From the latest articles with strategic planning advice, to strategy examples from huge companies like Yahoo, there's a lot to keep up with in the world of strategy.
We’ve compiled a list of our favourite strategic planning articles and strategy examples over the past month to share with you.
1. Why Believing Your Own Projections is Risky Business - (Entrepreneur)
Hank Aaron once said, “Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80 percent of being a successful hitter. The other 20 percent is just execution.”
While this may work for baseball, the trouble is, in business, the whole guessing part is much tougher. Why? Because you’re working with more variables than eight to nine pitch types. And that means, despite your best attempts to calculate the future, predictions are a hell of a lot less likely to be right. In fact, in early-stage businesses -- between one to three years -- they are almost always wrong.
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2. The Biology of Corporate Survival - (Harvard Business Review)
Companies operate in an increasingly complex world: Business environments are more diverse, dynamic, and interconnected than ever—and far less predictable. Yet many firms still pursue classic approaches to strategy that were designed for more-stable times, emphasizing analysis and planning focused on maximizing short-term performance rather than long-term robustness. How are they faring? Read More
3. Is Yahoo’s Strategy Really Nuts?- (Inc)
You've heard that old saying about insanity, right? You know, when you keep doing the same thing and expect different results? It's far from a real definition of insanity, but in a business context it will do.
Not that Yahoo's strategy is clinically insane, but from the business view, it's gone beyond head scratching and into the realm of head banging -- on a brick wall. The company's 2015 earnings announcement showed what has been true for what seems like forever. Little revenue growth for a software/Internet company. They got hurt with much higher cost of revenue. Net earnings took a $4.4 billion hit because of a goodwill impairment. Read More
4. Lean Strategy -(HBR)
Strategy and entrepreneurship are often viewed as polar opposites. Strategy is seen as the pursuit of a clearly defined path—one systematically identified in advance—through a carefully chosen set of activities. Entrepreneurship is seen as the epitome of opportunism—requiring ventures to pivot in new directions continually, as information comes in and markets shift rapidly. Yet the two desperately need each other. Strategy without entrepreneurship is central planning. Entrepreneurship without strategy leads to chaos. Read More
5. Leo Burnett Names New US Chief Strategy Officer- (Adweek)
Leo Burnett USA appointed Marcello Magalhaes as its new chief strategy officer, beginning in March. In the role, Magalhaes will partner with recently-appointed Leo Burnett global CEO Rich Stoddart to oversee the agency’s strategy department and drive its strategic direction in the U.S. while also serving as strategy lead on the agency’s McDonald’s account and working across the agency’s full portfolio of clients. Magalhaes succeeds Mick McCabe, who has served in the position since 2012, and was recently appointed global chief strategy officer for fellow Publicis agency Publicis Worldwide.
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6. PBS CFO Barbara Landes: Using Risk Assessments to Guide the Budgeting and Planning Process - Wall Street Journal/Deloitte
With a strategic planning background and finance acumen, Barbara Landes, CFO, treasurer and senior vice president of Corporate Services for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), is used to keeping a critical eye on both short- and long-term horizons. That’s one reason she uses a risk assessment process to begin PBS’s budgeting and planning efforts, which she says helps guide corporate strategy as well as asset allocation. Landes discusses the role a risk assessment can play in the budgeting process with Allan Cook, director, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and practice lead, Media and Entertainment Enterprise Model Design, as well as how she measures growth at the not-for-profit media enterprise and develops talent, among other topics. Read More
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