vendredi 27 septembre 2013

How Efforts At Strategic Insight Keeps Businesses Competitive

By Paulette Short


One of the greatest challenges facing all organizations and even individuals is to keep up with the fast pace of change. Without the ability to adapt businesses simply cannot hope to survive. New technology and changes in the operating environment demand constant reactions from organizations. It is vital to try and foresee the changes that will happen and to make plans to profit from such changes. This requires a great deal of strategic insight.

Strategies need to be developed to remain relevant, competitive and to thrive in a fast changing world. Such plans are broad in their scope rather than narrow, specific objectives that need to be achieved on a day to day basis. In order to develop long term strategies it is necessary to study the various environments that have an impact upon the operation of the organization.

One of the biggest challenges when devising long term strategies is to deal with the incredible pace of change. Not only do things change quickly, but the nature of change is also very difficult. Many innovative companies keep their new technological developments under wraps, for example and it is tricky to foresee them and their possible uses in gaining or maintaining a competitive advantage.

The very purpose of strategic planning is to turn change into opportunity. This requires a close study of political developments, trends in the global markets, new technological advances and even social developments. The secret is to devise ways in which to take advantage of those developments rather than to react in a defensive manner. Change should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Many organizations fail in developing effective long term strategies simply because they are unable to be honest in identifying their own weaknesses and strengths realistically. Weaknesses need to be identified before plans can be made to overcome them and strengths need to be listed in order to allow the business to take advantage of the fact. Foreseen change can, of course, lead to new weaknesses and strengths.

Long term strategies need to be translated into more specific action plans. That is why most organizations have systems in place where broad strategies are given to individual business units who then has the task to translate those strategies into specific action plans that makes provision for the allocation of resources. Eventually, those plans filter through to teams that need to formulate exact objectives that will contribute towards the overall strategy.

No business can hope to survive without a long term strategy. Developing such a strategy is a daunting task and requires a very high level of skill. Most corporate organizations employ highly talented teams to study their operating environments and to identify likely changes that will have an impact upon the business of the organization. Strategies also need constant updating to make provision for unforeseen developments.

Gaining strategic insight is complex and often inaccurate. Yet every organization needs to develop within the environmental flux if they hope to survive. Change is constant and it need not be seen as a threat. Most successful companies have demonstrated the ability to turn change into fortune.




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