How to find your strategic edge

Strategy is the first pillar of any successful business. The tricky part is it needs to be agile, especially in times of great uncertainty. There is no one-size-fits-all method of building the strategy for an individual business but there are tools that are effective for everyone.

If you are stuck on where to take your strategy look for what we call “the strategic sweet spot”. This requires pinpointing what your customers want that your competitors cannot provide. Read how here.

Having broad involvement from every level of your company has been proven to have positive effects. Most significantly, research has shown that if employees feel they were engaged in the process, and they believe it was fair they support it even if their ideas weren’t adopted. There are five steps you can take to build an inclusive strategy process which you can read here.

If you are planning on setting up a new strategy division, you may want to use the ISC framework for establishing an office. The framework is comprised of three diagnostic points: an industry dynamics assessment, a strategy development assessment, and choices for your operating model. Read the details of how to implement the framework here.

Ideally, we are all looking forward and leading agile businesses, but sometimes you miss a trend. When you start late, it’s a good time to look for some unorthodox solutions. Are you flexible enough to find a way to make your competitor your partner? If you have strategy but are thinking you may need to make a change, read this.

Once you have an established strategy that you plan on implementing, it’s a good idea to test it regularly. In part two, we will cover how to test your strategy.