Business Strategy Development: 7 Essential Tips to Get Started
Strategy development is a specialized approach to achieving an organization’s goals. It involves a thorough analysis of both external and internal environments, understanding the trajectory of growth, setting well-founded objectives, and creating a comprehensive strategic plan to reach them. By definition, strategy development is designed to facilitate or ensure the achievement of strategic goals.
However, in reality, for many companies, strategy development often becomes an isolated task, where achieving strategic goals is not the primary focus. For most teams, simply producing a document that vaguely resembles a strategic plan is seen as an accomplishment in itself, turning the process into an end goal rather than a means to an end. In such scenarios, the responsibility for implementing the strategy is often deferred to future executors, leaving critical aspects like operationalizing the strategy and long-term planning for key functions outside the scope of current strategic development efforts.
This approach significantly diminishes the chances of successful strategy execution. A well-crafted strategy, on the other hand, increases the likelihood of its implementation. In this article, we will examine the key requirements essential for effective strategy development, ensuring the company’s growth strategy is executed with precision and alignment to its goals.
These insights are particularly valuable if your aim is to move beyond mere planning and achieve tangible results.
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Why Strategy Development is Essential for Business Growth
In your search for answers, you may have come across articles discussing strategy development (see additional reading at the end of the article). While some sources may appear authoritative, they often contain inaccuracies. Let’s clarify what makes a strong business development strategy.
A good strategy is one that enjoys support across all levels of the organization—from the CEO and owners to frontline employees. This support stems from a shared understanding of the strategic plan and the approaches to its implementation. Clarity and acceptance begin with clear, well-articulated information in the plan.
However, if a strategy is developed without considering the internal context of the organization—for example, by external consultants or a specialized strategic planning unit without involving other departments—it is likely to face resistance. To create a truly actionable and understandable document, such as a business development strategy (a system of hypotheses, goals, tasks, and implementation methods), it’s not enough to simply package the results of strategic analysis into a visually appealing format.
The development of a strategy must meet specific requirements. These requirements go beyond the traditional goal-based management systems and must also account for the unique challenges of managing large-scale, long-term organizational and business ecosystem changes. By addressing these factors, a strategy becomes not just a document, but a roadmap for sustainable growth and success.
Which Companies Must Prioritize Strategy Development Requirements?
If a company’s growth strategy does not involve organizational change but focuses on entering a new geographic market (scaling an existing business model), it might create a false impression that internal change management requirements can be overlooked. However, this is a mistake: any organization will inevitably need to adapt and evolve. Failing to account for the adaptation of the management system and all company systems to the new strategy during its development opens the door to numerous risks. These risks are, in fact, the primary cause of most strategic failures.
When it comes to significant business transformations, structural changes, business model modifications, or other fundamental shifts in how an organization operates, the strategy must consider as many success factors as possible. In such cases, strategy development should be a multi-stage, iterative process.
Our platform offers several programs dedicated to these topics, including a comprehensive program on company strategy development, the details of which you can find below.
Developing a Business Strategy via Microsessions: Course for Individuals and Teams
To become a professional in strategy development and implementation, it is essential to invest time in studying the latest scientifically grounded approaches and practicing their application. We aim to simplify this process for our readers by sharing some practical tips. Despite their simplicity, these tips are crucial for achieving strategic goals.
Tip 1: Crafting a Strategy Development Plan – Start with Preparation
Developing a robust strategy is a complex process that involves numerous stakeholders within and outside the company. Rushing into strategy development without proper preparation can lead to subpar or even ineffective results. Preparation is key and should include familiarizing yourself with well-thought-out and systematic methods for strategy formulation. Below, we outline a fundamental approach to applying one such method.
Before diving into strategy development, it’s crucial to address the following questions in detail:
- What should the end result of this effort look like?
- Which strategic analysis and planning methods should be applied?
- What specific external and internal factors need to be analyzed?
- What formats for individual sections of the plan will be most clear and useful for the team?
- What sections should the strategic plan consist of?
- How detailed should each section of the strategic plan be?
- Who will be responsible for developing each section of the strategic plan?
If this kind of organizational work is done only once every ten years, its impact will be minimal. The skills, knowledge, and process frameworks essential for effective management will quickly dissolve into day-to-day operations and, in effect, vanish. This work must be conducted regularly, such as every few months or even more frequently, as part of a strategic management system.
Strategy development should never be treated as a one-off project or a temporary initiative. Otherwise, your company will never achieve strategic focus. A state of strategic focus is only attainable through the implementation of a strategic management system.
Planning for strategy development is not just a set of good intentions; it’s a way to provide the working team with a clear understanding of how to achieve results and create a high-quality strategy. This is the first step toward effective implementation.
In today’s environment, where strategic planning and management competencies are often lacking, developing a company strategy can easily turn into another management misadventure. This can be easily corrected by preparing thoroughly and equipping yourself with proven strategic management methods and effective ways to apply them.
