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"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
- Mark Twain
Sound strategy is a necessary requisite for business longevity. Yet to many people, "strategic planning" is a mindless annual ritual...each business silo updates statistics, charts and narratives from the prior year, and then an unlucky "editor" is chosen to distill a few slides the CEO can present as evidence of knowledge and foresight. Even if this doesn't describe your company's strategic planning process, you may know from experience that most "strategic" plans aren't (strategic) and even fewer survive first contact with the real world.
So why aren't strategic plans more useful? Over time, planning can devolve into routine where "form" is exalted over "substance." Poor communication can be a culprit too - if the "strategic plan" doesn't inform the actions of the entire organization, it's just word processing (not strategy.)
But most often, two constraints stymie strategic planning efforts - time and perspective. Management teams can be so taxed by the barrage of daily issues - from customers, vendors, employees and (more recently) lenders - that they lack the time to develop or refine business strategy, especially if management ranks have been downsized. And even with the luxury of time and depth, management can be so jaded by familiarity with the existing business model...or the current economy...or the most recent headache, etc...that they can't visualize a future that's different from the present.
How Snap Vector Can Help
While all Snap Vector assignments are tailored to address specific needs, that's especially true of "Business Strategy" engagements which can cover a lot of territory. But whether the task is to develop a strategy for a new market, vet the current strategy for an existing market, or help fill a gap in either, Snap Vector can draw from a full range of capabilities to develop actionable strategies.
For example, Customer Depth Interviews - with current or potential customers - can reveal or validate customer buying motivation and competitor positioning. In Sales Management engagements, Snap Vector fully probes the "selling process" because we frequently discover that clients routinely obtain information from customers that can be leveraged beyond the sale - for instance to open an adjacent market, or help reposition the client as an advisor (rather than commodity vendor) to its' customers.
Academics often describe "market segment pricing," "costs to deliver," and "working capital requirements" as business strategy outputs - i.e. choices dictated by strategy or so-called "vision." But in so doing, they jump to the end of the story. In the real world, those factors are the inputs companies need to help shape the best strategy. Snap Vector draws from its' Product Pricing, Supply Chain Efficiency and Strategic Cost Management experience to develop those inputs if they don't exist, and accurately interpret them if they do.
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