Strategic Thinking

“A competitive strategy is developing a broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals should be and what policies will be needed to carry out those goals.”

Source: Michael E. Porter, Competitive Strategy, Free Press, 1998.

Wasting valuable time and resources in the wrong direction is one of the worst things you can do to your business. Yet many people continue to do so every day, day after day, month after month, year after year, until it is too late.

Productive Impact can help you discover whether or not your business is well-positioned to deliver consistent bottom-line results.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process by which we identify your current position and help you to realize the optimal future paths to take in order to place your business in the most advantageous position. We can assist you in:

  • Establishing the current positioning of your business;
  • Clarifying the direction your business should take;
  • Identifying the resources and steps required to reach the destination;
  • Following up on the implementation of these steps.

Productive Impact extends its services to all areas relevant to the design of a sound business strategy. As there is never a “one-size-fits-all” solution to complex business strategy issues, we will be happy to discuss your particular concerns and will address them all personally.

In our experience however, there are 5 main steps to any thorough strategic planning exercise. Productive Impact provides you with a full suite of 5 practical modules to identify the best course of action for your business on each of these steps. We recommend that you undertake all of the different modules of the suite in their logical order for maximum success:

Module 1 – Business Segmentation

Module 2 – Profitability Mapping

Module 3 – Industry Analysis

Module 4 – Option Identification and Modelling

Module 5 – Implementation Plan

Methodology

The Five Steps – A state-of-the-art consulting methodology to help you achieve and maintain a sustainable and profitable position in your business.

Productive Impact’s methodology to assess the optimal position for your business consists of five steps, detailed in the graphic below:

ST

Customisation

Here at Productive Impact, we know that there is no single way of solving business issues. We always customise our methodology for every single one of our clients, taking into account the specific needs and priorities of their business.

Sources of Information

When assessing your business and its competitive environment, we seek many sources of information. These include:

  • Internal sources of information:

-   Financial records (financial and management reports)

-   Databases (marketing, financial)

-   Presentations

-   Interviews (CEO, marketing, sales, finance)

  • Competitors (usually publicly disclosed information)
  • Suppliers
  • Customers

More importantly, review of this information is of utmost importance. This requires a great deal of expertise when it comes to choosing which one to start with and which ones to focus more energy on. When preparing our data gathering plan we assess the following criteria for each of the sources considered:

  • Reliability (how accurate will the data be?)
  • Ease of access (what are the steps and complexity involved in data gathering?)
  • Lead time (how long does it take to get it?)
  • Cost of getting the information (is there any cost associated?)

The time has come for you to have a critical and informed look at the way you conduct business. Contact us to discuss your business issues and how we may help you improve your business today.