How to write a strategic business plan. Strategic plan for the development of the enterprise and the methodology for its preparation

“Strategy without tactics is the most slow way to victory. Tactics without strategy is just hustle before defeat." Sun Tzu, Chinese strategist and philosopher

Step 3. Assess the existing reality

Look at the business in terms of strengths, weaknesses, weaknesses, and competitive advantages.

If you look at the GoldCoach team, we enjoy the learning process, the transformation of clients, but we boring to work only with information, tactics. Therefore, we dig deep into the thinking of entrepreneurs, their awareness.

We are ready to be weaker in how we convey information. But discipline is very important to us, and we instill it in our clients.

Components of the strategy

Part 1. BHAG

Jim Collins, American business consultant, bestselling author of Good to Great, introduced the concept of BHAG.

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, Big Hairy and Insolent Goal, BHAG) is incredible, mind-blowing and even a little crazy goal of your business for 20-25 years.

This is an idea of ​​what your business can achieve if you and your entire team work hard for the next 20-25 years.

BHAG should be clear and understandable, reflect the meaning of the organization's existence. A good BHAG is one that you don't fully believe in achieving. If you believe in BHAG 100%, then you made a mistake with its formulation.

The best chances for achieving BHAG are 50-70%.

BHAG examples:

• Ford: Make the car affordable.
• Amazon: Any book ever published, in any language, is available in less than 60 seconds.
• Google: Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
• Microsoft: A computer for every desk in every home.

A business strategy is a plan to achieve BHAG.

Part 2. Hedgehog Concept

Jim Collins draws an analogy with the animal world. He writes that a purposeful hedgehog will get to the goal sooner than a frisky fox.

Why? Because the hedgehog moves slowly but surely, and the fox tries to be in time everywhere and does not have time.

In business as well purposeful "hedgehogs" build empires, and "foxes" fry kebabs.

The Hedgehog Concept helps you filter opportunities—determine which ones to use and which ones to discard.

To create a hedgehog concept, you need to answer three questions:

• What is our passion? What does the company like to do the most? What brings you the most money and pleasure?
• Where can we be the best? What competencies of yours significantly outperform those of your competitors? It's not even always what we're best at right now. It could also be about the future.
• How to make money on this? What will your economic model be based on?

Draw 3 circles, in each circle - the answer to 1 question. Where they intersect, there will be the very activity that needs to be developed.

Develop a "hedgehog concept" on a strategic council, which includes the entire top management of the company.

For example, for the GoldCoach business, the “hedgehog concept” looks like this:

• Our passion is to seek, study and pass on advanced business technologies and models;
• Where can we be the best - in implementing the methodology for creating systems in business; in disciplined bringing to the result; in better internal organization;
• What our economic model is based on is customer lifetime value (LTV) divided by customer acquisition costs (Traffic Cost).

The formula for success in the long term is LTV max/Traffic cost min (give maximum benefit and minimize customer acquisition costs).

When you decide on the answers for each item, you will see the direction of development that will help achieve the vision. You will clearly see the necessary things - you can put them in priority over others. Remains stick to the concept by all means.

When the goal of BHAG and the "hedgehog concept" are clear, we form a business development strategy. To do this, divide 25 years into smaller intervals. Each interval should pursue its own goal, the achievement of which will mean approaching the vision.

Set goals for the following time periods:

• 3-5 years
• 1 year
• 3 months

Part 3. 7 elements of strategy

To determine your marketing strategy, you need to answer the following questions:

• Who is your client? What are his pains and desires? What end result does he want? (here you will need the Before-After tool described in)
• What words in the mind of the client are associated with your company? It is better to ask customers directly in person or in social networks.
• What are you selling to the client? What is the product line, what is the customer's "path"?
• What will be your brand promise?(For example, Domino’s Pizza had a promise for a long time: “Delivery in 30 minutes or pizza for free”)
• What is the KPI of your promise?(For Domino's Pizza, this is "30 minutes")
• What is the guarantee that you will keep your promise?(Again, for Domino's Pizza, it's pizza for free.)

GoldCoach has a promise in the GPS program: "If the program does not return 300% of your investment in coaching, you can demand the money back."

