Development of a comprehensive and effective strategy follows the critical review of the environment in which the enterprise needs to compete and succeed.
There are many tools and aids for this process, and libraries have been written, but still most businesses benefit from a fresh eye, unencumbered by any baggage, but informed by the wisdom of experience, and knowledge of the tools and practises that have succeeded elsewhere.
Management of small and medium sized enterprises often have trouble lifting their heads above the daily fray, as there is not the depth of management that enables people to work “on the business” rather than “in the business”. It may be a cliché, but that is why it so often holds true.
The solution to that performance limiting dilemma is to start thinking about strategy, and taking some concrete steps to develop, deploy and measure a strategy that delivers to stakeholders.
One way is to use one of the many templates around, and often the addition of the appropriate expertise on a part time, ad hoc, or contract basis, depending on need is the way forward. In that way, businesses have the benefit of the experience, lack of bias, and critical eye of an appropriately experienced outsider.
For 40 years Allen Roberts, principal of StrategyAudit has wrangled success for his employers and clients in:
Strategy development,
marketing and brand strategy development and implementation,
New product development and commercialisation,
Logistics and value chain management,
Sales management,
Operational improvement,
and more, much more.
So, what is a ‘StrategyAudit”?
Strategies are ideas and information distilled into a plan of action that has at its core a set of choices that have been or should be made. Which customers, which markets, which technologies, and so on.
An audit is a post activity review of things that have happened, comparing the actual to the planned.
How do you audit a strategy? something that has not yet fully happened, that is a set of ideas and choices?
The funny thing about ideas, is that unlike physical things, they have the potential to get better with use, whereas “things” depreciate with use.
This paradox is at the core of the idea of a “Strategy Audit”
It becomes an interrogation of the assumptions, data, plans, capability assessments, and all the other stuff that routinely gets lumped into a “strategy” and most importantly, the fragile links that exist between these pieces of information.
It is the connections and the insights that these connections bring that are at the core of the thoughts on this blog.
Contact me for a debate, or more information via the blog,
on my mobile, +61 (0)410 627 318 or direct to my email,