Strategies & Analysis
by Phil Phillips, PhD
Contributing Editor
phillips@chemarkconsulting.net
The Seven Steps to
Strategic Planning
1. Structure a Choice: One must move
from Issues to Choice
Conformist strategic planning is determined by the calendar and related trends
to center on issues. Those trends such as
declining revenue/profits or market share.
The cross-over problem in planning in
this fashion is falling into the entrapment
of investigating statistics related to these
trends rather than exploring and testing
probable resolutions.
2. Produce Possibilities:
Unlock all the possibilities
Once several possibilities are developed,
priority choices can be made. For example,
XYZ Coatings Company, a USA domestic
only formulator marketing to the Building
& Construction segment, desirous of mul-
tiple GDP growth rates may have these op-
tions for profitably growing its business:
•Acquire a domestic formulator in
this same segment with similar offer-
ings . . . Broaden brand footprint.
• Acquire a domestic formulator in
this same segment with different
but complimentary offerings . . . . .
Broaden brand offerings
• License a domestic formulators’ prod-
ucts in the same segment with similar
offerings . . . Broaden brand footprint.
•License a domestic formulators’
products in the same segment with
different but complimentary offer-
ings . . . . Broaden brand offerings
The desired harvest of this step is to
develop the “story” just about the op-
tions describing where, how, when it
plays in each story and the tactics to
win. Reason is key but it needs not be
proven at this point. It makes the cut as
long as it could be valid. The mandate is
to produce more than one “story”. One
will know that he/she has a solid set of
possibilities for further work if two tru-
isms are evident: (1) The status quo op-
tion doesn’t look like a brilliant idea &
(2) At least one possibility makes most
of the group uncomfortable.
Scientific Methods Applied to Strategy Development
(Part Two of a Two Part Series)
