Business Strategy & Planning - Tool Kit

Business Strategy & Planning - Tool Kit Do you spend more time working in your business than you do working on your business?
Many managers spend too much time on the functional aspects of their business, usually at the detriment of strategy and planning. In just two action packed days you will benefit from practical exposure to the key strategic skills every manager must possess. Topics covered include:

• Analysing your business from a strategic perspective
• Demystifying the complexities of strategy
• Appreciating how strategy and business planning compliment each other
• Preparing your business for future challenges
• Formulating business and development plans
• Understanding and capitalising on competitive advantages
• Improving your decisions on resource allocation
• Utilising the tools and techniques of business analysis
• Developing robust strategic thinking skills
• Using traditional and non-traditional metrics to measure business performance
• How to challenge current processes and look for a culture of continuous value improvement

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
The course is designed to introduce you to the major issues around strategy and planning. The programme assumes no formal academic training in strategy, and will instead focus on how you can apply strategy and planning techniques in the real world. The programme will equip you with a "toolkit" of concepts and techniques that you can utilise and apply to your own business as and when required.

• Managers and leaders looking to increase their understanding of strategy and planning
• Functional managers who influence the future direction of their department or organisation
• Operational staff who define and implement organisational, business unit or divisional objectives
• Executives and professionals responsible for structuring and implementing change
• Managers and leaders who wish to improve the performance focus of their decision making
• Managers, leaders and executives with no formal training in strategy and planning and who want to formalise their understanding of the major tools and applications

Programme Details
Strategy Thinking and Mindset

• Understanding the significance of 'frames of reference'
• A review of people's thinking styles
• Getting to grips with the concept of the 'big picture' in planning
• Creativity and its place in the planning process

Setting the Strategic and Business Planning Framework

• Strategy planning and some concepts behind it
• What is corporate strategy?
• Reviewing the different forms of strategic development
• Appreciating the importance of competitive advantage
• Recognise the critical difference between corporate and business level strategy
• Remember to keep 'the future in focus'
• Making the distinction between important and/or urgent actions
• Answering the why-what-how-who questions
• Consider how 'managing for value' can drive the behaviours of a senior manager/director

The Manager's Business Analysis "Toolkit"
The "toolkit" is an assortment of 'spanners and wrenches' that can assist you in aligning the activities underpinning your particular business situation or entity.

• Overview of the "toolkit framework - Understanding the core areas
  1. products and markets
  2. strategic framework
  3. finance
  4. development and change
  5. people and implementation

The 'spanners and wrenches'
Whilst far from an exhaustive array of 'concepts and techniques', these 'spanners and wrenches' are an essential set of 'thinking tools' that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the business decisions of managers. They will also give managers the language to confidently engage with consultants and senior teams.
Products and Markets

• Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix
• Market attractive business attractiveness (MABA) analysis
• Ansoff and modified Ansoff matrix
• GE/McKinsey multi-factor matrix
• Directional policy matrix
• Porters competitive strategies
• The marketing mix - The 4 Ps
• Competitor profiling
• Gap analysis and perceptual mapping

Strategic framework

• Development stages of the Corporate cycle
• The Greiner Growth Model
• The Corporate Alignment Model (CAM)
• The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Model
• Scenario Planning
• McKinsey Seven Ss framework
• Berenschot Seven Forces model
• Porter's five forces
• Porter's value chain
• Political, Social, Economic and Technological (PEST) analysis
• Using Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat (SWOT) analysis
• Linking positioning and capability
• Using the "difficulty-over-time curve" to assess implementation difficulty
• Creating strategic options with the "Octopus" grid
• Using the uncertainty and importance grid
• Fishbone analysis of problems
• Wishbone analysis
• Benchmarking

Financial

• Financial BCG development matrix
• Review of financial ratios including an Extended DuPont model
• Using the "value-over-time curve" for assessing financial attractiveness
• Developing budgets and forecasts
• Overhead analysis and costing including Activity Based Costing (ABC)
• Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) for investment decisions
• Review the concepts of Shareholder Value

Developmental and change

• Kotter's eight stages of change
• Peter Senge - The Fifth Discipline
• Project and programme planning
• The Deming cycle
• Introducing force field and stakeholder analysis
• Applying Attractiveness-Implementation-Difficulty (AID) analysis
• Process Mapping
• Impact and resource analysis
• Mind mapping and usefulness to the creative process
• Adopting the process of ICEDIP for creative option building

People

• The keys to developing a corporate vision and mission
• Richard Barrett's Seven Levels of Human Consciousness
• Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• Eisenhower's Effective Time Management
• Daniel Ofman's Core Quadrants
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
• Corporate values assessment and culture surveys
• Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions
• Using Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) to develop team dynamics
• Belbin's Team Roles

Implementation

• Length, style, format of a strategic or business plan
• Scenario storytelling - The first ingredients of a business plan
• Using "From-To" analysis to communicate the plan
• The use of Strategic Activity Trees (SATs)
• Implementation Plans
• The development and application of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Introduction to the Balanced Score-Card (BSC)

This courses is scheduled in London and can also be held inhouse