Avoid the 11 Strategic Implementation Pitfalls

Wondering why your strategic plan never got implemented? Every year, organizations labor at planning, yet never seem to make it happen. Before you sit down with your team, make sure you’ve taken care of these potential traps:

Lack of ownership: The most common reason a plan fails is lack of ownership. If people don’t have […]

A Fresh New Year - 3 Questions To Start off 2008

So, here we are in 2008. As employees return to work from the holidays with fresh outlooks and reinvigorated spirits, this is a fantastic time to take advantage of the momentum and kickstart the year!
How did you do last year?

This is a great opportunity for you to break out your strategic plan and review your company’s goals. How many did you reach? If your team performed well this year and your company is on track, make sure you didn’t forget to reward everyone involved. The new year is a perfect time to set new, more challenging goals!

There’s Still Time Left to Plan

In these last weeks of the Holiday season, it’s easy to get behind at work. You’ve got family in from out of town, you’ve been buying presents, cooking huge meals, going to movies and catching up with old friends- most years it’s all you can do to just make it through this busy period.
Sure, we […]

The Best of the Best Do It

Year after year, strategic planning is continually the #1 preferred
management tool* and is used by companies worldwide with very high
satisfaction rates. Succeeding without a plan is possible, but if
you’re someone who has achieved a level of success without a plan, ask
yourself this question: Could you have grown and become even more
successful if you’d organized […]

Passing The Torch

When we left off last time on the topic of exit strategy, we were discussing exit planning as the first phase - when you determine how to transfer the business when you leave. (This is relevant for all exit strategies except liquidation.) The second phase is succession planning which involves determining who runs the business […]

The End Is Inevitable

Along with the discussions of scenario and continuity planning
we’ve had in the past few weeks, there is another topic that is
deserving of your attention especially if you are an entrepreneur or
department/division/group manager. Exit strategy
activities are key parts of any organization’s strategic direction
because they dictate how the business is set up for the long run and
who […]

Keeping Your Business Humming Along No Matter What

Since we’ve been talking about scenario planning in this space over the past few weeks, the natural course of discussion leads us to continuity planning. You may decide to accept one or more of the risks identified during your scenario planning, and continuity planning will help you minimize the effects if any of the risks […]

Running scenario planning

Last time in this space we started discussing scenario planning by
talking about preparing for the "big what ifs" or the driving forces
that generally exhibit as 1) social dynamics, 2) economic issues, 3)
political issues, or 4) technological issues. These are the cases that
tend to push your thinking and are usually classified as the big
unknowns.

But
there are […]

Thinking about the ripple effect

We’ve all seen and heard the unsettling headlines pointing to a
business slow down in the news - "Home Foreclosures Skyrocket;"
"Housing Market Continues Slump;" "Disappearing Sales Tax Revenue;" and
"Credit-market Contagion From US Subprime Crisis Affects Global
Economy."
It
is human nature to ignore the bad news rather than pay attention to it.
Whether you think you are immune to […]

Monitoring your industry

An industry is a group of companies that sell products or services that are close substitutes of each other, such as the furniture industry,the car industry, or the financial services industry. Knowing the type of industry you’re competing in helps you predict changes, movements, or shifts that may impact your business. It’s also helpful to […]