Preview mode
Micro-consulting mode is to aggregate strategic experts and industry experts in the form of "micro" to help enterprises solve key problems in the process of strategy formulation and implementation. Micro-consulting mode is put forward and operated by micro-consulting network, with high expert level and "gathering and dispersing by order". At the critical moment of strategic decision-making, with the help of the expert resource system of micro-consulting network, customers can quickly find the right experts with matching industry, scale and growth experience. Help enterprises get top-notch intellectual support, with the help of experts' experience and opinions, avoid detours and make fewer mistakes.
The focus of strategic consultation
Strategic management micro-consulting, focusing on solving key problems in the process of strategic formulation, such as deeply understanding the overall development trend of the industry through senior researchers and practitioners; Competitive environment; Mainstream competitors; Understand the growth path, failure lessons and successful experiences of benchmark enterprises at home and abroad; Judging future industry trends and new profit areas through expert insight, and listening to experience from industry, practice and commercial operation.
Key issues of strategic management include but are not limited to:
1. Do you really have a strategy?
2. Can it or has it achieved an "overwhelming competitive advantage" over its competitors?
3. Under the existing resources and competitive environment, where can we focus on making breakthroughs?
4. In the process of progress, does it occupy the position of the trend from three aspects: time, location, people and harmony?
5. After deducing the strategic direction, can it rank in the industry?
6. What are the key points to be grasped in the process of strategic management?
point out
First of all, look at the scene planning realistically.
In a highly uncertain environment, the advantages of scenario planning are obvious: since no basic situation can be considered possible, it is necessary to make plans based on assumptions (assuming several possible different futures) and pay close attention to various potential drivers of uncertainty.
The ubiquitous uncertainty makes scenario planning more complicated: the number of variables at work and the distribution range of possible results have surged. For example, consider the plight of an industrial supplier, which is not only seriously affected by commercial and residential real estate, but also has many government customers. For this enterprise, the most important uncertainties include: the development direction of commercial credit and mortgage market, housing prices, taxes, and the expenditure of government economic stimulus plan. The different results of each uncertain factor will make the development path of this enterprise very different. Because the core of scenario planning-conceiving multiple strategies for different results-has become more and more complicated, strategists should do more rigorous information collection, possibility research process and completely old-fashioned rigorous thinking.
Corporate executives who have not participated in the strategic planning team-even those who are used to making scene models-may find that the diversity and complexity of today's scene models are confusing and confusing. It is very important to involve these executives in the planning process as early as possible: for example, a scenario modeling method involving the entire senior management team is adopted to start the planning process. Similarly, when the review process of business units begins, enterprises can repeatedly inculcate how to correctly evaluate the threats faced by enterprises and their coping strategies by inviting senior managers of various departments to participate in the process, instead of maintaining a one-time working relationship between the senior management team and the heads of business units.
Second, strengthen monitoring.
If the commercial and residential real estate market has stabilized, it can be expected that before the economic recovery, although the sales volume of these sales channels will decrease, their business models will basically remain unchanged. If these markets weaken further, the biggest market opportunity for this enterprise will be the infrastructure investment paid by the government's economic stimulus plan in the foreseeable future. In this case, enterprises need to reconfigure their sales resources to government-oriented business areas and focus on how to maximize sales in this area.
In short, the enterprise's strategy must consider all kinds of possibilities greatly increased compared with not long ago. Because the effectiveness of this strategy depends on an organization's ability to quickly adjust when the situation becomes chaotic, managers must identify and closely monitor key indicators that can show which scenarios may gradually unfold. For this industrial supplier, some of the most important indicators are: the sales of new and second-hand houses, the foreclosure rate of housing mortgage loans, the mortgage interest rate, the operating rate of new houses, and the announcement that government projects are about to start. Of course, although managers of enterprises need to keep track of these indicators, the strategic planning process usually simplifies its potential variables to an average forecast of market growth. However, in view of the current high uncertainty, the strategic planning team needs to decompose the average forecast of market growth into individual elements, so as to see the possible results of each indicator more clearly and monitor these indicators in more detail.
There is no need to specify the specific values of these indicators in the process of strategic planning-because these indicators should also help enterprises to make dynamic budget decisions in real time. This is very important, because it is meaningless to determine the budget allocation of each business unit at the beginning of the fiscal year if the cash is tight and the executives intend to use it carefully when the planning uncertainty becomes smaller. What enterprises need is a dynamic resource allocation process of "discretionary payment", which can not only save cash, but also urge everyone to adhere to the strategic roadmap arranged in the scene planning.
The strategic planning process should also make very special plans to monitor the performance of suppliers, customers and competitors. As we have seen in the past six months, some of the most stable established enterprises may also fall into financial difficulties at a dazzling speed. Getting information early can help enterprises determine when to negotiate more favorable supply contracts with suppliers; When to prepare to replace high-risk suppliers; When to provide more relaxed credit conditions to key customers; When should we strengthen the collection of money from customers in difficulty? Or when to pre-empt all or part of a competitor who is in trouble. The main signs of enterprises in trouble include some common signs, such as arrears of accounts payable, debt rating decline, sharp drop in stock price, delay in delivery time, and decline in product or material quality. Although all these symptoms are familiar to operations managers, in the past, they usually dealt with them in a specific way rather than through the strategic planning process.
Third, look beyond the crisis to the future.
In view of the huge scale of the current economic turmoil, many planners will inevitably try to concentrate all their attention on the developing economic crisis and find it difficult to extricate themselves. This is a wrong approach, which can be explained by at least two reasons.
First, market trends, such as the aging of consumers in Europe and North America, or the ongoing economic development in Brazil, China, India and Russia, will continue to create strategic opportunities and threats. Therefore, no matter what happens, business managers must focus their attention and resources on these trends.
Second, planners who pay too much attention to the current economic crisis may take another risk, that is, ignore their core responsibility-evaluating the effectiveness of existing strategies. Although this crisis may force enterprises to shelve or modify some strategies, other parts of the strategy will still play an important role even if the economic environment changes. The strategic planning process provides an opportunity for managers to carefully sort out which existing strategies are helpful, which are harmful and which have no impact on the crisis, and ensure that systems and evaluation methods that can effectively track their performance are adopted. Although all this sounds like a cliche, great uncertainty can easily make these common sense forgotten.
McDonald's is an enterprise that is making a strategic plan. In this economic downturn, the company can still profit from its low-priced fast food and achieve the strongest sales growth of its fast food chain for many years. At the same time, senior management still pays close attention to long-term strategies, including: updating and transforming expensive stores; Thoroughly check the running status; High-grade coffee products; And introduce an alternative healthy food menu. Managers of other enterprises can learn a lot from McDonald's. Enterprises not only strive to profit from the current economic environment, but also persistently adhere to their long-term strategies and the basic trends reflected by these strategies (such as a healthier lifestyle).
Although in this challenging period, the strategic planning process is not necessarily a worrying or futile work. Creating a more in-depth scenario model, monitoring enterprise strategy more closely, and always paying attention to long-term strategy will help strategists and make them more likely to make strategic plans that can guide their enterprises through economic turmoil.