Developing a

Business Strategy
1 Analysis of your business
environment & Products.

2 Develop a stated strategy.

3 Analysis of the unique

features of your business.

4 Play to those unique

features.

5 Identify how top

management can
effectively support the
strategy.

6 Create an effective Strategy

Implementation Plan

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 PERSIGN
Writing the Personal Signature of your Business in its Strategy

Developing a Business Strategy

Introduction
For many organisations developing a cohesive Business Strategy is seen as a daunting
task. The processes available seem to require masses of data on products, markets,
competitors and customers. Consequently the adopted strategy is simply implicit in
what is done. There are three serious dangers in not having an explicitly defined
strategy.

1. The individual managers may develop departmental strategies that conflict with
the needs of other areas.
2. Strategy may in fact be defined in the annual budget process, when individual
arguments can win the day.
3. The company may be overtaken by events that occur in its market place.

Whenever one of these problems arises, and they often do so together, most firms
start to look inward. Vigorous attempts are made to reduce costs, often with
redundancies being the unpleasant consequence. It becomes even more difficult to
recognise that the lack of a clear and known strategy lies at the root of the situation.

The Methodology
The key features required are ---
¾ A way of describing the current status of the organisation in terms of its unique
characteristics.
¾ The characteristics should not be predetermined
¾ The resultant actions should reflect those characteristics, and again must not be
pre-determined
¾ It must not include any particular feature, nor preclude it.
¾ The description and the resultant actions must be created by the management
team not by an outside agency (Though an outside agency can facilitate the
generation of the description)
¾ There should be a clear methodology

The dilemma here is that in order to provide a structure for the analysis some kind of
model is required. To stay as close to the personal ideal it must be simple and as far
as possible not contain any pre-judgmental features. The following model comes
close to this ideal.

Internal Successful
Management features of implementation Business
Approach the business of Strategy Environment

Creates Leads to Satisfies

Simplified Model of a Business Activity

Although this model is a simplification it provides an appropriate frame work for a

suitable methodology.
The structure of methodology developed reverses the model and can be described
as four distinct , though interlinked phases. The output of each phase influencing the
results the next.

©W.G.Edwards 2001
 PERSIGN
Writing the Personal Signature of your Business in its Strategy

Phase 1 develops or enunciates the business strategy. Analysis of the business

environment precedes an analysis of the product range. The results are combined to
allow the management team to specify their business strategy.

Analysis of
Business
Environment
Business Strategy
Leads to Expressed

Analysis of Product
Range
Phase 1 develops an appropriate Strategy

With a clearly specified business strategy the next phase describes the features
required internally to achieve that strategy.

Business Desired Analysis of

Strategy Internal existing internal Required
Expressed features features changes
expressed
Influences Allows Identifies

Phase 2 identifies the necessary internal features to fulfil the strategy

The third phase looks at the necessary management actions to develop and sustain
the internal features of the business.

Desired
Internal
features
expressed Analysis of Required
Required existing changes in
Management Management management
Actions patterns actions
Required
expressed
changes in
existing Allows Allows Identifies
features

Phase 3 identifies the necessary management actions to create the internal features

The final phase is to create an implementation plan. Estimates are made of resource
requirements and effort needed. Individuals within the team tasked with specific
activities and PERT or Gantt charts are drawn showing the target completion dates.

©W.G.Edwards 2001
 PERSIGN
Writing the Personal Signature of your Business in its Strategy

The Analysis Life Cycle

Although the detail within each of the first phases is distinctly different, the pattern of
the analysis follows the same construction.

The Situation Described

Action Plan reviewed

Issues, concerns and
against described
opportunities identified
situation
The Analysis Lifecycle
begins with
understanding the
current status

Apprpriate Strategies or
Action Plan Created
Objectives developed

Necessary activities to
achieve strategy/
objectives identified

Conclusion
Dr Antonacopoulou of Manchester Business School describes every organisation as a
unique experience. It is this uniqueness that we need to capture and expand on.
The described methodology is not judgmental, it is content free, it avoids consultant
bias and it relies on the experience and knowledge of the specific management
team.
Igor Ansoff in his book “Corporate Strategy” describes the ‘Strategy-Capability-
Performance hypothesis, which states

“The firms performance will be optimal when its strategic behaviour matches the
turbulence of the environment and the firms capability matches its strategic
behaviour”.

The methodology ensures that the chosen actions meet the demands of the business
environment, and that those activities are within the capabilities of the management
team and the organisation.

©W.G.Edwards 2001