Questions and Answers

Our company is successful with many business improvement activities including quality and customer focus. Is there really a need to implement strategic planning?

Your success suggests that your company has had a sound and appropriate strategy. Notice the past tense. There is absolutely no guarantee that yesterday's sound and appropriate strategy will continue to be successful in the future. Indeed, there is great danger in assuming so without adequate study. There are many examples of once-successful companies that failed because they stuck with a once-successful strategy that had become inappropriate. For example, consider the Swiss watch industry. The top Swiss manufacturers had strong competencies in miniaturization and the engineering and assembly of fine precision movements. They dominated the watch industry for many years. However, the development of microelectronics in Asia and the resultant application to digital watches caused the rapid decline of many of these companies. They did not possess competencies in this new technology. Moreover, while their core competencies had become superfluous for many segments of their current markets, they might have been highly valuable elsewhere. It was a clear example of yesterday's recipe for success not always being tomorrow's recipe for success.

Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. respects your privacy. We do not rent, sell or exchange email addresses.

Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.
2219 Packard - Suite 13
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

For permission to reprint any article from Course and Direction, or if you would like to submit an article for inclusion in Course and Direction, please contact the editor, Elizabeth Tidd, at .