In the presentation below, you can explore our core approaches to improving the quality of strategic management.
Tip 2: Develop a Roadmap for Implementing Your Strategy
Creating a strategic plan is just the beginning—it’s a small effort compared to the work required to bring it to life. The real challenge begins after the plan is developed. This is where most difficulties arise, and the statistics are sobering: only 10% of companies manage to implement at least two-thirds of their strategies. Meanwhile, 36% achieve only 50%-67% of their goals, and a staggering 54% fail to reach even half of their objectives.
The root cause of this disappointing performance often lies in the disconnect between strategic and operational management. Bridging this gap is crucial, as it allows companies to break down strategic goals into thousands—or even millions—of actionable steps for employees. After all, it’s through their efforts that ambitious strategies are brought to life.
In our strategy development workshop, we delve deeply into the methods and tools for effectively implementing growth strategies at both the company and departmental levels. However, many potential issues can be avoided during the strategic planning phase itself. So, what can you do to improve your chances of success? Here are three key steps to turn bold, ambitious strategies into actionable and effective implementation (also see next tips):
- Align Strategic and Operational Management: Ensure that your strategic goals are clearly translated into operational tasks and processes.
- Engage Employees at All Levels: Foster a culture where every team member understands their role in achieving the company’s strategic objectives.
- Monitor Progress and Adapt: Establish clear metrics and feedback loops to track progress and make adjustments as needed.
By focusing on these areas, you can significantly increase the likelihood of successfully executing your strategic plan.
Tip 3: Strategy Cascading – A Comprehensive Approach to Long-Term Planning
Cascading strategy is not just about breaking down strategic goals into smaller tasks; it’s a full-fledged, long-term planning process that spans all levels of an organization, including individual functions. This stage gives rise to what are known as functional strategies and other long-term plans. These strategies and plans focus on how the various components of the company must evolve to effectively implement the overall corporate development strategy.
During the cascading process, strategies such as business unit strategies, functional strategies for marketing, sales, and other critical functions and departments are created. These strategies are sometimes referred to as infrastructure strategies, as they are designed to support and align with corporate and business-level strategies.
For example, a functional strategy might outline how the marketing department will adapt its approach to align with the company’s broader growth objectives, ensuring that every part of the organization is working cohesively toward the same long-term vision. This holistic approach ensures that strategic goals are not only understood but also actionable and integrated across all levels of the organization.
Tip 4: Aligning Strategies for Effective Execution
During the cascading of strategies, another critical process takes place: the synchronization of strategies. This process involves aligning the strategies of formally independent departments or business units. No matter how autonomous these units may be, their plans must be synchronized across all parameters. Misalignment in these areas can hinder the effective implementation of the company’s overall development strategy.
As you can imagine, this approach to planning ensures that the strategic plan is far from being a superficial document created in the quiet offices of top managers or consultants. Instead, it fosters an active, two-way exchange of information and ideas across all levels of the organization. This dynamic process of aligning goals and objectives helps uncover gaps in the initial strategic plan that may not have been visible from the top.
Such an approach requires a certain level of trust in the team, supported by robust methodologies and reporting systems. Trust is built when management is confident in their own expertise and the capabilities of their employees. To enhance skills in strategic management, it’s essential to focus on solving real, current organizational challenges and implementing the latest management systems, rather than relying on outdated or hypothetical examples.
This is precisely what our strategy development workshops and strategic management implementation programs aim to achieve. For a comprehensive and systematic approach, we offer a year-long strategic management program designed to equip managers with the tools and insights needed to drive success.
Tip 5: Account for All Types of Resources Required to Execute Your Strategy
According to our Strategy Navigator Matrix—an advanced classification of strategic management methods and tools—resource management plays a critical role in increasing the likelihood of successful strategy execution. Among these resources, various forms of capital are essential for any company. However, it’s not just tangible assets that matter; intangible resources are equally, if not more, important.
While effective managers have learned to quantify financial resources, they often fail to align strategic projects with the actual capabilities of their teams. They overlook the subtle yet critical factors—soft skills, organizational culture, and intellectual capital—that are frequently decisive in achieving long-term goals. Numerous industries provide vivid examples of failures caused by such incomplete resource management. Despite significant increases in funding for certain projects, some companies still struggle to meet customer demands, regardless of the budget allocated. This is often due to the loss or inability to replicate key competencies required for developing specific technologies or solutions.
To address this, I strongly recommend broadening the scope of your planning framework. Include not only key material and financial resources but also intellectual and intangible assets. A valuable tool for managing such resources is our Strategy Navigator, which offers a structured classification of strategic methods. You can find a detailed list of these resources in the second-to-last row of the system’s table.
Enhancing your strategic plan by expanding the range of planned resources will significantly raise the bar for the quality of both long-term and operational planning. It will also demand greater attention to the details of strategic initiatives, ensuring a more comprehensive and realistic approach to achieving your goals.
