Business Strategy in a Rapidly Changing Environment

It’s been said that “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” So it is for business strategy.  While circumstances change over time, there remains a constant: Businesses that take time to assess the external environment, take careful stock of their unique strengths and align those with emerging needs of carefully identified target customers can sustain high performance and success over time.

Sometimes called “external scanning” the notion of aligning market needs with corporate capabilities is not new. What is changing however is an increasing emphasis on narrowing the focus to include only those prospects with whom we might enjoy long-term success. While this higher level of discretion may seem counter to the idea of volume prospecting, taking time to carefully plan out your efforts and establish strategic targets can pay big dividends.

How do you frame what your best prospects look like? Getting useful feedback from your key existing relationships is a good place to start. What problems are you helping them solve? What opportunities are you helping them exploit? How are you making their work life easier with unique processes designed to take tasks off their desk and off their minds? Do you document these successes and make them part of your marketing toolkit? Do they appear as mini “case studies” on your web site (oh, and while we’re at it, have you visited your own web site lately?)?

Getting structured feedback from key stakeholder groups (customers, suppliers, employees, investors/shareholders and the broader community) can help frame focused, effective strategy and planning.

For more information on gathering feedback as a key component in planning, contact me at joe@ajstrategy.com.