Concentration tendencies in many sectors, new, strong competitors from former emerging markets, new technologies, innovative products and business models of competitors are forcing many companies to question their long-term sustainability.
This process should not only document considerations, but also lead to a new strategy concept in a structured manner. However, a strategy is only worth as much as the managers who implement it. This is why key employees in your company are involved in the strategy development process.
The first step is to carry out a „strategy audit“. The company’s competencies, the strategic opportunities and risks of the market and the resulting strategic options for the company are evaluated. The focus is on the following questions:
- What can the company do better and worse than the competition?
- What are the trends in the relevant markets?
- What opportunities and risks do they offer?
- How can the company best benefit from these considerations and what is required for this?
This audit is carried out in several workshops, sometimes lasting several days, with the company’s managers. It is based on the combination of external (market research) and internal data from your company and is primarily analytical in nature.
The results of this audit provide the basis for a second step, which aims to develop detailed long-term strategies and business models. To this end, various forms of communication and creativity techniques are used to bring real innovations to light.
In a third step, the company’s new strategy is broken down into departmental strategies.
It also makes sense to combine this approach with the establishment of a balanced scorecard system. This ensures that
- departmental strategies are derived from the corporate strategy (usually there are no departmental strategies or they are not in line with the company’s overall strategy),
- each department knows how it supports the corporate strategy,
- the degree of strategy implementation becomes measurable,
- strategy implementations that have not been fully achieved can be recognized at an early stage and countermeasures can be taken.
In a final step, it is advisable to link the agreed strategies with operational implementation activities and to draw up an implementation plan with clear responsibilities and sub-targets to be achieved.