Eliminating your competition with a bulletproof business strategy

Strategy can mean many things to many people and is Synonymous with words such as tactics, plan and policy. At the heart of any truly successful and growing business is a strategy that has been entwined into its fabric giving it unparallel strength, agility and ability to eliminate its competition!

But what is business strategy? Andrew Grove, who led Intel to greatness, makes a clear distinction between strategic action and strategic plans. He believes that business strategy models should not: just be statements of intent; come across like a political speech; have concrete meaning only to management; concern themselves with events far in the future or have little relevance to today.

Too often management either does not understand how to develop a compelling strategy which will have a dramatic impact or they miss the mark by not rolling out th

e strategy within their organisation.

The businesses, which clearly understand how to concisely record their “concepts”, develop a framework for a business strategy and then act upon their strategic content are truly positioned to eliminate their competition.

But how do you do it? The key to developing your business strategy is getting grounded – focused, calm, resilient and ability. One of the best ways to get grounde

d is to plan out your strategy outside of the office, think “working on the business, not in it”.

It is important to involve all key people in your team, share and synthesize information and trust in your organisation’s ability to develop its strategy.

As part of getting grounded your team should discuss how they compete and what they do best. There are really only three ways to compete in any market:

Strategy #1: Dominate by going head to head. In this strategy, you need to have a 3 to 1 advantage over your competitors in some attribute that matters to yo

ur customers.

You can dominate on all sorts of dimensions: personalisation, the shopping experience, operational efficiency (e.g., Asda), product leadership (e.g., Nike), source of supplies (e.g., many cement companies), depth and breadth of experience (e.g., McKinsey Consulting) and customer intimacy (e.g., IBM).

If you don’t have a 3:1 advantage over your competitors, you need to try the next strategy. You can’t compete with a 1:1 advantage, or else you end up as a commodity, a me-too product and get into problems like price wars (like some airlines).

Strategy #2: Find a niche. The niche strategy is powerful. You choose a very focused target market and dominate it. For instance, focus on a specific industry with a deep solution for that industry. That way you can reach your target market easily, speak their language, provide top notch solutions to their specific problems and beat generalists.

Another approach to the niche strategy is to focus on a particular demographic or psychographic group: gender, ethnicity, religion, hobbies (e.g., golf, motorcycle riders), political affiliation, etc.

Strategy #3: Change the game. If you can’t dominate and you can’t find a niche, then you have to change the game. This means either changing the rules of the game completely, or bundling products to provide superior value in new ways.

For instance, Microsoft changed the game with its Office product line. Before Office, there were lots of costly, separately run office applications (like Lotus 123 and Word Perfect). Microsoft essentially put them out of business with an affordable suite of products available in a single convenient package.

Once you have identified the strategy you will then need to address the following three areas as part of your framework:

1. Context. Contextual questions are the broad strategic questions that must be answered. Too many organisations assume that everyone already knows and understands the strategic context. This is rarely the case. Examples of key questions to include are:
a. What are our overall internal strengths, internal weaknesses, external opportunities, and external threats?
b. Who are our desired customers?
c. Who are our competitors?
d. Which products/services do we offer our customers?
e. What do we do best? What should we do best?
f. Where do we not meet the market’s expectations? What do we have to do to get better?
g. How will we measure success?

2. Priorities. Strategic priorities are the key things an organisation must do to continue to compete and succeed. Most organisations have too many priorities.
a. Given the work done about strategic context, what are the 3-5 priorities that we must complete in order to be the
best, serve our desired customers?
b. What resources (people, time, money) are required for each?
c. What are immediate next steps?

3. Alignment. Strategic alignment is the part of strategy that makes sure that things get done. Many organisations talk all day about strategic priorities, but never finish them. Examples of questions to ask:
a. Who is responsible for each initiative?
b. How do we track progress?
c. How do we communicate success?
d. How do we reward success?

Once all these elements of the plan are in place it is important to identify the correct planning documents to use. Documents can be the key to how you bring your strategy to life. There are many models available which can give you all the tools you need to breathe life into your strategy. However, it is important to be careful not to over complicating your documentation.

Remember, you need to have the ability to deploy your strategy with clarity and precision. There is absolutely no logic in developing a strategy, spending months documenting it to never act upon its contents due to:
a. over complication
b. being too general and lofty
c. having no way of measuring success
d. being overwhelming
e. having no follow through

“Business strategy works best when a business focuses on between 3 and 5 key points, setting accountability, measurements and rewards. Once these points have been dealt with the management team should then strive to identify the next set of key points by setting strategic reviews.”

When choosing your planning documents you should carefully consider the above statement. Initially a questionnaire can be used to engage the team, recording the answers as you go. Financial information should be readily available and KPI measurements should also be sourced and recorded, employees and customers can or should be surveyed.

Once the questionnaire and data is collected in its raw format the team should reconvene to select the vital parts of the information to form their final strategic plan, we recommend this document to be as short as possible and should contain the following information:

a. S.W.O.T Analysis: Top 5 Strengths and Weaknesses and Top 5 Opportunities to exceed and threats to the business
b. Up to 5 trends to watch
c. Core Values/Beliefs (Timeframe: Forever)
d. Purpose, including up to 5 actions to be taken and big hairy audacious goal (Timeframe: 10-30 Years)
e. Targets, Financial, KPI, Marketplace, up to 5 Key thrusts needed, Brand promise (Timeframe: 3-5 Years)
f. Goals, Financial, KPI, up to 5 Key initiatives, Elevator pitch (Timeframe: 1 Year)
g. Actions, Financial, KPI, up to 5 Rocks & Accountability (Timeframe: Quarter)
h. Theme (Timeframe: Quarterly/Yearly special target)
i. Baseline (Time frame: Historical data)

Achieving this point can be a milestone in itself and most businesses and most of your competition will have stopped here! You have a choice, join the millions of businesses doing exactly that or now prepare your team to move into the arena of the elite by developing a program of follow through.

Follow through is the ability to take your strategic plan from conception to reality, having aligned the strategy as above the key personal should be given the time and resources to commence implementation of their tasks. It is vital the team set regular weekly or fortnightly meetings to review progress and financial performance, these reviews are vital for the team as a whole to identify areas of weakness in their strategy, problems with implementation and where success has prevailed.

Developing a compelling and powerful strategy which becomes the force behind your business will help set you apart from and eliminate your competitors!

If you would like to know more about how you can develop a bulletprof business strategy then request a free 30 minute consultant with us where we will focus on your business.