Do you really need to spend time exploring and developing your business strategy?

As a strategy person, I think it’s smart to do so.

But given organizations we run across who decide to put off developing business strategy because they're too busy, it's not the right time, or it seems unnecessary to invest in outside support to help ensure they are creating strategic impact, you might wonder whether developing strategy ISN'T that important.

Yet when we talk later with those organizations that put off strategy development, it's not as if there weren’t issues that surfaced. Sometimes there are a lot of issues; sometimes, there are fewer issues.

Cat-or-get-off-the-pot Cat or Get Off the Pot

10 Downsides of Ignoring Developing Your Business Strategy

Here's a sampling of the issues that frequently materialize when you delay developing strategy:

  1. Doing something multiple times because it didn't work the first time.
  2. Wasting resources because of starting down certain paths and then having to back track.
  3. Boxing your brand in because of ignoring or precluding strategic options.
  4. You miss more attractive business growth opportunities you didn't take the time to consider.
  5. You don't move forward with anything because you don't have the facts in place to make a business case for change.
  6. Everyone continues to bemoan perennial business issues you don’t ever effectively figure out how to address.
  7. What is implemented fails to fully match the expectations in place for its success.
  8. Other initiatives of lesser strategic importance and scope emerge to tie up the organization's time, attention, and resources.
  9. The organization keeps doing what it's always been doing until it crashes into a wall when what it's always been doing suddenly stops working.
  10. Your competitors advance feaster than your brand does so you wind up losing ground.

Don’t put off developing strategy or ignore the benefits of bringing a fresh perspective to exploring and planning your brand’s direction. Call or email us, today. We know how to move you through developing strategy in a hurry with a focus on successful implementation. You’ll be better off for it! – Mike Brown

 

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