Sunday 29 September 2013

Why Strategic Insight Is Necessary To Ensure Business Survival

By Paulette Short


Each and every organization needs to make provision for the many changes that affect the way in which they operate. Without provisions for adaptation to change no organization can hope to survive in the long term. New innovations and changes in the environment force businesses to adapt. Strategic insight can only be developed by studying trends and by foreseeing likely changes. In fact, the pace of change is so hectic that change management has become a discipline of great importance in the corporate environment.

In this fast changing world businesses need to have policies and procedures in place that will deal with changes and that will enable the organization to take advantage of such changes. Strategies are broad plans that simply identify likely changes and that directs business units to adapt their methods and tactics. Strategies therefore focus upon macro issues rather than micro consequences of such changes.

The problem faced by most organizations is the enormous pace of change. In addition, many changes simply cannot be foreseen but it is still necessary to devise long range plans that will enable to organization to survive and to thrive. For example, regional conflict that has a decided impact upon the financial markets is almost impossible to predict. Yet, businesses must remain ready to react the very moment that change occurs.

The main aim of a long term strategy is to enable the organization to take advantage of change. This can only be achieved if all the various environments that have an impact on the business is studied, This may include the technological, financial, political and even geographic environments. Not only is it necessary to identify likely changes, but also to specify the impact that those changes will have on the organization.

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 projections are all good and well, but they are useless unless they are translated into detailed action plans. In most cases a top down approach is followed. This means that broad aims are communicated to business units and that those business units then translate them into specific plans. The plans are then translated into very specific objectives by small teams.

Change demands change and the only way in which any business can hope to thrive is to embrace changes and to use them to the best possible advantage. However, this requires a long term strategy that takes note of trends and tendencies. Without such a strategy it would be virtually impossible to plan for taking advantage of new developments.

Strategic insight is the product of careful studies of the trends in the various environments that affect every business, individual and organization. If a trend can be predicted, plans can be made to take advantage of those changes. Unanticipated changes can easily lead to disaster because the company will not be ready to react quickly enough.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment