Strategy typically exists at three levels across a business. Although these certainly interact it is useful to look at them separately to understand how each shapes the direction of an organisation most effectively. A proper understanding of these levels also avoids two common pitfalls in strategy setting.
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These three levels all complement each other but many people get bogged down in detail too early or skip the important higher levels. As such the two common pitfalls are:
Setting an overall strategy but not focusing on its implementation
Diving into the detail of how to grow without considering the overall fit with your organisation and competitive environment in which you operate
Here's a little bit more explanation about each level:
Corporate Level Strategy
At this level the organisation decides what it wants to be in terms of products/services and markets. Strategy at this level also decides whether we are looking at growth, stability or retrenchment.
Business Level Strategy
Sometimes called competitive strategy this level is focused on how to differentiate yourself from your competitors. This may be through innovation in products, services or systems, pricing or other strategies well described in the classic Bowman’s Strategy Clock – see an excellent article on this here.
Operational Level Strategy
This is where strategy becomes less about high level positioning and leads into how a team will deliver against targets in terms of who, when and how. At this level the strategy typically details how sales & marketing, finance, operations, HR, R&D and other departments will work towards a common goal and coordinate together.
At GrowThink Solutions we can help you out an any level and certainly want to understand where you’re at on these three levels before we work with you. We have a range of tools to help you get a fresh injection of ideas at corporate or business level and have years of experience of helping businesses transform these ideas into action at an operational level.