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Strategic Planning – vital for any business

 pretty-glamorousSee on Scoop.itDesigning design thinking driven operations

Strategic planning is a vital undertaking for any organization. Most successful organizations have a comprehensive method of strategic planning that is revised periodically.

The interval between planning sessions has diminished over the past few years. The interval used to be about five years. These days, it’s closer to 2 years in many organizations. As a rule, the more the organization is impacted by technological developments, the shorter the interval. These days, with the global and national economic system as uncertain as it is, strategic planning is more difficult, but more important, than ever.

Plans do not always succeed in their execution. There are a variety of reasons for this, but most fall into the following categories:

1. Lack of motivation and personal ownership

2. Poor communication

3. Idea behind the plan is too vague

4. Passive management

5. No/poor Leadership

For a plan to succeed, there needs to be a connection with the real world, not just an idealized vision. The real world includes (among others) items such as:

~ Technology

~ Customer expectations

~ Employees

~ Resources

~ Local and national Economy

~ Demographics

Fred Zimny‘s insight:

And your business is also professional and personal goals

See on workforcesolutions.stlcc.edu

 

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Strategy or Execution: Which Is More Important?

Found at Strategy or Execution: Which Is More Important?.

Many business leaders think they’d rather have great execution than superior strategies, but you can’t have the first without the second.

Read all at Strategy or Execution: Which Is More Important?.

My point of view: strategy first, execution second (with very little distance between these 2 concepts).

spoony:“Approaches to the History of Art”, Edie Campbell photographed by Aladair McLellan in 032C Fall 2012

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serve4impact’s best read items of this week

Baskin Dim Bulb branding advertising social media business strategy: The Digital Shakedown

Highly popular paper: Design methods for developing services

Recommended exhibition: The Subversion of Images Surrealism, Photography, and Film @Winterthur

Infographic The Rise of Walking and Biking

Rethinking the Marketing Funnel in a World of Social Media | David Rogers Blog22

Schumpeter: The magic of good service | The Economist

5 Ideas That Are Changing the World: The Case For Optimism! #outofthemiseryindex

The ROI of User Experience with Dr. Susan Weinschenk

A nice mix of this blog’s classics (and my roots) and the posts of this last week.

Hope you enjoy them!

So sentiment by *Snowfall-lullaby on deviantART

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The rise and ohoh rise of the collaborative organization

The core

This is a nuts-and-bolts guide.

Jacob Morgan provides the information, insights and a strategic framework you need to use emergent   collaborative software behind your company‘s firewall to solve business problems, unearth new opportunies   and to drive innovation.

This book is about enterprise 2.0. As defined as the use of emergent social software platforms by business in  pursuit of their goals regardless of whether it is inside or outside the firewall.

Jacob Morgan is the principal and co-founder of Chess Media Group, a management consulting and strategic advisory firm on collaboration. He is the author of his new book “The Collaborative Organization,” the first strategic guide for executives and decision makers seeking to deploy emerging technologies and strategies in the workplace (published by McGraw Hill, due out June 2012).

My rating

4,5 stars on a scale 0-5.

In an earlier post I wrote about the inertia of some managers for investing in knowledge management.

 In that post I made a reference to Kaplan and Norton’s Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible assets into tangible outcomes.

Jacob includes one – at least for me – essential part of it:

None of these intangible assets has value that can be measured seperately or independently.
The value of these intangible assets derives from their ability to help the organization implement its strategy…..

Intangible assets such as knowledge and technology seldom have a direct impact on financial outcome such as increased revenues, lowered costs and higher profits, Improvements in tangible assets affect financial outcomes through chains of cause-and-effect relationships.

Jacob and I agree completely with that statement.

The author claims that one can use the book as a guide for a one’s collaborative journey. One should utilize everything you can in this chapter and in the book, adapt it, change it and make it your own. Regular readers may see a similar approach as of my blog serve4impact: context, connect, construct and compact changes. But be cautious: the book has a technology focus. To really start your collaborative journey I would like to recommend Morton Hansen book on Collaboration and Andrew McAfee’s Enterprise 2.0.

 I refer buying this book to anyone who is working in a knowledge intensive industry. As a   manager or profesional. It is not limited to leaders for creating , implementing and adapting a strategy. Buy the book and do not read all of it. Check out your action points and start reading. As stated before, there is even more food of thougth (such as this fine reading list).

One flaw of the approach is that the approach of collaboration is limited at the enterprise level. Be aware of that.

But to mitigate that flaw, I will include some fine decks. Not for reading, but for creating action.

 

 

 

Decks and further reading

Senior executives are skeptical of the value of social software.

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Retail branding in financial services by Marcin Chlodnicki

The best place to be is in the middle of a good book - Unknown (by Julianna Collett Photography)

From the author

Cases and know-how for financial services, mainly. Major part was taken from KSDP Design – I think it doesn’t exist any more, however it was one of the first service design companies. Those days it was called strategic brand consulting, hollistic approach and inclusive branding. Thank you KSDP for your works

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The social side of strategy – McKinsey Quarterly – Strategy – Strategy in Practice

Glamgerous - Fashion Blogger: Polka Fever

Crowdsourcing your strategy may sound crazy. But a few pioneering companies are starting to do just that, boosting organizational alignment in the process. Should you join them? A McKinsey Quarterly Strategy article.

See on www.mckinseyquarterly.com

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Dear [insert Business Name], What’s Your Promise?

Geschwisterliebe

Not only functional but also emotional. And not only business but also as a professional or as a person.

See on Scoop.itDesigning design thinking driven operations

“You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words.

You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people.”

If we are to truly change, we must find purpose. We must uncover the essence of our business and the value it delivers to traditional and connected consumers. We must rethink the spirit of today’s embrace and clearly articulate how transformation is going to improve customer and employee experiences and relationships now and over time.

What’s Your Promise? Your promise to me as your consumer, stakeholder, and partner.

 

An Inspirational Post by Brian Solishttp://bit.ly/w1AGy8 , Read Entire Article Here:  http://bit.ly/LxjGnM

See on www.briansolis.com

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