THE FIVE PATHS OF BUSINESS STRATEGY

SANAT’S CDNAI STRATEGY MAP

I have been involved in business planning in many industries in many sectors and worked with experts and authorities in their fields for almost the past 2 decades. I have realized that business planning is the most important yet the most neglected activity in the business. It is course complex, but not complicated. We complicate it by being nervous about it, focussing more on processes and tools, and being bugged by data junk. Business planning should start with a long breath and an open mind and without any paper, pen, presentation, or crowd. Everyone should sketch a business plan in their mind and then discuss it in larger groups and finalize the smartest one.?

Business planning should start with a long breath and an open mind and without any paper, pen, presentation, or crowd.

I have developed this ‘CDNAI bySanat’ approach to business planning which I am sharing with you now. I am sure it will kill your fear of business planning and make your business endeavors more effective. My best wishes.?

Begin with the?soul search of your business…        

Business is a living thing. It has all features that a living being has. The business has a soul too! It is something that isn’t seen, that can’t be measured, but is driving it just like how our soul drives our life. We need to hence, first understand the soul of business. The soul of business is a collection of your core values which compose ‘ what do you want to achieve from this business?’

The common ingredients of this soul are money, wealth, fame, happiness, self-happiness, the happiness of others, etc

The soul of business is the thick link between you ( and your interests) and your business. The common ingredients of this soul are money, wealth, fame, happiness, self-happiness, the happiness of others, etc We mostly need all these from our business but we need to prioritize the most important of the above attributes that we want to achieve. This composes the soul of your business. Till you have understood the soul of your business, you are like that confused I-need-everything kid outside the toyshop.?

Next,?locate the pulse?of your business        

Like your heart, the center of your business also needs to beat seconds by seconds to keep the soul of the business attached to your business. This pulse pumps the purpose of your business to the entire ecosystem of your business. The purpose of your business is not what you want, it is what will you do to keep being connected with your soul of the business. This pulse is the apparatus that supplies you with your achievements. This purpose must explain what realized and unreleased problems are you going to solve for the people of your target segment.

The most common problem solutions are food, accommodation, transportation, health, relation, convenience, happiness, self-image, unimagined solution, and more.

The most common problem solutions are food, accommodation, transportation, health, relation, convenience, happiness, self-image, unimagined solution, and more. Your purpose is not to cater to these solutions, your purpose is to cater to these solutions in a way that nobody else can provide. Cater to these solutions uniquely and achieve the soul of your business. Or just find an excellent answer to the question “ why the hell should they buy your product or service from you”?

Now the business of the business- THE STRATEGY        

Strategy is the rule of winning. Strategy is not experts’ property. Strategy is the product of the founder, key stakeholders, and the people who actually operate the business. Strategy is about ‘ being in the shoes’ of the business and walking the business. Strategy is not merely an outcome of data analysis. Rather, it originates from the bed of problems, its solution, an insight into the future, intuition, and innovation to always stay ahead of the competition. Strategy is your approach, tools, methods, and resources for winning this continuous battle of business. Strategy is your game plan preserved with courage and smartness.?

The key enemies a strategy combats are customer expectations, competition strengths, indefinite future, and many external variables that impact your business like macroeconomics, law, technological pace, global mobility and access, etc

If you look at your life, you are alive because your strategies in life were good. So, do the same for your business. Just focus on how to win. The key enemies a strategy combats are customer expectations, competition strengths, indefinite future, and many external variables that impact your business like macroeconomics, law, technological pace, global mobility and access, etc Take it easy and craft the strategies with a free mind. Don’t write- keep adding, stirring, whipping, and beating (?manthan) vivid thoughts and ideas in your mind and strategies will float like how the butter granules afloat from the stirring of milk. Now strain those strategies and evaluate them.?

THE FIVE-PATHS STRATEGY MAP        

Strategies are action-based, hence their paths should be clear verbs, hence these paths below. In a continuing business, these 5 paths of strategies make the strategy formulation process convenient and make the winning more probable. As strategies always push the call-to-action, these 5 complete action-based paths de-complicate the strategy process. Till a strategy hints at a doable and clear action, it’s not a strategy. A strategy must give you a clear direction, confidence thus courage, and clear milestones of success to measure effectiveness. Let’s discuss the 5 paths of strategy one by one.?

