Strategic Opportunity Index…On The Rise

By Lindsay Resnick, April 18, 2011

“Strategic planning is worthless, unless there is first a strategic vision.” (J. Naisbitt)

In healthcare and insurance, like many other industries navigating today’s economic and political woes, the future belongs to those best able to manage in markets characterized by intense competitive rivalry, continuous regulatory disruption, and information empowered consumers.

Developing a well-honed strategic vision works to anticipate change, focus on competitive threats, and assess long-term business implications. To be effective, it’s essential that your vision draws on sophisticated customer insight. The goal is to take an organization where it needs to be by creating a roadmap on how to get there.

At its core, a sustainable strategic vision is built around an effort that allows management to look deep within the organization, ask & answer tough questions, and make informed decisions about strategic options. The following questions provide a strategy “stress test” to help refine your planning process starting at the intersection of three key business drivers: competitors, customers and company.

1. How are you different from competitors…comparative market advantages/disadvantages?
2. Are you leveraging a sustainable Dominant Selling Idea that delivers customer value?
3. How are you selecting new markets, products and services?
4. Who are your top five competitors and why do you beat them…why do you lose?
5. Have you developed proprietary insights and translated them into actionable strategy?
6. Are you ahead of competitive trends and industry best practices?
7. Where’s the customer in the marketing mix…product, price, promotion, and place?
8. Have you identified and/or neutralized uncertainty in the decision process?
9. Is there cross-management buy-in and commitment to addressing the future?
10. Are you managing institutional bias to facilitate diversification and innovation?
11. Is there a willingness to invest in execution…talent, capital, operations and distribution?
12. Is strategy translated into an action plan…scenario planning, timing and accountability?

Smart companies are raising their “opportunity index” by thinking about their business in ways that look very different from today’s enterprise. They are embracing a strategic planning process that openly challenges leadership across the organization in order to pinpoint future direction—make data-driven decisions, embrace customer centric thinking, adjust business assumptions, and act with deliberate speed. After all, strategic vision represents the futurity of today’s decisions.