Seven steps to a sound strategy
Strategy is about making informed choices with limited resources, in ways that strengthen your business. There’s no easy way to be sure that you have the right strategy, but there is a process that yields consistent results. In this post I’ll summarize a proven process for strategy development. Then I’ll describe each step in turn.
The seven ...
The Django book is out
I’ve written before about the power of Django – it’s the engine that underpins this website. A lot of my learning came from the main Django website here, but now there are a couple of books available.
The first one of the two is better – it’s written by two of the creators of Django and it’s clear ...
Strategy: defining the problem
In Seven Steps to a sound strategy, I outlined the elements of an effective strategy process. The first step is defining the problem.
It’s not as easy as it may seem, because early in strategy development there’s a lot that isn’t known. Here are some tests for a good problem definition:
- If you solve it, will it ...
Strategy: the Environmental Scan gets you oriented
Strategy is about making good decisions. The best decisions are made on the basis of a combination of experience, intuition, and fact-based analysis.
The first step is to get oriented.
The environmental scan is a process I’ve found of great value in a complex strategy project. It follows the problem definition phase. The purpose is to gather and organize ...
How business model innovation drives business success
Business models are the way you offer your products or services to the market. They include elements like pricing and packaging, terms and conditions, and added-value elements that increase differentiation.
In most markets, having the right products is not enough. Selling books against Amazon is really tough. Selling consumer electronics against Best Buy is too hard for most of us ...
Differentiation drives your business
We are experts at ignoring and tuning out. We especially ignore things that are like other things we’ve seen before. It’s a natural response to the clutter that surrounds us every day. Our brains have learned to look for the new and the different, and to ignore that which is undifferentiated. Most of marketing is about efficiently defeating ...
Research planning drives new insights
Having defined your strategy problem and completed an environmental scan, you’re ready to plan the research. One of the key outputs from the environmental scan was a set of questions. It’s worth documenting the unanswered questions carefully, because they are the primary input to your research plan.
Questions represent gaps in your knowledge that you’d like to ...
Strategy: Effective Market Research execution
Market research is the foundation of great strategy. Knowing more about your market and your customers than your competitors gives you an advantage when it comes to identifying new opportunities and capitalizing upon them.
There are many kinds of market research, and a wide range of expert services to help you apply them. In this article I will therefore focus ...
Web 2.0 and technology
I wrote a while ago about Web 2.0, and the connections between people that it enables. I still think that’s perhaps the most important social impact of Web 2.0, and the real difference from a user standpoint. But there’s another angle, which is the development side.
When I moved beyond static web pages I learned about ...
The Hypothesis - where analysis meets action
In Seven Steps to a Sound Strategy we outlined the phases of strategy development. This is the point at which the rubber meets the road. You’ve developed a problem statement, collected information, developed a research plan, carried out the research, and now you have to decide what it all means.
The goal of this phase is simply to build ...
RSS Feeds are the quick way to keep up to date
If your web site doesn’t use RSS, you’re missing out on a great way to increase your visibility. This technique makes your content available in a customized way to every reader who wants to stay up to date with what you have to say.
RSS stands for “Real Simple Syndication”—which may not help much. But it’s ...
Strategy: Validation completes the picture
A strategic hypothesis lays out your view of the market, the opportunity, the risks, and a prioritized set of options. Once subjected to internal review and discussion, there are bound to be a number of additional questions raised, and perhaps some preferences expressed.
The purpose of validation is to test the preferred options with friendly customers and internal stake-holders, and ...
Strategy: Making your recommendation
Once your strategy hypothesis has been presented and validated, it’s time to get on to implementation. But implementation in any organization requires buy-in and understanding from a lot of people.
The recommendation phase is the process of establishing common understanding and buy-in, so that implementation can proceed.
The good news is that you have gone through a thorough process ...
Pragmatic steps to strategy development
Strategy is about making informed choices with limited resources, in ways that strengthen your business. There’s no easy way to be sure that you have the right strategy, but there is a process that yields consistent results. In this post I’ll summarize a proven process for strategy development. Then I’ll describe each step in turn.
The seven ...
Innovation is not optional
Most people would agree that innovation is important. But not every company takes it seriously. Innovation is what keeps your business relevant as the needs of your customer change, and as your competition evolves.
It’s tempting to believe that in a cost-driven, mature market, efficiency is the key – that close management of costs and efficient and predictable processes are ...
Customer relationship innovation
There are many ways to innovate, but one of the most reliable is in the customer relationship. It’s reliable because you can quickly measure the impact of changes in the way you manage the relationship with your customers. You don’t even have to have a brilliant idea—your customers will often provide it for you (if you ask ...