1. CONTINUE?

Your business is alive means the majority of the things ( business DNAs, brand, recipe, source, suppliers, employees, offers, solutions, growth model, competencies, core values, trusts & beliefs, etc), in your business, are going right. Many people tend to disturb the business in the name of change. Not everything needs to change. Innovation always grows existing > disruption should be a destruction of what’s going right. A smart strategist first focuses on the available equity built in the past many years and builds them better. There are many chances (but not always), that what worked for you in the past will definitely work for you in the future.

Your business is alive means the majority of the things in your business, are going right.

As a strategist, start listing what all worked for you, and don’t follow them blindly. Defragment them to update and upgrade but without disturbing the core. Continuation of the right is a low-risk-high return strategy path

2. DISCONTINUE

Now it’s the turn of the minority things of your business (new projects, changes (undoing), long idle assets, trusts and beliefs, expensive competencies, etc) that didn’t go right. It is now about root cause analysis as to why didn’t they go right! Unless they went wrong because of your incapability which doesn’t exist anymore, they must be discontinued.

Don’t fall in love with the perils of your business. Cherish departures and let them go.

Cleansing of business is the discontinuation of the ‘stress’ built into the system. While in the name of persistence, we sometimes grow this ‘ professional ego’ of making them successful anyhow! Now that eats up your productive time and the result is not worth the time, effort, and opportunity cost. Don’t fall in love with the perils of your business. Cherish departures and let them go. Ensure. A good transition, however. Discontinuation is a painful reality of business that unleashes business from unworthy strings.?

3. NEGOTIATE?

Negotiation can and should always be a well-walked path of strategy. If any doubts about the continuation or discontinuation of any components of a business ( projects, products, profits, deals, continuation, discontinuation) give them some time and pass them through the negotiation path. Negotiation is a strategy path that always brings you surprising returns.

Negotiating is unbelieving what you believe or want to believe and believing what is desirable to believe.

More than any art, negotiation is a daring that not all have the guts to pursue as it requires you to come out of perceptions, act boldly on a new perception, and then play the game. Negotiating is unbelieving what you believe or what to believe and believing what is desirable to believe. Negotiation is a consciously and smartly practiced stubbornness that molds your business components into the shape and size you needed. Exercise negotiation fully in continuation as well as the discontinuation of anything. Negotiation is the tool you attack your business perils from close. Negotiation makes you ever-competitive.

4. ACQUIRE

Something is always missing in your business ( competency, resource, system, component, connect, fuel, culture, etc). It is this incompleteness of the business that drives you and your competitors. Now to complete, a part of you ( business development or research and development) must always spread tentacles into the open global market based on priority to grab what valuable is available? Create a strong need internally, a wishlist of what will make your business No.1, and place baits in your business arena to acquire them.

Be present in the jungle of the market and keep the hunt active on opportunities and capabilities.?

Like how a living organism always looks for food, an alive business, like an electron, is always on the hunt of acquiring something extraordinary. The acquisition should however be value for money attractive, well negotiated, and consciously ( than intuitively) done. Smart acquisition of the now-needed keeps you alive and later-needed keeps you ahead. Without the right acquisition strategies, you won’t be a leader. Be present in the jungle of the market and keep the hunt active on opportunities and capabilities.?

5. IMMUNIZE?

Business not only bears problems that can be discontinued, but it also bears diseases. Delayed decision making, process fatigue, attrition of customers and employees, high turnaround time, low yield, high wastes, high switching time and cost, absenteeism, lack of ownership and accountability, slow response to competitor action, time and cost to respond to unplanned attacks of competitors, etc are common diseases. Lack of immunization creates crisis and sometimes huge losses including closures in part or even full. The best way to immunize your business from these diseases is by alerting the immunization protocol and vaccinating or giving antibiotics of culture signals, codes of conduct, rules and regulations followed by perks and punishments, and incentives and disincentives.

Without continuous immunization, your business is the coughing baby on the terrace wishfully watching the other kids play.