• What is your "one line strategy"? It should be a phrase that shows the key benefit of your business model, leads to higher profits, and helps you determine which customer demands can be ignored.

For example, for IKEA, this is the idea of ​​“flat furniture” that looks beautiful, is inexpensive, but you have to fold it yourself.

• What activities differentiate you from your competitors? What will be difficult for them to repeat and implement at home?

For example, Southwest Airlines uses only one type of aircraft and lower-class airports to make flights cheaper and more affordable, and develops a corporate culture to maintain a high level of service.

• What is your X factor? The X factor is the secret advantage that allows you to beat your competitors 10 or even 100 times easily. This advantage is most often associated with a big problem in your industry.

P.S. Developing a business strategy is simple, but not easy. This is a whole project. And if you want to do this, then our checklist "How to create a project plan in 44 minutes" will come in handy.

Also, Irina independently created two sales funnels from 0 with a profitability of more than 100% in the company and is constantly working to improve their performance.

Any company needs a strategic development plan, even if its management does not think about it yet. Let's talk about what a strategic plan for the development of an enterprise is, what it consists of, what tools to use to draw it up.

What is this article about:

There is always a strategy, even when the leader does not think about it at all. Even small businesses have their own strategic goals, such as “try to repeat everything that the industry leaders are doing” or “monitor the main trends and adapt to them.” The larger the enterprise, the higher the price of managerial errors, the more necessary it is to know your strategic goals and the ways leading to their achievement.

What is a strategic plan

According to all the canons of management, planning is essential function management cycle. In this case, the theory is fully confirmed by practice: if there is no planning at the enterprise, then we can say that there is no management. There is no ongoing planning, which means there is no operational management. At the same time, if the strategic goals are clear, the organization can exist for some time. Inefficient use of resources, actual terms will never correspond to the desired ones, but formulated long-term goals, understanding of target sales volumes, assortment policy and necessary resources will allow us to somehow move forward, albeit with heavy losses.

Another situation is in the presence of only operational planning. Everyone seems to be working, everyone is busy, some problems are constantly being solved. It’s just not clear why these problems are constantly pouring like snow on their heads, the enterprise is marking time, and any changes in the external environment every time become at least a cause of emergency, otherwise they almost endanger the future of the organization.

Purpose of the strategic plan

The strategic plan systematizes long-term targets, establishing the relationship of market indicators to be achieved, production objectives to be solved, and the financial resources necessary for all this.

The marketing strategy is developed on the basis of a forecast for the development of sales markets and the current situation of the enterprise. In this case, the development forecast is broad concept, which includes the development of technologies, and the processes of globalization of the economy, and the demographic situation, and in some cases, the medium-term international political situation - all this can have a significant impact either on the industry as a whole or on the activities of a particular enterprise.

The production strategy should take into account not only the development of production technologies for this product group, but also the dynamics of commodity markets, forecasts of changes in prices for energy carriers, transport services, and so on.

A strategic development plan should not only state goals, but also justify their choice. It is desirable that the strategy of action be methodologically justified. The intuition of a leader can also be relied upon, but more often than not, good business intuition is a combination of experience and education.

Determining the starting point for strategic planning

A strategic plan consists of specifying goals and how to achieve them. In order for the goals to be adequate and achievable, and the methods to be realistically feasible, it is necessary to correctly determine the starting point.

There is no better way to analyze the current state of an enterprise than a SWOT analysis. Method name (abbreviation English words: strengths - strengths, weaknesses - weak sides, opportunities - opportunities, threats - threats) speaks for itself. It consists in identifying four groups of factors: strengths and weaknesses of the organization, opportunities and threats external environment.

An example of using SWOT analysis for strategic planning

How powerful this tool can be shown by such an example of consulting the management of one of the companies integrating security systems. It was in 2012: a very “strong” ruble, sales of foreign-made cars were breaking new records, there was no crisis at all. An express analysis of the enterprise and the industry was carried out exclusively on the basis of publicly available data: the company's website and several specialized publications on this topic. After that, the SWOT analysis method was applied, which at that time revealed the key factors:

Strengths:

• strong positions in the market, with a high entry barrier for new participants;
• relatively low competition in this segment of services;
• a relatively high share of the cost of services compared to the cost of equipment in the total market volume.

