Sometimes executives I work with overlook culture as an important strategic building block of success. It may be that they see it as nonsense, and it may be they don’t see any return on the long and sometimes patient investment required to see results. But culture literally affects everything an organization does, even if it’s […]
Continue readingIn my last two posts, I discussed two of the three things that people get wrong in strategic planning: information and buy-in. Today, I’ll be discussing the third thing: sources and estimates. Data Sources As I mentioned in a previous post, people tend to want to find definitive sources of data for their strategic planning. […]
Continue readingAs organizations grow, buy-in gets more and more difficult, and this can be an issue in even the smallest businesses. In our experience, a cultural alignment of employees with the mission of the organization and its strategic plan are critical to success.
Continue readingMost people I encounter in business tell me they do strategic planning. When they describe their process, however, I can quickly identify key issues they will have with their planning and how to address it with a few key questions (or thought processes). Let me share my 30 years experience and conversations I’ve had with […]
Continue readingThe key to the “goldilocks” approach to your strategic planning is understanding how strategic planning can help you think about your business, your customers and your competitors.
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New technologies follow a fairly well-understood “curve”. We can think of these curves in terms of profitability, but this is oversimplifying things. Much of the thinking about technology curves in the business world comes from the work of Nikolai Kondratiev in the 1920s. The Kondratiev Curve In his work, Kondratiev suggested that there are long-term […]
Continue readingThis is one of the toughest questions to answer for most people who do strategic planning. The average company that does strategic planning typically achieves only 30% of their objectives. Since your strategic objectives represent the highest priority initiatives in your organization, why would that number be so low? First, we must recognize that strategy […]
Continue readingRobert Bradford will be presenting Simplified Strategic Planning in a series of six online presentations starting on June 17. You may participate live, and we will send video of each session to all subscribers. Each session is two hours long and will cover the entirety of the Simplified Strategic Planning process. Attendees will receive videos […]
Continue readingIt can be difficult to compete with larger companies. To many, they seem to have all the advantages and no disadvantages. There are several reasons why larger competitors make tough competitors. This week, we’ll examine the advantages and disadvantages of the larger competitor, and how you can use them strategically to build more profitable business. […]
Continue readingIf you have attended the Simplified Strategic Planning seminar or read the book, you are probably already familiar with the concepts of specialty and commodity customers. Simply put, specialty customers are those who perceive premium value in a product or service and are willing to pay for that value, while commodity customers choose based on […]
Continue readingIf you’re familiar with Google, you may have heard of the 20% rule they’ve followed since their early days as a startup. The simple rule says that every key employee needs to spend 20% of their time on projects that have no immediately visible payback for the company. While 20% may seem like a lot, […]
Continue readingLast week, I reviewed the pros and cons of our new monthly schedule for strategic planning. If you’ve been using Simplified Strategic Planning, you might find the new strategic planning schedule useful. Month 1 – Situation Analysis In the first meeting, as with our traditional schedules, you’ll review your market segmentation, and assign homework relating […]
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