Challenges for Strategy Planning in 2015

Corporations buffaloed over increasing business challenges to performing and survive in this fragile economy. Modest recovery been measured but to survive and thrive is tough for many companies. As corporate strategy is a vision for businesses future state and senior management who is responsible for setting the tone for the future direction are unclear what strategy to choose.

A business strategic direction commonly consists of the theme or a program that is either concerned with a change, improvement or both. Increases in productivity, market share, more shareholder value, etc. And the change is spending culture, customer services, operation or new product developments, etc. The list goes on and on. All these programs provide the foundation for resource planning and deployment. Business process owners work according to the strategic direction and further assign and design tasks to achieve business goals.

Now let's see few challenges for 2015 that businesses are concerned for;

·         Low oil prices challenge in planning operational budgets

o   Can finance team prepare budget projections with low oil prices?

o   Savings from these low oil prices can be passed to discount sale prices?

o   What about alternate energy sources that the company uses; they cost more than crude now or will require higher; what to do what that now?

·         Right; company reserve funds and portfolios have been devalued due to low exchange rates

o   Should reserves accounts receive cheaper oil savings

o   Is this a is an ongoing issue and need a policy adjustment to find ways to build a reserve  

o   Currency exchange rates are affecting production costs how to manage that

·         Cheap Oil prices mean inflation; how is this affecting our company?

o   Consumers are changing and buying same products or now can afford competitors higher priced goods and services. What strategy we need for that

o   Loyal Consumers are expectations for lower sale price due to low oil prices; can we do that?

These challenges are just few that an outsider can think. This year has triggered many more challenges to many industries. It could be a true statement that many challenges have not been dealt in decades by many sectors.

Here is how best these challenges can be dealt, and a strategy can build for long term sustainability.

Dig deeper and understand facts from the core of operations before identifying challenges

Forecaster conservatively and carefully assesses future trends

Establish strong communication and reporting culture to highlight and share business information; through tracking reports, KPI, process maps, and scorecards.

As external factors effecting strategy planning cannot be controlled management focuses on internal factors and business process contributors. These Strategic challenges can be handled by leveraging an approach that can provide 360 degree view of business processes. Balanced scorecard approach is very best in doing that work very much as strategic management tool that provides tremendous resources in strategy planning and execution. You can read more about balanced scorecard planning process here; http://www.thebalancedscorecards.com/balanced-scorecard-strategic-planning-process/

IF your are interested more in Balanced Scorecard Model and strategy development approach here is an excellent book for http://goo.gl/1ObE6X

Strategy Management Challenges in Financial Services Industry

As analysts are predicting that gravy train for Financial Services industry is now gone, and financial institutes will find 2015 very challenging. The start of 2015 has already impacted world economy and plunging crude prices creating nightmares for policy makers.

Economic disruption, uncertainty in the investment sector and plummeting GDP growth pose many challenges that require conservative strategic approach. Warning signs are everywhere for the banks, financial institutions regarding low returns, credit losses and negative growth in some sectors. What does this mean for bank stakeholders and policy makers?  And what actions can reduce the negative impact of these uncontrollable external factors?

Here are few suggestions; 

• Be realistic in strategy formulation and consideration of all uncontrollable factors
• Secure resource management and tight budgeting for business processes
•  Listen closely to the company results and signs of trouble
• Implement scorecard and introduce high reporting culture
• Use Balanced Scorecard techniques for the financial perspective and other non-financial business contributors
• Plan for sustainability first and then explores growth opportunities
• Use strategy Maps from using balanced scorecard approach which will provide you a systematic framework to implement and execute strategy to deal with these challenges

Good practices for strategy implementation

• Engage employees as much as possible for the implementation phase and ensure they understand the strategy and challenges of the financial industry
• Define expectations and set target results
• Keep your employees motivate and optimistic for the future and don’t let bad news get their moral down  
• Use balanced scorecards techniques to develop reports, data and action plans for internal business processes
• Review and refine as much as possible during and after implementation phase

Here is an excellent blog about balanced scorecard approach http://www.thebalancedscorecards.com/. It explains in details about the strategy management and planning using a balanced scorecard as strategy management tool.

I am convinced that world banks are optimistic and focused in developing a coherent and collective strategy to deal with the financial industry challenges.