Weaknesses: low share of the enterprise in a growing market.

Possibilities of the external environment:

• annual market growth until 2015 by at least 10%;
• translation of services to regional markets (where development is expected) through customers with a branch network;
• development of specialized software and equipment of Russian production;
• strengthening of legislative requirements for safety in various fields of activity and industries;
• the constant growth of the relevance of ensuring information and environmental security.

Threats of the external environment:

• a possible increase in prices for foreign software and equipment, which is critical for a number of services;
• economic downturn in a number of industries that are consumers of security services;
• tendency to enlargement of market participants;
• problems with financing large long-term projects;
• lower margins due to increased customer requirements.

On this basis, the strategic goal of the enterprise until 2015 was formulated: an increase in sales of services at the level of 13–15% annually while maintaining current profitability. Why should there be such an increase? Because otherwise the company's market share will decrease, and it runs the risk of being in the “question marks” segment after some time in the “losers” segment, according to the terminology of the BCG matrix. To achieve this goal, additional development options were proposed, in addition to the main line of work in the premium segment.

The coincidence with the real state of affairs turned out to be so accurate that I was never able to refute the management's opinion about receiving insider information from one of the employees, although the security measures at the enterprise were very strict. Time has shown that most of the threats were realized during the next three years, and yet at the moment of analysis, it would seem that nothing foreshadowed such a dramatic development of events.

Definition of market strategy

The answer is not always on the surface, often the development of a strategic plan requires additional efforts. To answer the SWOT analysis questions, it is required to separately determine the company's position in the market, the direction of development of the production program and the strategy of competition.

To find answers to these questions, you can use any methods, even intuitive ones. But the use of well-known and tested methods over the years will certainly facilitate this work. One of them is the matrix of the Boston Consulting Group, which helps to determine the current stage of the life cycle of an enterprise or product. The method proceeds from the concept of the life cycle, which for any enterprise and product is divided into four main stages: the initial phase, intensive growth, stability, decline.

From the point of view of marketing, these stages correspond to a combination of the market share of the enterprise and the rate of market growth:

1. Low market share of the company with its rapid growth.
2. Growing share of the company in a fast growing market.
3. Large share in a depressed market.
4. Low share of the company's products in a depressed market.

Accordingly, the financial flows at each stage can be defined as:

1. Short incoming stream with a high need for investment.
2. Rising incomes and high need for investment.
3. High returns with no investment (hence the name "cash cows").
4. Decrease in income in the absence of investment.

Despite the simplification and conventionality of this technique, it helps to quite easily determine the strategic line of development.

For a ship that has no course

no wind will be favorable.

ancient roman philosopher

And statesman Seneca

How to start developing a strategic plan?

What sections must be present in a strategic plan?

What methods to check the correctness of the strategic development plan?

How to analyze the external and internal context of the organization?

How to formulate a mission and develop strategies for the development of an organization?

How to develop a business plan for the development of an organization?

How to ensure the implementation of the strategic development plan?

How to ensure the relationship between the strategies, business development plans and budgets of the organization?

A company that does not have strategic development goals and specific plans to achieve them is doomed to follow current events with very vague prospects for the future. But the development of a correct strategic development plan requires high competencies and skills from management, since it involves not so much the calculation of indicators economic activity how much is a forecast of the dynamics of the business, taking into account the risks and opportunities associated with both the external and internal context of the organization.

You can often come across the opinion that strategic planning is necessary for large companies that have already declared themselves as leaders in their market segment and look to the future with confidence.

But, firstly, any company has a specific goal of its activities and at least an approximate business plan. And this is already the elements of strategic planning.

Secondly, even novice entrepreneurs assess the size of the market they are going to work in, the competitive environment and their ability to enter this market. That is, they are engaged in strategic analysis, which is also one of the components of strategic planning.

In other words, most small and medium-sized companies in fact also use strategic planning, but, unlike large players in the market, they do it non-systemically and not in full.