Tip 6: The Power of Two-Way Communication in Strategy Development and Execution
Effective internal communication, which we refer to as strategic dialogue, plays a critical role in the successful implementation of a company’s strategy. This is not just a buzzword but a scientific concept that enables a multi-factor analysis of the state of strategic management within an organization. If you took the management system test at the beginning of this article, you’ve already touched on the importance of strategic dialogue within your company. A more detailed analysis can be conducted through a specialized strategy management system audit, which you can perform independently to assess your company’s strategic management system.
Feedback is another essential element in the strategy execution process. In our approach, the strategic management framework includes three types of feedback mechanisms:
- Resource Adjustment for Specific Strategic Initiatives
This type of feedback focuses on reallocating resources to support a particular strategic initiative. Here, we assume the strategy itself is sound, but the efforts to implement it are misaligned. For example, if a strategic project is delayed, additional resources can be allocated to get it back on track.
- Strategy and Initiative Adjustment
The second type of feedback involves revising the strategy or the set of initiatives designed to achieve it. In this case, the strategic goals and hypotheses about future developments remain valid, but the methods for achieving them need refinement. For instance, you might close one project aimed at a specific goal and launch another with a different approach to achieve the same objective.
- Vision and Goal Realignment
The third type of feedback requires a reevaluation of the company’s vision or strategic goals. This occurs when the underlying assumptions about the external environment—such as global, national, economic, industry, regional, or company-specific factors—prove to be inaccurate. In such cases, the entire strategy may need to be revisited, starting with a reassessment of the initial hypotheses. This could lead to a complete overhaul of the vision, strategic goals, and the methods for achieving them.
By incorporating these feedback mechanisms into your strategic management process, you can ensure that your strategy remains dynamic, adaptable, and aligned with both internal capabilities and external realities. This approach not only enhances the effectiveness of your strategy but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement and strategic agility within your organization.
Tip 7: Incorporate Cultural Considerations into Your Strategy Development and Execution Process
In today’s economy, simply crafting a strategy and shouting, Let’s go, team! is no longer enough. Sure, you can do that, but achieving ambitious results is unlikely without considering the broader context. Modern challenges are rarely solved by resource allocation alone—if they ever were. Success often hinges on soft factors, and one of the most critical among them is organizational culture.
Every industry has its unique dynamics for internal collaboration, and every company carries its own cultural identity. According to our research, a key quality of successful organizations today is their ability to adapt quickly to shifting external conditions. A company’s corporate culture must actively support this adaptability. Resistance to change among employees, for example, can become a significant roadblock to executing strategic plans.
To ensure long-term competitiveness and economic prosperity, companies must focus on daily development, fostering effective business behaviors, and aligning employees with organizational goals and results. Without this focus, internal challenges can drain energy and derail strategic initiatives.
In the modern business environment, teams cannot effectively tackle large-scale challenges without a shared vision and internal consensus. When an entire company aligns around its development strategy, it gains a significant competitive edge. This alignment enables faster identification of new market opportunities, more efficient resource utilization, and, in certain cases, the ability to exploit competitors’ weaknesses.
By prioritizing cultural alignment and adaptability, companies can not only execute their strategies more effectively but also build a foundation for sustained growth and innovation.
Concluding Insights: How Strategy Development Empower Companies in Dynamic Environments
In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, marked by market volatility and intensifying local competition, companies face the critical challenge of enhancing their competitiveness. Success in such conditions is not achieved through one or two isolated decisions but through the continuous flow and effective implementation of innovative ideas. Competition has shifted from merely offering products or services to the ability to consistently improve them in line with market demands.
The synergy of a company’s strengths does not happen by chance; it is the result of deliberate efforts to build unique capabilities across the entire value chain. This process is typically managed within a strategic management system. The quality of this system determines the efficiency and focus of a company’s operations, with a well-crafted development strategy being the logical outcome of its effective functioning.
Reach out to us to explore how implementing a strategic management system can significantly enhance the quality of your decision-making and drive sustainable success.
Explore Further: Additional Reading on Strategy Development
Here is a curated list of science sources on the topic of Strategy Development, based on credible academic and research-oriented platforms. These sources are ideal for further exploration of the subject:
Strategy Development – Science Topic
This resource provides in-depth information on business strategy development protocols, troubleshooting guides, and methodologies. It also allows you to connect with experts in the field for further insights.The Strategic Development Process (PDF)
A comprehensive paper available on ResearchGate that defines the strategic development process and explores the management processes that inform, shape, and support strategic decisions.Strategy Development Toolkit (PDF)
This source outlines popular models and frameworks for strategic planning, including tools for planning, management, and tracking progress.Strategic Approaches to Science and Technology (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series)
This working paper series disseminates findings on strategic approaches to science and technology, encouraging the exchange of ideas about development issues.
