by Denise Harrison, Executive Vice President & COO Communicating strategy and gaining buy-in enables an organization to truly execute the strategic plan. As President of a financial services firm, I communicated regularly but was stymied by the lack of understanding and buy-in of the strategic plan. What could I do differently? I found that two-way […]
Continue readingby M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant Many companies have a stable, often diversified, list of B2B customers who repeatedly do business with them. Their strategies are focused on satisfying the needs and preferences of those core companies. They often take particular care in their strategic planning to be sure they satisfy their repeat customers. But […]
Continue readingBy Robert W. Bradford Estimates are, simply put, numerical assumptions. In strategic planning, we must deal with a variety of estimates. Some of these estimates are partially under our control (such as our sales number for the coming year) and some of them are completely out of our control (such as the growth rate in […]
Continue readingBy M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant As a C-level Executive, life in the office can be a lonely experience. Each executive has few peers, and each of their peers has different responsibilities, different skills, different work atmospheres and different personalities. While each C-level executive shares some of the same inputs and motivations, each one has […]
Continue readingCustomer preference is the currency that most of us in business seek. But what do we know about customer preferences – and how can we manage them, strategically? Most of us have a real blind spot when it comes to actually thinking like a customer and finding ways to set ourselves apart from the crowd […]
Continue readingBy Denise Harrison, Executive Vice President & COO Your new product makes the “nifty fifty” list of innovative new product introductions; you envision your picture on the cover of Fortune magazine; and then….you end up in legal battles and with little money. Here are some lessons learned from one company as it tried to capitalize […]
Continue readingBy M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant Experts estimate that American industry could improve its bottom line results by about $350 billion per year by getting everyone to truly buy in to the mission and culture of their companies. While the absolute number could be debated, the principle is sound: A great culture leads to increased […]
Continue readingEvents threaten us strategically for three reasons: They threaten our customers, they threaten displacement of our products or services, or they threaten our competitive position. Each of these types of threats contains an opportunity for innovation hidden within. One of the most basic threats we face is one that threatens our customers. Simply put, some […]
Continue readingBy Denise Harrison, Executive Vice President & COO Too often we are so myopically focused on the product or service we are trying to sell, that we don’t listen to what our customer is saying. The product or service may be great – but something around the buying experience or the initial purchase experience may […]
Continue readingby M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant Are you meeting your customer where your customer is looking? Customers are changing the way they look for goods and services. Yes, the traditional way of selling still is important and necessary for most business to business companies, but it is not the only way to interact with your […]
Continue readingI’ve come across references to a “new” strategic planning tool called the “business model canvas” in a few places recently. As with other “new” tools, it does offer a different way to structure how you think about your business. But how new is this tool, really? The most common approach to the business model canvas […]
Continue readingby Denise Harrison, Executive Vice President & COO Follow the leader – or dare to be different – which works better? The Center for Simplified Strategic Planning challenges client teams to dare to be different – based on our experience of working with many companies, this approach works best. We have found that teams that […]
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