Yes and in large companies it happens that strategic development plans developed with a lot of time and effort remain only plans. Many external and internal factors can lead to this, the most common of them are the lack of integrity in the planning methodology and the disruption of the relationship between strategies, business development plans and company budgets.

We offer a methodology for developing the most effective strategic development plan and recommendations that will help to avoid possible risks of erroneous forecasts, we will talk about the sequence of forming a strategic development plan, we will reveal the relationship between the context, goals and resources of the company, which should be reflected in the strategic development plan.

Of course, the strategic plans for the development of large, medium and small companies will differ due to the difference in the scale of economic activity, the specifics of the business, the complexity organizational structure and business processes.

But in any case, a well-developed strategic development plan is formed on the basis of successively implemented stages:

Analysis of the external and internal context of the organization

The performance of any company is influenced by many different factors. Without understanding the degree of their impact, it is impossible to develop the right strategic direction for the development of the company.

The company itself also affects the external environment (context) - the product sales market, suppliers, buyers, partners, regulatory authorities, etc.

Note!

How successfully the company's strategy will be implemented depends largely on its ability to organize the internal environment (context), which includes business processes, organization resources, personnel, production structure and technologies, as well as corporate culture and principles.

The totality of factors of the internal context of the company by and large determines its competitiveness.

Therefore, before developing a mission and strategy, it is necessary to conduct a strategic analysis of the external and internal context of the company, the result of which should be an assessment of the risks and opportunities of a particular enterprise in its surrounding market environment.

The 3 most common methods of strategic analysis:

SWOT analysis;

construction of matrices "Probability/Impact";

formation of a register of risks and opportunities.

The purpose of the SWOT analysis (Strength - strength, Weak - weakness, Opportunity - opportunities and Threat - threats) is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the company, to establish their relationship with external opportunities and threats.

Based on the results of the analysis, company strategies are developed to use opportunities and eliminate threats for development.

Probability/Impact matrices are built separately for positioning the opportunities of the company's external environment and for positioning the threats of the company's external environment.

In each of the matrices, opportunities and threats are distributed according to the likelihood of their occurrence and the strength of the impact on the company.

Matrices help to control external factors and develop business development strategies.

The formation of a register of risks and opportunities involves a more detailed analysis compared to the two previous methods. First, the risks and opportunities of both the external and internal contexts of the company are identified. Further, the identified risks and opportunities are evaluated according to the degree of probability of their implementation and the degree of impact on the company's business. Then a matrix of risks and opportunities is formed, which reflects the cumulative degree of influence of the assessed risks and opportunities (“High”, “Medium”, “Low”). The final stage— compiling a register of risks and opportunities. It records all the risks and opportunities that are significant for the company, ways to minimize and implement them (in fact, these are the company's strategies), as well as the responsible (owners) of each of the risks and opportunities.

Conclusion

When choosing a development strategy, a company should focus on its strengths ( high quality products, customer service, good business reputation) to take advantage of business expansion opportunities (increase in sales, launch of a new type of product, provision of additional services to customers).

At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen its weaknesses (depreciation of funds, insufficient staff qualifications, dependence on loans) in order to minimize the risk of external threats (rising prices for raw materials, increased competition in the market, reduced consumer demand).

Development of the mission and development strategies of the organization

In order to understand in which direction to move, develop, a company should first of all decide on its mission, that is, the main goal of its existence.

The mission of the organization necessarily reflects the field of activity and its ultimate goal. On the basis of the adopted mission, strategies for the development of the company are developed that will ensure the fulfillment of the mission.

Development strategies, firstly, should cover all aspects of the company's mission, and secondly, should not deviate from its meaning.

Compliance with the first condition is necessary for the successful implementation of the company's mission, the second - in order not to divert the resources and efforts of the company to solve problems that do not serve the mission of the company.

When developing company development strategies, it is necessary to carefully check their relationship with the approved mission.

Since the development strategies within the company are global in nature and their implementation requires the efforts of all divisions of the company, it is necessary to translate them into the strategies of individual divisions so that the managers and staff of each division clearly know their goals and objectives for the implementation of the overall strategy of the company.

