Don’t Just Compete. Compete to Win.

Part One

Laying the foundation for tomorrow’s success, while competing to win today

Changing demographics, new technologies, aggressive competitors, and sophisticated consumers all demand that organizations change the way they do business, or face extinction. Many business try to survive by making marginal changes to what they have done in the past. But the companies that thrive will welcome change, and actually renewing themselves by strategically aligning with current and future realities.

Core Strategic Decisions

Strategy is the way an organization plans to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by its environment. Your business strategy is a set of choices about how you will deliver value to your customers and distinguish your company from its competitors. Will your core strategic decision be to cling to the past, or to arm yourself for the future?

In this class, you and others in your organization will:
  • Understand the challenges and opportunities present in your external environment.
  • Identify assumptions about the future.
  • Clarify a reason for being that motivates and inspires.
  • Identify the principles by which your people will conduct themselves.
  • Define your future customers and how you will deliver value to them.
  • Identify core organizational competencies needed to succeed in the long run.
  • Create a long-term business focus and “anchors” that distinguish you from your competitors.
  • Set short-term performance goals.
  • Establish performance initiatives and a Master Plan to manage your organization’s long-term development.
    • Part Two

    Overview of Strategy
  • Learn the meaning and critical elements of strategy.
  • Understand two orientations to strategy, and determine where you are on this continuum.
  • Explore three approaches to strategy.
  • Assess the current strategy of your organization.
  • Assess the current results of your organization.
  • Learn the strategic design sequence you will follow in clarifying your strategy.

    • 2. Analyzing the Business Environment
  • Review current market conditions and key competitors.
  • Identify key customers, key stakeholders, and their expectations.
  • Identify key suppliers, and rate your relationship with them.
  • Identify external factors influencing your organization.
  • Evaluate current market conditions affecting your organization.
  • Review the strengths and weaknesses of key competitors.

    • 3. Forecasting the Future
  • Identify assumptions about the future environment of your organization.
  • Reduce this list into the “big hitters” that define your future business situation.
  • Evaluate the impact of the big hitters on your organization.
  • Determine how your organization might respond to each of these assumptions.
  • Strategize for alternative future business situations.
  • Conduct a SWOT analysis to prepare to effectively manage the future business situation.

    • 4. Creating Core Ideology
  • Understand the role of a core ideology in your organization’s success.
  • Learn about the ideologies of the most successful companies.
  • Explore the legacy of your organization.
  • Define your organization’s mission.
  • Analyze the beliefs that have created your culture.
  • Reach consensus on your guiding principles.

    • 5. Defining Your Strategic Direction
  • Understand the primary questions that must be answered to establish strategic direction.
  • Clarify a vision of your organization five years in the future.
  • Identify the characteristics of your current customers and the deliverables you provide them.
  • Describe your future customers, and how your deliverables and products or services may change to meet their needs.
  • Explore your organization’s core competencies, and define the competencies you will need in order to compete in the future.

    • 6. Defining Your Competitive Advantage
  • Understand customers’ perception of value as the foundation of differentiation.
  • Create a long-term business focus.
  • Identify competitive differentiators within your industry.
  • Do a competitive analysis against the competitive differentiators.
  • Select competitive anchors that distinguish you from your competitors, and the competitive necessities that define the specific areas in which you must advance.
  • Develop a value position.

    • 7. Setting Goals
  • Understand the importance of setting goals and tracking performance.
  • Learn the building-blocks of goal-setting.
  • Identify your organization’s key result areas.
  • Establish metrics in each of your key result areas.
  • Assess your current performance.
  • Set goals in each of your key result areas.
  • Evaluate your feedback system.

    • 8. Creating a Master Plan
  • Understand the importance of an integrated Master Plan for managing your organization.
  • Select a number of critical success factors for your organization.
  • Identify major performance initiatives to implement your ideal vision.
  • Fill out a performance initiatives matrix showing the relationship between your critical success factors and performance initiatives.
  • Learn how to create a project charter to guide the implementation of each initiative.
  • Know how to commission project teams for each initiative.
  • Understand the basics of project management, and how to use a project implementation worksheet.

    • Contact Us to learn how to register your group for this course, either standalone or as part of a package of courses.
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