Strategy's critical step

If there is a critical step to crafting great strategy that is so often entirely overlooked in strategy projects, its the part where a detailed analysis gets done to measure and understand what on earth is going on (inside and outside of the organisation) and how these factors will affect the organisation as well as the behaviour of the marketplace as time progresses.

As an example - a Trump-presidency (quite a change from a Biden-presidency) will have an impact on the world.

It will have an impact on a business in South Africa.

It will have an impact on you personally; and it will affect the behaviour of your customers.

Strategy that doesn't take into account at least some of the possible consequences of this change (good or bad) over the medium-term will not be as useful as strategy that does. Decision-makers that are not actively on the look out for early signals of change that could have a material impact on their business are at-best missing opportunities; at worst, putting the existence of the business at risk.

The same can be said of strategy that doesn't consider the effects of a business having a toxic internal culture, or one that doesn't at least try to make sense of the implications of any number of changes that occur both outside of the business and within it.

For an organisation to retain its relevance in a changing world, this vital part cannot be overlooked.