"Strategy without tactics is the slow route to victory... Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat"
STRATEGY
Strategy and tactics are not the same thing – as the ancient proverb above reveals. In many companies however 'strategy' is little more than an annual budget process that results in a rehash of the same old plan. Companies that “always do what they have always done”, will at best – only ever get what they got in the past. More likely they will surrender market position to a more strategic competitor. If your company is not a strategic leader it may be doomed to be a "follower” always trying to catch up to the market leader. Strategy is not about incremental change. Its about how you position your company to outperform its competitors.
Strategy focuses on medium to long term goals - KEY decisions that shape your company's future. Real strategic thinking challenges the status quo. It seeks to envision a future where your company has established a truly differentiated position and created a sustainable competitive advantage.
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We can help you to develop a strategy that will set your company apart from the pack - position it to out perform its competitors and create real value for its stakeholders.
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STRATEGIC PLANNING
Develop the Right Strategy
SCENARIO PLANNING
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Often, business plans are developed on the basis of assumed certainty – that is, the presumption that the future will - at least to some extent - resemble the past. What if this assumption is fundamentally wrong? The world has recently experienced a paradigm shift driven by COVID-19. How many companies were prepared for this global change? How has it impacted your strategy? How many companies prepared for and evaluated their strategies in the light of such a possibility?
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Scenario planning differs from forecasting because it embraces uncertainty and seeks to understand it. It prompts executive teams to envisage alternative futures deliberately designed to confront decision makers with situations they may have otherwise never considered.
Scenario planning is a powerful tool that complements and underpins strategic thinking and tests the resilience of strategies under differing conditions. Call us to learn more.
IMPLEMENTATION
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Implementation takes the ideas and initiatives off the pages of your strategic plan and applies them within your organisation. Implementing strategic change is a demanding process that consumes energy and time - commodities few executive teams have to spare. We can help. We have extensive experience implementing change. We use proven tools and methodologies to ensure your organisation achieves its objectives and creates a Sustainable Competitive Advantage. We tailor our services to your needs and work with you to ensure your organisation has the Capabilities, Systems and Structure needed to drive your organisation to new heights.
CHANGE IN A DYNAMIC WORLD
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Businesses operate in a complex and interconnected global environment. Planning strategic change therefore requires an understanding of multi-dimensional, dynamic, and complex systems. The problems that we seek to correct may in fact be much more complex then we perceive - and this often results in unintended and undesirable consequences.
This is not new a phenomena however. The late biologist Lewis Thomas wrote in his essay "On Meddling" (1974):
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"When you are confronted by any complex social system....the things about which you are dis-satisfied and anxious to fix, you cannot just step in and set about fixing it with much hope of helping. You cannot meddle with one part of a complex system from the outside without the almost certain risk of setting off disastrous events that you hadn't counted on in other remote parts. If you want to fix something you are first obligated to understand the whole system"
What are the implications of this when dealing with developing strategy? Too often when companies plan strategic initiatives they do so based on a flawed cause and effect approach. Things are rarely as simple as they seem and the failure to account for side effects and responses of other affected parties can quickly derail the best of intentions.
We can help you to apply System Dynamics thinking to the development and planning of strategic change. We try to see the 'whole picture' in order to anticipate the challenges that will inevitably arise.
The impacts of a planned change can be modelled using simulation in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of a strategic change. Call us. We'll be happy to show you how.