In addition, dividing the company's strategy into departmental strategies ensures that the correct performance targets for the strategy are set. Agree, if a company has one target indicator for all, which is formed as a result of the work of several departments, as a result it is impossible to understand which of them did not complete their part of the work and who exactly is to blame for not achieving the overall target indicator.

An example of such a broadcast for the Volga company is as follows (Fig. 2).

We formulate the strategic goals of the company's development

However, the formation of a strategic plan for the development of the company is not limited to the development of the mission and strategies. In addition to the direction of action itself (i.e. strategy), it is also necessary to develop criteria for success (target indicators) and ways to achieve them (business development plans). Only in this case, you can be sure that the company has a clear program for fulfilling its mission, supported by action plans and the calculation of the resources necessary for their implementation.

Strategic goals (or key targets) should be specific and measurable so that at the end of any period it is clear to what extent the strategy has been implemented and what is the dynamics of its implementation.

For example, if a strategy target such as an increase in sales volumes can be expressed as a percentage of growth over the volumes of the previous period or in a specific amount. And if the goal is the implementation of an activity, then the estimated date of completion of this activity should be indicated as an indicator of its achievement.

Strategic goals are set, as a rule, for a year and subsequently adjusted according to the actual results of the company's work.

To visualize the indicators of the implementation of development strategies, use the map of strategic goals, which indicates:

general company strategies;

division strategies;

key areas for implementing strategies;

target indicator for each of the strategies;

the owner of the target indicator (the unit responsible for the implementation of the strategy).

An example of a map of strategic goals is in Table. 1.

We develop a business plan for the development of the organization

One of the most important sections of the strategic development of an enterprise is a business plan for the company's activities for the forecast period.

4 key features of a business plan:

Transforms strategic development goals into indicators of the company's financial and economic activities for the forecast period.

Serves as a source of verification of the feasibility of the developed strategies (by comparing forecast indicators with the resource capabilities of the company).

It is the basis for the development of budgets for the company as a whole and its divisions for the year.

Acts as a guideline for adjusting the company's development strategies for subsequent periods.

Typically, business plans are made for a period of three to five years, there are options for up to ten years.

The main criteria for choosing a strategic planning period are the current market situation and the position of the company. For example, if the market situation is sufficiently stable and the company has been successfully operating on it for a long time, it can afford to predict results for the long term based on the "strategy of success".

If the market is in a fever and the company feels insufficiently stable, it is forced to work according to a “survival strategy”, in which long-term forecasting is impractical due to the uncertainty of the further development of the situation. In this case, a business plan is drawn up for a period of one to three years.

The business plan of the Volga company for a three-year period is in Table. 2.

As evidenced by the data of the business plan, the company's strategies and their targets are realistic and quite achievable. Volga runs a profitable business, its operating income is quite balanced and allows it to maintain a given rate of return while increasing sales volumes.

By increasing net income, the company can also solve the problem of high dependence on external financing by investing the profits in replenishment. working capital for doing business.

Ensuring the relationship between the strategies, business development plans and budgets of the organization

Ideally, when developing a strategic development plan, a company must ensure the relationship between the strategies, business development plans and budgets of the company and departments. Such a relationship guarantees the successful implementation of the strategic plan, because the target indicators of the company's strategies will be tied to the parameters of the business development plan, on the basis of which all company budgets are planned. Therefore, the implementation of budgetary tasks will also lead to the achievement of the strategic goals of the company. Visually, this relationship is shown in Fig. 3.

Using the example of the strategic development plan of the Volga company that we are considering, let's see if there are any relationships between the above plans.

In the final part of the strategic plan for the development of the enterprise, include a description of risk management methods, since in long-term planning the level of uncertainty increases simultaneously with the increase in the planning horizon.

While when making a forecast for the year it is quite possible to achieve high level accuracy of data and to ensure the interconnection of all elements of planning, when developing a strategic plan for five years, you have to make a significant number of assumptions and assumptions about the development of the situation. Therefore, it will not be superfluous for all interested parties (owners, management, management) to understand, when agreeing on a strategic plan, what risks may interfere with its implementation and what the company can do to minimize their occurrence.

