With the right strategy, successful companies can not only weather stormy
business climates, but use them to gain competitive advantage. That was the
message Pragmatic Business Solutions' Mike Riley gave a group of executives as
the lead speaker at a recent seminar on "Managing Through Turbulent Times."
Mike's seminar was part of the Linkage Learning Network series, a quarterly
forum for senior executives from companies across a broad range of industries
including semiconductors, software, insurance, financial services and
manufacturing. It provides practical solutions to topical issues that can be
implemented quickly to improve results.
Speaking to representatives of more than two dozen firms including Cisco,
Microsoft, and Charles Schwab, Mike identified the basis for successful
strategic planning as the ability to identify critical objectives and goals
and then focus on major business drivers that will determine successful
strategies, prioritization of tactics, and measurement of results.
Mike then outlined the world class tools used by Pragmatic Business Solutions to
develop such strategic plans. These include tools which develop insights to
understand the aspects of the turbulence that most impact a business and to
predict both the threats and the opportunities that market turbulence presents
an organization.
There are many ways to develop plans. However, successful
plans have a combination of characteristics that increase the probability of
success. Plans should:
Executing the resulting business plans with excellence translates these
strategies into action and improved business results.
A plan based on clear objectives and goals, from which key
strategies with specific tactics are developed with measurable results, provides
a host of benefits to improve long term competitiveness including:
Speed - through clear
process and simple templates
Alignment - around
shared objectives and plan ownership
Focus - the process establishes
performance measures for strategies and tactics that keep the business team
focused on key priorities and forces choices between alternatives
Understanding -
through a one-page strategy document the whole organization can understand
The Result - Sustainable Growth
even in turbulent times
The Linkage Learning Network seminar highlighted just some of the programs that
PBS group and its principals have applied successfully across a broad range of
industries. Some are outlined here. (Business Plan Tools).
