The Strategy Story

Corporate Level Strategy: Explained with Examples and Types

strategic planning corporate level

A corporate-level strategy refers to the overarching strategic plan that dictates the direction of the entire organization. It’s the highest level of strategy, covering all of the firm’s diverse operations, and is typically set by top management and the board of directors.

Key aspects of corporate-level strategy include:

  • Growth strategy:  Determining how the corporation plans to grow, whether through internal development (new products, new markets), external methods (acquisitions, mergers, strategic alliances), or a combination of both.
  • Stability strategy:  If a corporation is satisfied with its current growth and success rate, it may opt for a stability strategy, which involves maintaining the status quo.
  • Retrenchment/turnaround strategy:  When a corporation faces significant problems, it may adopt a retrenchment strategy to realign resources, reduce the size, or improve efficiency to improve financial performance.
  • Portfolio management:  At the corporate level, the organization must manage its portfolio of businesses effectively. This can involve deciding to invest in, hold, harvest (reduce investment), or divest certain business units.
  • Geographic strategy:  Corporations must also decide on their geographic scope, from local to global. This involves deciding which markets to enter, when, and on what scale.
  • Competitive strategy:  This involves the plan of action that a company develops to gain a competitive advantage in its market, such as cost leadership, differentiation, or a focus strategy.

In large corporations with several business units, a corporate strategy also involves deciding how much autonomy to give each business unit, how to allocate resources, and how they should interact with each other. This holistic strategy must align with the organization’s overall mission, vision, and long-term objectives.

Examples of Corporate-Level Strategy

Sure, here are a few examples of corporate-level strategies that well-known companies have implemented:

  • Amazon’s Growth Strategy:  Amazon began as an online bookstore but didn’t stop there. It expanded its product line to include electronics, clothing, and more, developing into a comprehensive online retail giant. It also expanded into new business areas like cloud computing services with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which has become a significant part of its business.
  • Google’s Diversification Strategy:  Google started as a search engine but, over time, diversified into various other sectors. For example, it acquired YouTube, created Android OS, launched Google Cloud, and ventured into self-driving cars with Waymo. These initiatives have helped Google stay competitive and innovative while spreading risk across various sectors.
  • Coca-Cola’s Geographic Expansion Strategy:  Coca-Cola’s corporate strategy involved expanding its geographic footprint from its original base in the US to almost every country in the world. This international expansion allowed Coca-Cola to become one of the most recognized brands globally and helped them diversify their markets, reducing dependence on any single region.
  • Facebook’s Acquisition Strategy:  Facebook’s corporate strategy involves acquiring and integrating potential competitors into its portfolio. Some notable examples include Instagram and WhatsApp. These acquisitions helped Facebook grow its user base, diversify its services, and maintain its competitive edge in the social networking industry.
  • Microsoft’s Turnaround Strategy:  In the mid-2010s, Microsoft underwent a strategic shift under CEO Satya Nadella. The company transitioned from a “devices and services” strategy to a “cloud-first, mobile-first” approach. This shift led to significant growth in cloud services like Azure and Office 365 and helped Microsoft regain its position as one of the leading tech companies.
  • Unilever’s Sustainability Strategy:  Unilever launched the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in 2010 to reduce its environmental footprint and increase its positive social impact. This strategy, which involves every aspect of the corporation, reflects a commitment to sustainability that is becoming increasingly important to consumers, employees, and stakeholders.

Remember that the success of a corporate-level strategy depends on many factors, including the company’s context, resources, and capabilities, as well as external factors like market trends and competitive landscape.

Types of Corporate-Level Strategy

Corporate-level strategies essentially focus on decisions about what business areas to compete in and how to manage these business areas to achieve corporate goals. Some of the key types of corporate-level strategy include:

  • Growth Strategy:  A corporation may decide to expand its activities. This can be accomplished in various ways, such as by developing new products, entering new markets, increasing market share in existing markets, or through mergers and acquisitions. Growth Hacking Strategy: Examples, Case Study, B2B
  • Stability Strategy:  This strategy is pursued when a corporation is satisfied with the same business and wants to continue the same activities. It’s often used in a predictable and stable environment where the business operations are successful and there are minimal opportunities or needs for growth.
  • Retrenchment Strategy:  This strategy involves reducing the company’s size or diversity, often through selling or closing certain businesses or divisions. This is typically used when a company faces difficulties and needs to refocus its resources on areas where it can be more competitive. What is a Retrenchment strategy: Explained with types & examples
  • Diversification Strategy:  Under this strategy, a corporation decides to enter into new markets with new products. Diversification can be related (where the new businesses have some connection to the existing businesses) or unrelated (where the new businesses are not connected to the existing businesses).
  • International Strategy:  Companies that expand their operations beyond their home country must adopt an international strategy. This could involve exporting, licensing, franchising, establishing joint ventures with a foreign company, or setting up a wholly-owned subsidiary in another country. International Business, Marketing Strategy & Strategic Management
  • Portfolio Strategy:  In this strategy, a corporation manages its businesses as a portfolio, similar to how an investor would manage a portfolio of investments. The corporation invests in business units expected to perform well and divests from those that do not.

