B2B - Strategy Tools - Part 2

Strategy on-line: About this blog

This blog will focus on discussing strategy formulation and implementation.

Strategy is the choice of ways to best achieve long term goals and fulfil the vision of the company.

Goals and vision can be reached and fulfilled and new ones set, but they are always within the overall values and mission of the company.

In their remarkable book:” Built to last”, Collins & Porras give a very good definition of values, mission (purpose), vision and long term goals (big hairy audacious goals). With some modifications this is what they say:

Values: The organisation’s essential and enduring principles – a small set of general guiding principles; not to be confused with specific cultural or operating practices; not to be compromised for financial or short-term expediency.

Mission (purpose): The organization’s fundamental reasons for existence beyond just making money – a perpetual guiding star on the horizon; not to be confused with specific goals or business strategies.

Vision (vivid description): A vibrant, engaging and specific description of what it will be like to achieve the company’s long term goals. Think of …… creating an image that people can carry around in their heads. On the one hand, it conveys a senses of concreteness- something vivid and real; you can sees it, touch it, feel it. On the other hand, it portrays a time yet unrealised – a dream, hope, or aspiration

Long term goals (Big Hairy Audacious Goals): Applies to the entire company and requires (several business cycles) of effort to complete. It requires thinking beyond the current capabilities of the company and current business trends, forces and conditions.

www.images.ksc.nasa.gov

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal by the end of this decade… of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth..”

President John F. Kennedy in Speech to U.S. Congress May 25, 1961

The Values, Mission, Vision and Goals guiding this blog are:

Values: Knowledge is the only resource that increases in value with use and sharing.

Mission: To provide and exchange knowledge and practical tools that create high value for companies working in the businesses-to-business segment by continuously organizing, structuring and improving their business strategy formulation and execution processes.

Vision: A global network of business professionals that contribute to and share a common strategy formulation and execution process platform based on which they develop and grow into innovative, focused and profitable businesses.

Long Term Goal: By 2010 to have established a network of 100 business professionals from at least 5 continents. A network professional contributes at least once per month with content to “Strategyonline.blogspot.com “.

Goals: By May 1^st 2008 to have established “Strategyonline.blogspot.com” as a strategy portal with at least 1000 visits per day

PETER SØRENSEN