Conclusion

A complete strategic plan for the development of an enterprise includes the following sections:

• The results of the analysis of the external and internal context of the organization at the time of the development of the plan.
• Description of current activities and long-term objectives of the organization's development.
• Description of the company's mission and development strategies.
• Functional strategies of company divisions.
• Description of projects for the development of company.
• Business plans for the implementation of development projects.
• Description of risk management methods for the implementation of the strategic plan.

The development of a strategic development plan is the basis for choosing the long-term goals of the enterprise and ways to achieve them. Strategic planning helps to effectively allocate and use the company's resources to achieve the main goals and objectives of the chosen mission.

Please note: it is necessary to systematically monitor the approved plan so that it does not lose its relevance, and to revise the strategies of the enterprise, since the market situation and internal processes of the company can change significantly under the influence of factors that did not manifest themselves at the time the strategic plan was developed. It is better to identify the inefficiency of the chosen path in time than to continue to stubbornly waste time and company resources on achieving a goal that has lost its relevance.

Essentially, strategic planning is an ongoing process in which a company must find the shortest and most efficient path to success.

Define the vision for your organization. Determine what your organization stands for, what it hopes to achieve, what its function is, what part of the population it wants to work with, how it wants to be perceived, and what type of growth it wants to experience.

Write a mission statement. The purpose of your mission statement is to summarize your organization's main goal or vision. Strategic plans go into the development of the mission, as it is the mission that directs the goals and serves as a means of measuring the success of the organization. An example of a mission statement is: "Our goal is to be the leading pet food supplier in the country. We will achieve this by researching sourcing and providing our customers with the best available, diverse and affordable, high quality products, exceeding customer expectations for quality of service, forming strong relationships with our clients."

• Determine your strengths and weaknesses. You will need to develop a strategic plan that uses strengths to minimize weaknesses.
• Identify opportunities for growth. You may have several investor proposals on the table, or anticipate a particularly successful fundraising effort. Regardless of your organization's goal, you should be able to list realistic opportunities to achieve that goal so that you can include in your strategic plan the tools by which you will process and implement the majority of those opportunities.
• List the threats to the success of your strategic plans. Threats can be in the form of an economic downturn, an industry competitor, or changes in government regulation. Your plan must take into account these threats and respond to them with a viable strategy.

List the factors needed for success. Strategic plans should include specific characteristics of the circumstances that will lead to the achievement of objectives.

• Keep 4 key areas in mind when developing your goals: financial goals, customer relationships, operational methods, and organizational members.
• Referring to the example of pet nutrition, critical success factors could include, for example, relationships with distributors, a competent customer service team, a strong online presence, national 24/7 service provision, up-to-date accounting software and a research team to find the latest, greatest pet food.

Develop a strategy to achieve each success factor. It should be a step-by-step plan, and it is worth noting what exactly should be done, in what time frame, with what investments and by which responsible person.

Prioritize your strategy according to viable and ambitious goals. Considering all the steps that are required to achieve each goal, as well as the order of importance in achieving those goals, list your strategic plan in chronological order. For example, your goal of operating your own fleet trucks for shipping purposes can be considered a long term goal as it is very expensive and you already have a temporary delivery plan with third party shipping. Therefore, you can prioritize by placing more urgent goals higher on the list.

For the successful operation of the company, it is necessary to draw up a competent strategy for its development. This is done on the basis of the goals of the organization and the specifics of its activities.

What is a development strategy?

The concept of strategy came from the military lexicon. This term refers primarily to planning. That is, the company's management plans further actions, taking into account the expected results. The strategy defines the following nuances of the functioning of the organization:

• Direction of activity.
• Tools for the implementation of the goals and objectives.
• System of external and internal positioning.
• Company mission.
• The order of actions in case of external and internal influence on the organization.
• The social role of the company.

The strategy defines the basic features of functioning. It is necessary to quickly achieve your goals.

Why is a strategy required?

There are three reasons for the formation of a development strategy:

1. Understanding the long-term goals of the organization.
2. Formation of activity goals.
3. Mutual understanding of all owners of the company regarding further development.

Forming a development strategy is especially important for large enterprises that expect to stay on the market for a long time.

