Simplified Strategic Planning In Action

Future success? or future shock? Only companies that plan ahead will survive the changes in business today--and tomorrow.

If you’re starting a new business or planning your business’s future, there are plenty of things you should take into account. Strategic Planning For Dummies covers everything you need to know to develop a plan for building and maintaining a competitive advantage — no matter what business you’re in. Written by Erica Olsen, founder and President of a business development firm that helps entrepreneurial-minded businesses plan for a successful future, this handy guide covers all the basics, including: How a strategic plan is different than a business plan Establishing a step-based planning process Planning for and encouraging growth Taking a long-view of your organization Evaluating past performance Defining and refining your mission, values, and vision Sizing up your current situation Examining your industry landscape Setting your strategic priorities Planning for unknown contingencies If you’re in business, you have to plan for everything — especially if you intend your business to grow. Whether you’re planning for a small business, large conglomerate, nonprofit, or even a government agency, this book has the planning specifics you need for your organization. Step-by-step, you’ll learn how to lay the foundations for a plan, understand how your plan will affect your business, form planning teams, discover what your strengths are, see where you are, and, finally, plan where you’re going. And there’s much more: Learn to analyze business trends that will determine your business’s future Set measurable, realistic goals that you can plan for and achieve Make strategic planning a habitual part of the organization Prioritize multiple strategies that you can implement simultaneously Set a defining vision for the organization that guides all your planning and strategy This friendly, simple guide puts the power of strategic planning in the palm of your hand. For small businesses that can’t afford to hire strategic planning consultants, it’s even more imperative. Careful, constant planning is the only way to handle an uncertain business future. With this book, you’ll have all the step-by-step guidance you need to ensure you’re ready for anything that comes.

"I have "gone to school" on his research and have found his model to be a malleable process that is readily shaped to incorporate new concepts and ideas. This durability is testament to the value of Sid's work." -Don Bowers, Former CEO, Makino, Inc. Strategic Management Simplified is a handbook that is designed to help the reader achieve a critical balance so rare in business - keeping your actions tied to your strategy, making decisions with a reasonable amount of assessment, and doing both in a real time way which allows you to adjust to changing business conditions. The author uses the term strategic management versus strategic planning because the term "plan" implies a static (or point in time) exercise, while the term "management" suggests interaction and responsiveness to dynamic context. All kinds of plans can be developed to lead action, but they should be based on a strategy for the organization. The challenge is to actually manage the organization's strategy over time and to think strategically as you are doing it. This book provides an overview of the management policies and culture necessary for sound strategic planning to flourish in any organization and goes on to offer practical steps on how to create and implement: A strategic statement which can guide your organization's resource allocation decisions. A strategic management system which allows you and your staff to change your strategic statement over time as you challenge the assumptions upon which it is based.

"Successful strategic planning presents a reinvented model of strategic planning for the twenty-first century. Its objective is to help teams, departments, and busineses of all sizes and types to plan and implement strategies in an efficient, holistic, and integrated manner ... "--p. 3.

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

This guide will walk you through five definitive moves that will improve business competitiveness! Why? Because you will learn about your organizations current position in the market place, and you will deeply explore the inner workflows and processes of your organization. This will then allow you to discover an untapped treasure trove of valuable data on your resources and capabilities that has not yet been realized or fully exploited. If you're planning a pivot of you're organization, or any part of it, your plan, in effect your strategy, is going to be akin to working blind, without the priceless data yielded in these five moves. In fact this strategic model will be extremely useful for any entity planning on pivoting and implementing competitive change, to their status quo. Five moves to checkmate is essential for leaders at all levels, and in all organizations and businesses that seek to attain, or retain their competitive advantage. Five moves to checkmate will also assist University and college educators, as well as students wishing to develop their business knowledge and acumen in strategic studies. What you will learn in ‘Five Moves To Checkmate’ is the importance of making sure you gather all the relevant external and internal data available to you. This data will then be categorized and deposited into well-known and proven strategic templates. Once these strategic templates are completed, the fifth move will connect all the data into a well known and widely used master strategic guide. This guide will be highly valuable in aiding your organization to successfully implement a strategic plan, maximizing your competitive advantage and winning your checkmate.

Think and act strategically every time In today's business environment, strategic planning stresses the importance of making decisions that will ensure an organization's ability to successfully respond to changes in the environment and plan for sustainable viability. Providing practical, field-tested techniques and a complete 6-phase plan, Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies shows you how to make strategy a habit for all organizations, no matter the size, type, or resource constraints. Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies is for companies of all types and sizes looking to build and sustain a competitive edge, set up an ongoing process for market assessment and trend analysis, and develop a vision for future growth. This revised edition includes: new and updated content on planning for both the short and the long-term; crucial information on succession planning; help preparing for the unexpected using scenario planning and agile strategy; strategies for implementing change and integrating strategic plans successfully by involving all staff members; and more. The supplementary CD lays out a comprehensive, 6-phase, step-by-step program, complete with downloadable spreadsheets, charts, checklists, video links, and more Provides value for any business or entrepreneur looking to improve efficiency, focus, and competitive edge Includes practical, field-tested techniques Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies gives today's business owners and upper-level management the tools and information they need to think and act strategically in order to more effectively weather current economic storms while planning for future growth.