Everything in this world has a time limit and, of course, trading strategy has it too. A strategy session is one of the most effective ways to develop balanced and thoughtful, and sometimes original, decisions.
Organizing a strategy session is the most important time to do business. And now you will understand why.
All decisions in business and in life are made on three floors:
- Strategic.
- Tactics.
- Operational.
- The first level answers the question: “Where are we going?”. The price of an error here is equal to 100% success.
- Second: “WHAT do you need to do to get there?”. The price of an error is 10% success.
- Third: “HOW do you have to do it to be effective?”. The price of an error is 1%.
Imagine what will happen if strategic decisions are made wrongly, in a hurry? Regression will occur, progress will stall and profits will be lost. It’s the road to nowhere. But what if strategic decisions are completely abandoned?
It is impossible to delay defining a strategy in the modern world, we are all on a descending escalator.
Your main competitive advantage is the speed to make the right strategic decisions! Postponing them is like freezing a business!
The common idea unites the team and makes it a whole. If you know the strategy, the quality of micro-decisions increases at all levels. Increase business efficiency!
Strategy Session for Leaders from A to Z
As a general rule, a strategy session requires the presence of managers from each department: finance, marketing, HR, logistics, purchasing, etc. This is necessary because when a company moves from point A to point B, the company reorganizes and transforms completely. . The format of interaction between managers, their tasks and even the internal structure of departments are changing. It is possible both to reduce staff and to increase staff, something will be automated, new directions and departments will appear.
The strategy session is moderated by a top manager or a guest professional moderator. Point A – the situation in which our company currently finds itself. There is a need to honestly and boldly determine where we stand now. Since employees’ opinions often diverge, it is worth listening calmly to every report about what they see in the current state of the business.
You have to look closely at the “business capacity”, its throughput, its ability to fulfill customer orders, model the peak load and understand its limits without compromising quality. At this moment, it immediately becomes clear where the first thing “whistle” and what needs to be expanded in the first place. For this purpose, as a rule, a SWOT analysis is carried out.
We call the “clearing” the situation in which we currently find ourselves. What court are you going to play on? Territories, market segments, sets of products, services and projects, sales channels. What are the trends in our market? Who is involved in this, the alignment of forces, etc.
As mentioned above, a preliminary analysis can include a long list of all kinds of measurements and analyses. This concerns first of all the marketing block, which understands the customers, their needs, the company’s place in the market and in a competitive environment, identifying all kinds of business threats, competitive advantages and main trends .
Point B – vision of the next goal. You have to look at the future of the company in 3-5-10 years and determine what type of company management envisions. To what extent this objective is subject to digitization and concretization. Everything must be prepared so that you can pass it on to your collaborators or partners with a smile and without comment.
After that, it is necessary to formulate the closest annual goal of the company, based on the vision. If necessary, you can develop or adjust values and mission, develop policies for working with customers, suppliers, staff, etc.
How do You Plan to Win?
In fact, there are only three options: be the best, the cheapest or find your niche. And that’s all.
However, not everything is so simple. Imagine there are 1000 companies in the market, of which 3 decided to be the best, 100 the cheapest, and 897 decided to find their niche. If you do not determine your place under the sun, then you will have to reconsider point B. After seeing the victory, you must gradually rewind B to point A and set some milestones for this plan.
In this paragraph, there are some CFU – critical success factors, without which victory will be impossible! For some, it’s the implementation of a CRM system, for others, it’s the search for a specialized specialist or the digitization of processes.
Next, you need to determine which main business process is performed in the enterprise. It is the end-to-end process that creates value for this world and makes a profit for the company.
What management system is needed to achieve the goal? First, it is a project, then it enters the management process.
Now, in addition to work processes, each of the managers has tasks for the project, and this is an additional amount of work that differs from the current activity. Therefore, each leader must take responsibility for the implementation of assigned tasks, and approve a detailed action plan with a list, dates, resources, and intermediate deadlines.