How to "Business Strategy Doc"

Hola Good People ??

It's been a while since I have written a piece of content anywhere, don't ignore my rusty writing skills but rather bear with it, Imma gonna get better :P This morning I woke up to a message from a friend asking for help to understand what goes in a company-wide business strategy document. Now, this seemed like a "me problem" from a couple of weeks back. I was also struggling to understand and trying to make sense of what the heck is Business Strategy Document. Like, I knew what we were trying to achieve, but translating that mental picture into a realistic roadmap? That's where things got a bit...foggy. Let's just say my mental strategy was about as accurate as a fortune cookie predicting the lottery.

A Business Strategy Document is a detailed guide that compels you to articulate your company's Vision and Mission in concrete terms, incorporating actionable steps and measurable KPIs instead of vague statements.

Make sense? Okay, Let's see. For example, a tech business is creating a business strategy. What do you think their Vision is? "Be the best technology company in the world" right? Heck yeah, All of'em start with this vision and then slowly they come to senses while populating the rest of the Business Strategy document :P (OpenAI/Google who ?!) So, now when you start writing your action items to achieve this goal in the next 2-4-8-10 years, you start realizing that your target is way too fuckin high :( So, you keep bringing it down until, your action plan justifies the target (like your New Year resolution, it keeps getting easier:P)

This is what a standard article or blog will tell you on the internet, and It's a great starting point tbh but I strongly feel your business strategy document will greatly depend on the objective for making a business document and the nature of your business. I didn't create a BS to brief anyone, but instead get clarity for myself on the "What", "How", "When" and "What ifs" of my strategy. It's an ongoing all-inclusive exercise that will take quite some time for you to be completely thorough with it. So make sure, you take enough time and don't just run through it, because this process will make you think in granularity and raise the right questions for you to find answers to. Enough of word porn, let's get started.

Let's get one thing straight – I'm no seasoned expert with a laundry list of years building businesses and running MNCs. This is just my take on Business Strategy; take it or leave it. ?? I won't dive into the nitty-gritty details of each section because, let's be real, the devil's in the details, and I'm here to keep it breezy.

Overview, Vision, Mission

Let's kick things off with the Overview of the Business Strategy Document – think of it as the blurb on the back cover. It gives you a snapshot of the company's core strategy, the document's objective, and a quick peek into key strategic initiatives. It's the preface of the book, giving you a taste of what's to come.

Next up, we dive into the Vision and Mission statements – and no, they're not two peas in the same pod. Check out this article for a refresher. These statements play a crucial role as we navigate through the rest of the document. As you start jotting down your current activities, and short-term and long-term goals, it all has to align with the Mission. And when you're sketching out the long-term roadmap, each step should eventually fall in line with the Vision statement. It's like building a puzzle – every piece needs to fit for the big picture to make sense.

Market Analysis

Now, here's where the plot thickens and you start to notice the difference from the run-of-the-mill strategies. I'm a firm believer in beefing up the document with market research data because, let's face it, understanding the trends in the market where your business plays is essential. It's like setting the stage for the main act.

If you're on board with this approach, feel free to skip ahead (I don't recommend this). However, if it resonates with you, add details about your market research findings. We're talking about estimations of market sizes, segment specifics, and the juicy trends that make your industry tick.

Now, here's the golden rule – don't go overboard here. We're not dumping the entire market research saga in this section. Instead, let's be smart about it and tuck the nitty-gritty details neatly into the appendix of this document. That way, it's there for the curious souls who want to dive deep, but it doesn't clutter up the main narrative.

Company Overview

• Company Overview and History - Write about your company and the significance of the history of the company. Values and ideology play a very vital role in justifying the decisions that you'll make later in the document.
• Product/Services - Provide comprehensive details about your business's Products/Services. Give as much information as possible, because if someone doesn't understand your offerings, how do you expect them to make sense of the rest of the document? Very importantly write down the tech specs of the offerings.
• SWOT analysis - This strength and weakness matrix becomes important to convey the important known parameters beforehand. More details could follow in the Risk and Contingency section. An interesting comment I got recently was to add a SWOT of the company as well as the Product to break down the assumptions and arguments in more detail.
• Current State of the Company - ?What does your company have to offer as of today and what is the business traction as of today? This becomes your starting point to construct a hypothesis to support your strategy. It's just to have, even if you don't have any traction. Writing this section in detail will keep your ambitions grounded.

