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Strategy development is an expansive but important process of any ambitious business, enterprise or small, and thus, there are a number of business practices geared towards this strategic area. To begin with business strategy development, you must determine your strategic barriers by defining where you want your company to be, how you can bring your business to the desired end state, and where you currently are. Strategy development process has evolved through 5 key phases since the early 1900s. Much of corporate strategy is also hinged on ideas in the 1970s, in which the focus was around thinking strategically to beat competition and the business frameworks of alternative strategies, portfolio strategy analysis, and the BCG Growth Share Matrix emerged. The progression from your current state to your desired end state is a matter of strategy development and execution of that strategy. Strategy development started with a focus on financial planning in the 1950s, moving to sustainable planning in the 1960s, to strategic planning in the 1970s and ultimately to a focus on strategic management in the present day. Even though the ultimate goal of any business strategy is to maximize profitability, it involves a number of important pieces, including defining your company?s value proposition, competitive advantages, and resource allocation. In the current day, the strategic development theme is on integrating strategic planning and implementation with a stress on the primary notions of core competencies, strategy planning and execution, and balance scorecard analysis. Changes to strategic mindset represent an ever evolving, new thought leaders, and introduction of disruptive technologies and changes. Today, there are a couple schools of thinking around strategic management. Henry Mintzberg proposes for an organization, bottom-ups approach to drive the strategy development process that adheres to organizational configuration. In organizational configuration, the organization takes on behaviors based on adaptation to business surroundings. Henry Mintberg also advocates a transformation of business practices, where management recognizes the need and has the ability to manage top-down business process improvement. Within the strategy development process, it is noteworthy to point out that your company should conduct rigorous market analysis. There are also several market place evaluation characteristics, including market development, pricing changes, product development, market place characteristics, market force structure, and current trends. Remember that you should evaluate what makes a market unique, such as a high degree of government regulations, existence of competitive fragmentation, and importance of CapEx. There are several market ecosystem-based evaluation drivers, including ones that are socio-demographic, economic, legal, technological, and current trends. Doing proper market analysis involves supply analysis and demand analysis, the latter of which includes segmentation and segment analysis, understanding consumer buying behavior, and historical analysis. Comprehensive market analysis involves defining the market and the study scope, understanding the core industry issues, and planning for the future. Understanding how to build a business strategy requires a number of critical tasks, such as business case development. The financial analysis involved includes financial analysis reporting, ratio analysis, breakdown ROCE, stakeholder value analysis, and rudimentary driver sensitivity analyses. A bottoms-up benefit case must be created and analyzed and a business case should be built for financial benefits tracking. Usually, building a business case includes conducting focus interviews , analyzing company financials, creating strategy behind the business case financial model, and developing a top-down business case powerpoint. The strategic thinking of modern business organizations has been built upon a platform of military strategists since the beginning of organized warfare. Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War, which has been adopted into a business strategy book. In Sun Tzu?s Art of War, he wrote about several fundamental factors in military strategy and each of these factors relates to a popular concept of business strategy. Sun Tzu spoke about indirect corporate strategies when he said winning without fighting is the acme of skill on the battlefield. Sun Tzu?s thoughts about the factor of terrain, if we were to take that into the context of companies competing today, translates to markets, industry structures, market positions,and competitive forces.
strategy development
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