Varieties of development strategies

In the management of the 21st century, there are Various types strategies:

1. Basic. It represents the planning of the generalized direction of the organization's development. Applies to all activities of the company. Includes a product strategy, a combination of solutions for various directions. It is believed that this is the most difficult strategy. This is explained by its scale.
2. Competitive. Necessary for the formation of competitive advantages. It involves the creation of approaches for activities in each area. Used in addition to the base method.
3. Functional. It is formed for each of the departments of the organization that are included in the overall production scheme. It is required to develop an action plan for each functional area. Its main goal is the distribution of resources of departments, their activities in accordance with the overall strategy of the company. Functional planning includes an R&D strategy. It is needed to summarize information about new products.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION! These types of strategies are not interchangeable. They can be used in combination with each other.

Development strategies for niche businesses

It is advisable for medium and small companies to choose a specific niche. This is necessary to gain a competitive advantage. There are a number of forms of strategies specifically for niche companies:

• conservation strategy. It is required if it is necessary to maintain the current position of the organization. Does not involve expansion. This form of planning has a significant disadvantage: it does not guarantee the preservation of competitive advantage.
• Invader detection strategy. Relevant in the disastrous state of the company. If an organization can no longer function autonomously, it looks for a company to absorb it. In the future, the organization will also be able to function, but already as a relatively independent unit.
• Niche leadership strategy. Relevant in the presence of several circumstances: the organization is developing dynamically and claims a monopoly in a niche, there are financial resources sufficient to ensure accelerated growth.
• A strategy for going beyond the boundaries of a niche. This method is relevant only if the company operates within a narrow niche. Niche expansion involves facing competitors. For this reason, an enterprise must have the resources to secure a competitive advantage.

Each of these strategies can be called effective. However, methods will only be effective if they are selected in accordance with the specifics of the company.

What does the strategy plan include?

The development strategy combines the following points:

• Company mission. This is a set of values ​​that guide the organization in the implementation of its activities.
• organizational structure. Involves the division of manufactured products. It also includes the division of the organization into divisions.
• Competitive advantages. Represent the advantages of the company, which can be opposed to competitors.
• Products. Includes those products, the sale of which forms the main profit of the enterprise.
• resource potential. It is a complex of resources involved in the manufacture of products.
• intangible potential. This is the organization's ability to attract investment and meet current needs.

The strategy also combines the possibility of merging with another company, corporate culture.

Steps to form a company development strategy

Consider the step-by-step steps to create a strategy:

1. The analysis of the current state of the enterprise is carried out. It makes sense to evaluate the company's performance over a certain period. When analyzing, you need to take into account a number of indicators: the sale of goods, profit, financial potential.
2. Alignment of enterprise plans with its resources. Certain resources are required to execute the strategy. Even if the leadership's ambitions are great, but there are no funds to fulfill them, the plan will fail. Therefore, it is necessary to find the optimal balance between desires and possibilities. To do this, you need to have objective data on available resources.
3. Preparing for changes. As part of this, new positions are being formed, the personnel composition is changing.
4. Risk analysis is carried out. At this stage, compensatory measures are planned.
5. Based on the data obtained at the stage of the company's activity, the existing strategy is being corrected.

ATTENTION! A developed strategy is not forever. It needs to be reviewed periodically taking into account new factors. For example, market requirements may change, new competitors appear.

Examples of a successful company development strategy

Consider illustrative examples strategies.

1. The Coca-Cola brand is developing by steadily expanding its capacities. Manufacturer when hit Russian market faced a strong competitor - the Pepsi brand. As a result, Coca-Cola began to increase its production capacity. In particular, measures were taken to form a production base. In the 90s, a bottling plant was put into operation. The brand first penetrated large regions, and then small ones. All this provided the necessary competitive advantage.
2. Another example is the Hilton hotel complex. The unchanging basis of his strategy is the construction of luxury hotels. However, at some stage there was a glut of the market. That is, new fashionable hotels have become simply unclaimed. Therefore, the leadership of the "Hilton" began the construction of hotels with democratic prices. Niche expansion involved clashing with competitors. However, the management of Hilton provided an important competitive advantage - high quality of service.