On the road to
High-growth
Strategies Strategic planning

consists of three basic phases. Phase one is where an organization should come up with its mission and vision statements. It should be clear about why it wants to grow; its market; its business; what kind of organization it is at present and what it wants to become. Phase two deals with the organization defining what ‘high growth’ means for it and aligning itself with this definition. High growth might be a dramatic increase in profits, revenues, sales units, etc. The implications of such an exercise will be phenomenal. The third phase is the one in which the strategic plan is drawn out and strategies for meeting this plan are developed. Let us now look at each of these phases in detail.
Phase One - The context of growth
Context plays a crucial role in creating and sustaining high-growth strategies. In fact, context serves as the fountainhead of such strategies. Growth fuels vitality and leadership. Thus every organization needs to grow. Strategy is the means to achieve successful growth rather than destructive growth.
Four stages make up the life of an organization. Every organization needs a vision to start with. Next comes market expansion with the objective of achieving critical mass, sustainability, leadership and significance in the marketplace. The third stage is for the organization to thwart challenges to its market position or authority. The ultimate stage is either death or renewal of the organization. These stages form the background on which can be built high-growth organizational strategies.
With regard to organizational context, first of all, the organization has to address questions such as ‘What market do we want to lead?’ and ‘How can we make a more significant contribution to our customers, members, employees and owners?’ This will help create the right context for high-growth strategies.
Secondly, an organization’s mission or vision statement goads it to achieve high-growth strategies. The market has to be defined by the firm. Both these first and the second processes can be achieved by asking some fundamental questions as given in the box alongside.

If an organization wants to develop and implement its high-growth strategy, it needs vision and mission statements. A vision statement is qualitative and provides the broad goals of the organization and how the world will be changed by its vision. The mission statement talks more about the organization’s values and the steps towards achieving its goals. These two statements go towards creating the context of growth of the organization. The strength of this context can be gauged from the commitment of the stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, and customers to the vision and mission of the organization.
Once the context has been established, the organization has to carry out strategic planning to achieve high growth. Such planning will help it generate high caliber strategies. Strategic planning plays an important role by leading to three types of strategies - intuitive strategies, umbrella strategies and planned strategies. Intuitive strategies are based on an idea of the final goal and a feel for how to achieve it. Umbrella strategies are global in nature and are written down. They help formulate the major policies of the organization. Planned strategies are always written down and are detailed in nature. They carry out minute, micro-level analysis of various factors such as the environment, the resources and the implementation of plans. High-growth strategies will be a judicious mix of all the three types of strategies.
Strategic plans have to take into account an organization’s core values and core competencies. They should be supported by the stakeholders. They should be well thought out. They should also take into account the human elements such as personal dynamics, psychology, communication, enrollment, empowerment, and learning in their implementation aspects.
Strategic planning defines the vision and goals of the organization. It assesses its current position and abilities. Strategic planning also pulls together knowledge and information about the external environment. It helps identify and evaluate opportunities, activities and approaches that will promote its success. Strategic planning develops a plan, according to a schedule, for implementing the activities most likely to succeed. It also monitors the results of the activities and revises the plan and activities to improve its chances of success.
High-growth strategies based on strategic plans require a process, a calendar, significant research and learning by the individuals involved, and a communication system that supports inputs from every quarter of the organization and delivers outputs and direction from the leadership with clarity and precision.
Phase one is the most important for the organization. The context for high-growth strategies is created in this phase. This is the first step. We now move on to phase two.
Phase two - growth objectives of the organization
Strategy has to consider both the external environment (economic, political, market, demographic, etc.) and the internal environment (human factors in the organization, its culture, values, stakeholders and mind-set). The strategic plan must have clear goals. There are three types of high-growth objectives of any organization.
The first type of growth is financial success tied up with the output or market expansion. The second type is competitive advantage, and the third is capacity building in the organization.
Entering phase three - developing the plan
The beginning of phase three is marked by numerous activities. The person, team or teams to lead the development of the strategic plan and its components have to be selected. The time frame covered by the strategic plan has to be decided on. A schedule for the plan has to be identified. It should include all meetings, review periods, decision points, etc. The budget and resources to be used for the plan along with the software to be used has to be determined. Also to be determined are how the plan and background papers will be distributed and reviewed. Both, learning and research agenda have to be set. The person or group for overseeing the initial implementation of the actions in the plan will have to be selected. Lastly, an ongoing strategic planning system that continuously works for the organization will have to be developed. All these actions taken will help in completing phase three about which we next discuss.
