful to achieving the objective. These give the company a competitive advantage. Ex.: trade secrets, patents, brand names, reputation, resources, creativity, cost advantages (from experience).

Weaknesses: Attributes of a company which are harmful to achieving the objective, the absence of certain strengths. Ex.: Lack of trade secrets, patents, weak brand names, poor reputation, high cost structure.

Opportunities: External conditions which are helpful to achieving the objective, a change in the market that should provide profit and growth. Ex.: Unfulfilled customer needs, new technologies, market trends and changes.

Threats: External conditions that are harmful to achieving the objective may represent a threat to a company.  Ex.: Change in customer wants and needs, new competitors.

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.” 


 Bookmark this on Delicious