What's Driving Your Business: Defined Strategy or Destination Unknown?

How 3 Simple Questions Will Tell You.

By Peter Christian • Published July 2010

Imagine you're planning a trip. You have carefully chosen a vehicle with just the right capacity and great gas mileage. You have also selected a team of people to accompany you on this journey: there's one to help navigate, one to maintain the vehicle, one to track expenses and another to monitor fuel consumption and so on. But there's one problem. Throughout all this preparation for the trip, you never chose a destination. How will your team effectively plan for and execute their responsibilities on the journey if they don't know where they are going?

90% of businesses have no strategic plan
(source: M3 Planning)

This analogy illustrates a far-too-common issue facing many of today's organizations. While a business may be prepared for day-to-day operations, they often lack a road map for the future. And let's be honest, without a destination in mind, how do you know what direction to go and whether or not you have reached it?

A Strategic Plan identifies that destination and charts the course. Once in place, the plan provides a company with guidance on how to allocate resources, including its capital and people, over a defined period of time in order to achieve the desired results and reach its destination. And it all begins with 3 questions...