What is Your Strategy?
In business strategy class, there were a few key questions that suck out. Here are some questions that you might want to ask yourself when you are staring into a new venture; or even if you are needing to re-calibrate your business as it stands.
Some of these questions were generated by myself, others were comments made by others in the class, or by the professor.
Strategy questions to ponder on:
- What are my customers really buying from me? And why — given all the choices they have — would they choose to buy my product or service? (Every company better have an answer to this)
- Is my strategy sustainable?
- What are you going to have to give up to have a differentiated strategy?
- Am I going to go wide, or deep in my position?
- Who is the target, and what to they value?
- What is your unique advantage?
- Where on the perceptual map should you aim for?
- Where will your competition not mind you being?
- What government policies define what I can/can’t do?
- What is your biggest asset? Are you maximizing this?
- Are we looking ahead to where the market will be in the future, or just where it is now?
- Are we attracting who we think we are attracting? Should we be ? If not, how do we adjust?
- How do we compare to the market demand?
- What are the key assumptions of the business model, and are they being validated?
- Does our team have the right people?
- How fast do I need to grow this product?
- Is your strategy to build and sell / or keep and grow?
- When do we need to sell the product?
- Are we stealing, or creating market share?
- Where should I put evacuation points?
- How am I keeping, or building relationships?
- Can we do our process in a shorter amount of time?
- How will we benefit from this venture?
- Is our business model conducive to creativity?
- Is our business model supported by our culture?
- What is the risk associated with failure?
- Does this make the venture worth it?
- How does this effect my brand?
- Is my team diverse enough?
Keep an eye out for a future post about other analysis tools that are helpful for companies looking to form a stronger strategy.