Strategy — April 2024
Make your strategy development process a robust process with this essential checklist. Thirty items, in four sections. Tick as you go, and the page will remember where you are.
Why bother
There are the direct financial benefits that come from improving performance and targeting new growth opportunities.
The process can also improve alignment within the business, between employees, senior management teams and other key stakeholders. That helps drive a high performance culture, and clarifies the future direction of the business.
Why it is hard
Developing a business strategy is complex, and it can be hard to know where to start. There are a great many competing frameworks and approaches to choose between.
So we compiled this checklist of the areas to consider. We use it ourselves when working with clients, which is how we know the strategies that come out of it are robust and comprehensive.
The checklist
0 of 30 ticked
Section 01
Business strategy cannot be developed in isolation of the broader market. This section provides the supporting context: the growth outlook, the segmentation of the market, and any trends that bear on your position in it.
Questions to answer
Outputs to include
Section 02
How you add value to customers, and the resources and advantages that hold your market position. This is what makes the resulting strategy build on current strengths rather than wish them away, and what forces you to address the weak points.
Questions to answer
Outputs to include
Section 03
The way you are organised, your culture, the way you go about things. Without this you can end up with a strategy that is fine on paper and not realistic for the business.
Questions to answer
Outputs to include
Section 04
The purpose of business strategy is to maximise the value of the business, so a clear view of the drivers of value is fundamental. It is also what lets you compare alternative strategic options by their effect on long-term value.
Questions to answer
Outputs to include
Starting a conversation
The 30 items are the same ones we work through with clients. If you would rather not run the process yourself, a four-week review covers all four sections and produces the outputs listed against each.
