Course Objective:
- Understand the importance of strategy to an organization.
- Identify the factors, which influence strategy.
- Link the strategy with an organization’s overall objectives.
- Understand the manager’s role in creating and implementing a strategy.
- Develop and implement a strategic plan.
- Develop a flexible approach to planning and incorporating contingency options.
- Improve the decision making process.
- Understand the impact of a strategy on people.
- Measure the success of the plan.
- Recognize why strategic plans fail and how to avoid the mistakes of others.
- Sharpen your strategic decision-making skills to develop strategic reflexes in competitive situations
- Understand and recognize the differences between a situation that is essentially operational and one that has clear strategic implications
- Ensure the real incorporation of the competitive dimension in the formulation of strategy
- Acquire strategic principles for guiding the effective deployment of resources to realize the role that senior
Course Outline
The Strategic Mind in Business
- Applying strategic structures, strategic deployment and strategic principles inside the company
- Effective business strategist
- Nurturing and developing the strategic mind
Assessing Current State of the Organization
- Leadership
- Strategic planning
- Customer and market focus
- Measurement, analysis and knowledge management
- Human resources focus
- Process management
- Business results
Philosophy, Purpose and Mission
- Developing the guiding philosophy
- Establishing purpose and mission
- Organizational
The Need for Greater Creativity and Innovation
- Challenging accepted norms
- The need to continually re-appraise
- Changing the boundaries
- Increasing your options
- Introducing the creative process to the business environment
- Measuring the use of creative thinking
Developing Successful Businesses
- Business goals – the prime areas of focus
- Business success – key drivers
- Business stability – avoiding failure
How Thinking Works
- The all important ‘first stage’ of thinking
- Vertical versus lateral thinking
- Measurement: prediction and evaluation of outcomes
- Emotion: natural responses to issues, choices and options
- Creating: combining approaches and incorporating additional external input
How to Keep the Mind Open
- Logically assessing your thinking stage
- Suspending implementation of the obvious solution
- Pro-actively reaching for new ways, ideas, principles, realities
Creative Thinking
- The psychology of problem solving
- Defining six types of problem
- Force fields and driving forces – how to use them
- Breaking from traditional thinking patterns – structured brainstorming
- Using creative thinking skills to identify objectives
- Project management using creative thinking techniques
- Accumulating a quantity solution
- Using the paired-choice matrix to identify the best solution
Environmental Analysis
- The environment and what’s changing
- Impact on future choices
Industry Analysis
- The nature and intensity of the competition
- The bargaining power of the industry
- Analysis and actions
Corporate Analysis
- SWOT questions and analysis
Market Analysis
- Identifying your strategic business unit
- The critical success factor of the market.
- Market mapping – analysis and actions
Organizational Analysis
- Key areas of change required
- Setting corporate direction
Creating Value for the Business – the Benefits of a Strategic Approach
- Clear direction for a dynamic organization
- Creating competitive advantage
- Effectively planning the use of resources
- Creating a direction and unifying the team
Developing the Strategic Plan
- The place for strategy and tactics
- Introducing a strategic mindset
- Creating time for strategic thinking
- Encouraging creativity within the strategy
- The key strategic planning skills
- Analyzing the business environment in which the organization operates
- Developing choices through option analysis
- Using critical paths to aid decision making
- Identifying the key resources
- Setting clear and measurable objectives
- Risk analysis
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Strategic Planning
- Lack of vision
- Captured by the past
- Lured into complacency by success
- Inability to evaluate fresh ideas
- Denying the truth
- Inside the box thinking
- Strategic drift
Implementing and Managing the Strategy – Delivering Results
- Securing ownership of the strategy
- Overcoming resistance and gaining commitment to the strategy
- Using consultation to empower colleagues and improve decision making
- Strategy and organizational culture
- Using scenario planning to help identify future direction
- Managing risk
- Evaluating and implementing action
Evaluation – Keeping the Strategy Dynamic
- How to react to opportunities and threats
- Keeping the plan flexible – adapting to changes in the environment
- Developing and adapting long term objectives
- Measuring success
- Identifying and learning lessons