ISE Magazine, January 2019

JANUARY 2018 WWW ISEMAG COM 99 HUMAN NETWORK on a handful of truly innovative products This hard choice allowed Apple to focus its resources around innovation developing something truly game changing The result The Apple iPod Theres little doubt that Jobs efforts would have been significantly more difficult and unclear if he had not made this critical strategic choice Strategy fits between your goals and plans Strategy is not the most important thing But good strategy is necessary and often critical in order to be successful Once youve defined your goals strategy comes next To delineate between goals strategy and plans GOALS answer What is the end for the effort PLANS which follow strategy answer What are the blueprints for success STRATEGY is the point in between that answers In what way are we going to coordinate our efforts to get there A good example of this hierarchy can be seen in the successful approach of the Allies in World War II The goal the end for the effort was clearly to win the war to defeat the Axis powers Germany Japan Italy At the time the US was faced with the prospect of a two front war Without a clear strategy plans would undoubtedly be murky However the overwhelmingly critical factor was the clear and growing threat of Germany to Europe and Russia Therefore the Allies made the critical strategic decision to focus first on taking back Europe and defeat Germany The resulting plans included the D Day invasion of Normandy effectively thwarting a German invasion of Britain by the US the Allied movement upward from Northern Africa and the Russian forces fighting the German army to the east Strategy marries strength with opportunity The beauty of strategy is that it coordinates and integrates activities around a common goal Whats more good strategy finds the sweet spot where strengths meet opportunity If you identify an opportunity yet have no strengths to take advantage how effective will you be Likewise if your strengths abound in a certain area yet no opportunities exist your strategy could come up short Know that in order to improve the odds of achieving your goals your strategy will need to amplify your strengths while playing to the opportunities at hand A great example of this can be seen in the way Procter Gamble P G has nearly cornered the consumer package goods market With its humble beginnings in soap and candles in the 1800s P G slowly and methodically built a strength producing packaging marketing and selling package dry goods of all types Over the years the company has taken advantage of opportunities to both develop new products and acquire its way into new product categories Today the companys product holdings cover close to 80 products spanning roughly 7 categories of products we buy every day P G has employed different business strategies over the years but has always weighed opportunity in light of the companys inherent strengths Whatever your challenge follow these 3 fundamental principles for better strategic planning Your strategy will be both more clear and coherent Whats more you will be incrementally farther down the road toward more successful outcomes sooner n Andy Slipher is founder of Slipher Marketing a consultancy He is an accomplished strategist interim CMO speaker and writer on marketing strategy Andy is the author of The Big How Where Strategy Meets Success For more information visit TheBigHow com