discussion

What did you find to be compelling and enlightening? What advice on strategic planning could you give me?

“A strategic plan is a roadmap to grow your business” (Lavinsky, 2013, p. 1).  There are many different versions or models of how to make your strategic plan.  Lavinsky, 2013 lists thirteen key things that you should have in your plan from an executive summary to financial projections.  Another article describes strategic planning as involving activities such as goal setting, target developing and creating performance indicators, and giving out resources (Spee & Jarzabkowski, 2011).  

There are multiple models when it comes to strategic planning such as balanced scorecard, SWOT analysis, and gap planning (Smith, 2017).  The one that seemed the most intriguing is Porter’s Five Forces which was created by Michael Porter in 1979.  Smith, 2017 describes it as looking at five forces which are the threat of entry of other companies into the marketplace and how easily that can happen.  The second is the threat of substitute products or services which means can the consumer replace your product with something else cheaper or easier.  The third is the bargaining power of customers which looks at the customer and do they have the power to cause you to lower cost or change things by putting pressure on you.  The fourth is the bargaining power of the suppliers which is the same as three but by the suppliers.  Last is the competitive rivalry among existing firms which looks at how ready your competitors are for major growth. 

When looking at the elements of the strategic plan for Chambers, he covered a lot of aspects to include who would lead, the makeup of the team, the evolution of the industry, the culture, shareholders and investors, and where it would be headquartered (Singh & Useem, 2016).  When comparing it to the model of Porter’s Five Forces, Chambers covered all five of these as well as many others.  It appeared to be more of a combination of several models that were used which makeup the strategic leader’s checklist as outlined by Singh & Useem, 2016.