Segmentation & Targeting

Now that we've woven the current state of the company into our narrative, let's dive into the bedrock of our strategy – understanding our customers. Utilizing insights from market research and our capabilities, pinpoint a specific customer segment to target with our offerings. Formulate target groups within this segment, strategically addressing them at different stages of our roadmap. It's imperative to articulate detailed user personas, capturing demographics, behaviors, and preferences, ensuring a solid foundation for our strategic direction.

Brand Placement & Product Position

Now, let's roll up our sleeves and kickstart the real strategic game plan. We've got the lay of the land – understanding our market, knowing our customers, and having a clear destination in mind for our company. The challenge now is to position our brand in a way that harmonizes with our vision and offerings, leveraging current market trends to fulfill our mission. It sounds easy, but trust me, it's a puzzle.

To tackle this, use handy tools like the Brand Key and Product Position Map. When forming your product-market position, don't shy away from the basics – answer questions like What? Why? Who? When? Repeatedly questioning yourself will help crystallize your position statement. And to tie it all together, justify your position with insights from your market research.

Goals & Objectives

This is where you level up on your strategy, Ideally, you should list down your short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals in detail here and relate your goals with KPIs. I am not going to tell you how much information is enough here, you call the shots. It also helps to add a section to show how you have a uniform narrative across various stages of your Goals roadmap, and how your product roadmap will grow along with a short-long term goals timeline.

Strategic Initiatives & Implementation Plan

Ideally, you outline the specific initiatives that will be implemented to achieve the goals in this section but a holistic timeline to show how those strategic initiatives will work in parallel to each other helps you with a bird-eye view of your plan panning out.

Marketing Strategy

Dive into the nitty-gritty of our marketing game plan for both online and offline discovery. Craft a comprehensive Marketing Calendar that lays out strategic initiatives and their corresponding success KPIs. This is the space to detail your Content Strategy, Marketing Mix, budget allocations, and more. Make it all concrete, from content creation to budgeting, ensuring a well-orchestrated symphony of marketing efforts.

Sales Strategy

Next to your Marketing Strategy, close next is your Sales Strategy. After you have a good understanding of your customers and marketing plan - designing a sales pipeline becomes easy. There is a list of activities that you need to execute in this stage like creating ICPs, choosing tools and techs, sales enablement, setting targets and goals, monitoring plans for continuous tracking, and last but very important post sales activities and support.

Operations Strategy

To support the execution phase of your strategy you'd need an operations plan, right? Now based on the nature of your business, it may include process designs, improvements, capacity planning, resource allocation, supply chain management, Quality management, etc.

• Monitoring Performance Metric - This subsection is of importance due to the planning of monitoring activities, performance reporting, and creating North Star metrics for various strategies. Don't ignore this section while you set goals and KPIs. Although, make sure you don't overkill when it comes to metrics.

Risk Assessment & Contingency Plan

Now, let's talk about real-world challenges. Identify potential failures in your business, product, and strategy. Prepare for the worst-case scenarios by creating solid backup plans. Whether you like thinking from worst to best or prefer a bottom-up approach, the goal is to spot red flags and be ready with a Plan B. This is your safety net, ensuring you're prepared for any unexpected twists in the business journey. Let's be strategic superheroes with a backup plan for every turn.

Financial Projections

With the strategic roadmap laid out, it's time to crunch the numbers. You've got a clear picture of where and when the spending happens; now, it's about determining how much. Project your financials for the short and long term, focusing on key metrics like revenue, profitability, and cash flow.

Most importantly, make a note of assumptions under which numbers hold the math.

Appendix

This section houses the heavy artillery – all the supporting documents that bring weight to your strategy. Here, you'll find market research data, competitor analysis, and financial models.

Ahh...It's too much, ngl. But that's how it is. Creating a Business Strategy document is a taxing exercise but an important one. It makes you think, re-think, discuss, and take bets - and that's what business is about, isn't it?

Trust your guts, take good bets and if I've messed up somewhere, correct it for the audience in the comments section.

Cheers!