Strategy, Vision and Action Steps

Question of the month: How are your vision and strategy related?

With the arrival of the new year, our articles covered strategy and vision. Successful leaders are adept at weaving strategy into their business. You do this by using your vision, your end-to-end process design and the action steps required to make it all happen.

You cannot have a strategy without a vision. Your vision is your target; it answers the question “how should we view the organization five to ten years from into the future?” The ‘we’ here includes everyone in the organization. Everyone must be able to see what the organization looks like in the future.

Read more about strategy and vision;

Your end-to-end process is comprised of four major areas: New Product Introduction, Inquiry to Order, Order to Remittance, and Customer Improvement. These four areas represent your company; how it satisfies your customers and makes money.

Read more about end-to-end process design;

After you use your end-to-end process to review your vision and strategy, you should begin to see a number of gaps between your future state and your current state. You will need an action plan to close these gaps and put your strategy to work.

Read more about end to action planning steps;

Once you have your strategy aligned with your vision, you should be in a position to create compelling new product/service offerings for your customers. You should be seeing success in multiple areas of your organization. If you notice opportunities for improvement, then that is great as well.

Answer to this month’s question:

Your strategy starts with a vision. Your vision should enable everyone in your organization to visualize what your organization looks like in five to ten years form now. Once you have that picture in place, you draw a strategy, a path if you will, to reach that target. For it to work, your strategy must align with your vision or else it will be like shooting in the dark.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments. Also, please let us know if you’d like any specific topic addressed in our future articles.

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Originally published in 2007 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title Strategy, Vision and Action Steps. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com