Without continuous immunization, your business is the coughing baby on the terrace wishfully watching other kids play. I have observed that we pay less attention to staying internally healthy in business and these immune issues largely impact discontinuation, acquisition, and acquisition paths of strategies depriving the business of proper oxygen and energy. Immunizing is a less prioritized strategy path but without a proper immunization, business is always vulnerable to competition and other market demons.?

These 5 paths are interdependent, hence business strategy map will be incomplete without holistic activities on all these. If you are a start-up or nonoperational a business, focus more on Acquire, Negotiate and Immunize and simulate Continue & Discontinue based on a similar institution or the nearest competitor of your age and area.?

9Ps: THE 10 MAJOR BATTLEFIELDS?        

The business operates on the market, the market operates on the industry, the industry operates on the economy, the economy operates on the global economy, and so on, which is why the business ecosystem doesn’t have a clear boundary on the scope or a specific tag on its components. Based on the nature of business, we define priority areas and scopes for business. Based on my learning during strategy-related work in various diverse sectors, the following is my recommendation on the common agendas or battlefields of business in the form of 9Ps, categorization done in view of strategy formulation & design:?

1. PRODUCT ( brand, total product- packaging, warranties, after-sale and value-added service, advertising & promotions, more…)?
2. PRICE ( Ex-Fty to MRP, discounts, consumer and trade schemes, incentives, more…)?
3. PROCUREMENT ( cost-chain, direct and indirect cost, collateral cost, i.e. cost levied by that cost or its saving, wise spending, total cost if needed mapped to secondary/tertiary suppliers and competitors, more…
4. PROCESS & TECHNOLOGY ( cost of ownership, yield %, downtime, contribution to total value, ROI, technology junk, ERP, software, hardware, meetings, business tools, certifications, patents, copyrights, best practices, business process, values chain, business model, more…)
5. PARTNERSHIPS & RELATIONS ( agreements, bindings, warranties and guarantees, advance payments, deposits, JV, investments, courtesies/PR cost of maintaining relations, ROP- return on partnerships- what if it was done alone?, philanthropy, more…
6. PEOPLE AFFAIRS ( performance & key indicators, competencies & cost of competencies, HR practices, training, perks and benefits, schemes, incentives, monitoring systems, attrition, people image, high-ticket employees & consultants, more…
7. PROPERTY ( land, buildings, rentals, vehicles, assets, goodwill, brands, cash reserves,?
8. PROJECTS ( Innovation, R&D, Problem Solution, New business development, Incubation, New product development, cost reduction, market share increment, ERP implementation, Golden Handshake, Liquidation, more…
9. PROTOCOLS ( risk management abilities, rules, regulations, policies, procedures, code of conducts, code of ethics, organization structure, chart of authority, SLAs, Memos, Notices, Minutes, Special directives, DOs & DONTs,?

SANAT'S CDNAI STARTEGY MAP        

Now enter into these 10 battlefields and run a continuous inquiry or attack of CDNAI on all the attributes clustered on these battlefields. These inquiry loops set the agenda and give you key winning strategies. Now you have many strategies. Don’t find all battles at once, so it is important to prioritize strategies based on cost-benefit and urgency-importance evaluations. Ensure all strategies are enveloped within your master strategy and thus lead to the WIN you wanted.??

Why SANAT’S CDNAI STRATEGY MAP

Being a part of numerous strategy workshops as a leader, facilitator, and participant, I have realized that strategies not understood and followed are intellectual junks. Ownership and application of a strategy are as important as the strategy itself. This SANAT’S CDNAI STRATEGY MAP?

1. gives holistic planning of the overall business
2. gives strategic thrusts on key business drivers
3. prescribes strategies followed by clear actions
4. simple and easy to understand?
5. suits all sizes and kinds of business
6. devices concurrent evaluation and planning

A BELIEF THAT WILL GIVE LIFE TO YOUR STRATEGIES          

Efforts are on your hands, not results. Keep your efforts vibrant, you will succeed. Results are not on your hand, so give a target on efforts. Don’t stress your business with targets on results, because the result is indefinite, while the efforts are definite. Track results but drive efforts. You will WIN!

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse: 47

Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana, Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani

You have the right to work only but never to its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.)

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