Completing phase three - creating the strategic plan and crafting strategies
Even though formulating a great strategy is an art, there are efficient methods for strategizing and strategic planning. Seven steps make up the path to a high-growth strategic plan.
Step 1: It is important to identify where the organization currently is and how it reached there. The high-growth strategies have to be identified in terms of their rationale and also related number work. The gap between where the organization is today and where it intends to be has to be ascertained.
Step 2: Identification of what has worked and what has failed. This will help concentrate efforts in the right direction. New objectives can be attained easily using proven and tested techniques of the past.
Step 3: Creating new approaches to achieving objectives. When new ways of achieving objectives are being explored, the external environment as well as the firm’s current and potential resources and constraints should be kept in mind. Organizational constraints may be capital constraints, knowledge constraints, employee attitude constraints and other limitations.
Step 4: Developing an implementation plan. This involves developing a tactic around each high-growth strategy. These tactics will help the organization to predict the financial costs, timeframe, human resources needed, potential benefits and payoff and probability of success of each strategic initiative.
Step 5: Comparing each high-growth strategy. Comparison of all the alternative high-growth strategies has to be done and the best ones should be selected. This process requires ‘guided judgment’. Still certain criteria help accomplish this task. Some of the questions to be addressed are:
*How robust or sturdy is this high-growth strategy?
*How compatible is it with our organization’s capacity and culture?
*Will this strategy require changing customer behavior to a great extent or will it require only minor modifications in customer behavior to be successful?
*Do we have the right people, skills and resources to implement this strategy and implement it well, making it a source of pride to our organization?
*How much support will it have from our stakeholders?
*How big is the payoff and for how long?
*How much will it cost?
*How can this strategy become a systems-wide or organization-wide approach to growth?
*How will it affect the organization’s reputation?
*What effect will it have on employee satisfaction?
*How feasible is the strategy technologically and logistically?
*How will implementation of this high-growth strategy contribute to increasing the organization’s capacity and culture and its receptiveness to future high growth?
Step 6: Adopting and implementing. The pace of implementation of the strategy, documentation of the cost and effort of implementation, and measuring the effectiveness or success of implementation are necessary for ensuring sustained success of implementation of high-growth strategies.
Step 7: Monitoring and revising. Misreading or ignoring both the internal and external environments of an organization can be potentially devastating. This will ensure that the strategic plan is wide off the mark. Separation of the implementation of strategy from monitoring and suggesting revisions is easy and inexpensive. The rewards of doing so, for high-growth strategizing, are huge.
Promoting the success of phase three - implementation of the strategic plan
Since high-growth strategies are harbingers of change, implementation has to be managed and directed skillfully. Any strategic planning process will work better if the planners and implementers have more talent, more resources, greater adaptive capacity and are luckier.
This calls for scanning the employment market for rare talent and also taking steps to ensure that such talent, once recruited, is retained. This can be done using tactics such as bonuses, share options, etc. Involving employees at every stage of the strategic planning process also helps to retain them.
In conclusion
Strategic planning is one of the pivots of an organization. It is the most important activity that ensures that there is convergence between where an organization is today and where it actually wants to be in future. Strategic planning tells an organization what its important capabilities are and why it is important for the organization, the market and the world at large for the organization to have high-growth goals. Strategic planning should focus both externally on the environment and internally on the organization’s resources and constraints. This will ensure that the employees and systems prosper. Both quantitative factors such as financial performance and qualitative factors such as keeping the stakeholders happy have to be considered by strategic planning.
The entrepreneurs of the world depend on strategy, strategic anticipation, strategic thinking and strategic planning. Strategy helps move people and organizations on the path to efficiency and success. New knowledge and products are created through it. The human condition is improved due to strategy.
Strategy serves to link the present and the desirable future of the organization. Organizational breakthroughs are created and sustained through strategy. Strategy changes industry and organizational mind-sets. Strategic planning is thus one of the most important aspects of business improvement and organizational enhancement available today.