Execution Excellence

3Strategy FormulationBuilding a Strategy that Works

I'm not a strategy professor, but I can definitely tell you, from my perspective and experience, what strategy formulation is about and how to build a strategy that works. I'll keep it simple.

Strategy is all about understanding the three components, which are explained here and shown in Figure 3.1:

1. External Assessment: What's the relevant market and what does it offer in terms of opportunity? What are the market, competitive, regulatory, and other constraints or gaps?
2. Internal Assessment: What are our strengths, weaknesses, and resources?
3. Way-Forward Strategy Formulation: What do we need to do internally to successfully execute the external market opportunity?

Figure 3.1 Strategy Components

It's as simple as that.

External Assessment

There is no rocket science here, so I am not going to spend much time on this. In old-fashioned terms, an external assessment is good old market research, market intelligence, competitive intelligence, market strategy—they all mean pretty much the same thing. A strong external assessment involves reading everything there is about the market, so you have clear answers to questions listed above. Additionally to complete your understanding of the market, plan on meeting with a relevant number of customers, regulators, industry experts and competitors. This is particularly important as, everything ...