Each type of corporate-level strategy provides different ways for a corporation to define and pursue its goals. The best choice of strategy depends on the corporation’s current situation, its resources and capabilities, the environment in which it operates, and the vision of its leadership.

Case Study on Corporate Level Strategy

Let’s take a look at the corporate-level strategy of Disney:

Disney’s Diversification and Expansion Strategy:

Disney, which started in the 1920s as a motion picture company, has successfully adopted a diversification and expansion strategy to evolve into a diversified global entertainment company. This strategy can be seen in the various segments of the company’s operations:

  • Theme Parks and Resorts:  Disney’s decision to create Disneyland in the 1950s was a key part of its diversification strategy. The company later expanded this segment by establishing Disney World and international theme parks in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
  • Media Networks:  Disney diversified into television with the creation of the Disney Channel and later expanded into network television with the acquisition of ABC. It also purchased ESPN to enter into the sports broadcasting market.
  • Studio Entertainment:  Disney has continuously expanded its studio entertainment segment by acquiring other studios such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm (Star Wars franchise), and most recently, 21st Century Fox. These acquisitions have allowed Disney to expand its movie portfolio and capitalize on popular franchises.
  • Consumer Products and Interactive Media:  Disney has used its brand and characters to diversify into consumer products and digital games, creating a comprehensive entertainment experience for consumers.
  • Disney+:  Seeing the success of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, Disney launched its streaming service, Disney+, which rapidly gained a substantial subscriber base.

Disney’s corporate-level strategy has been successful because of the synergy between its business units. For example, a movie from Marvel can drive consumer product sales, visits to theme parks, viewership on their media networks, and subscribers for Disney+. This synergy, along with the strong Disney brand, has allowed the company to succeed across various entertainment segments.

Disney’s corporate-level strategy shows how diversification and expansion, coupled with strong execution, can create a leading position in a competitive industry. It’s also a good example of how a company can use its resources (in this case, Disney’s brand and characters) to create synergies between different business units.

Disney’s journey to becoming the World’s greatest storyteller

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What is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Corporate Strategic Planning is a companywide approach at the business unit and corporate level for developing strategic plans to achieve a longer-term vision. The process includes defining the corporate strategic goals and intentions at the top and cascading them through each level of the organization. Many organizations confuse the annual budgeting process with corporate planning. Corporate strategic planning should come first and annual budgeting should be driven by the strategy, not by prior year’s budget spend.

Why is Corporate Strategy Important?

A corporate strategy can focus every employee and resource in a company on the same objectives, and it aims to use them all efficiently. It gives every employee a set of guidelines they can use in their everyday work to move toward certain targets, which promote the vision and mission of the company. Corporate level planning can also improve efficiency within the organization and help identify unseen bottlenecks or pain-points.

The corporate strategy gives leaders and employees ideas to use for the improvement of distinctive activities (processes and operations) that create a competitive advantage. The strategy can also help executives to protect the company from entering into costly or irrelevant opportunities. What are the steps involved in strategic corporate planning? Corporate strategic planning begins by clarifying the vision and mission of the organization and the space the business chooses to compete in. Clarifying the organizations position will help you develop and effective strategic planning framework.

1) Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis needs to be conducted, to understand the trends that could impact the success of your strategy. Common factors that could be analyzed include political, legal, social, environmental, technological. There may be other factors you may want to consider that are relevant to your business and industry.

2) Strategic Goals & Priorities

Once you have completed a competitive analysis, the corporate leadership team will set the overarching strategic goals and priorities for the organization.

Once the strategic goals and priorities are finalized, each business unit needs to define its strategic goals and plans on how it can contribute to the overall direction of the enterprise. That includes not only what is to be accomplished, but how it will be accomplished including high level plans, budgets, human resources, etc.

3) Communication

Once business unit plans and directions have been set, the information needs to be communicated and shared with leadership inside the business unit so that priorities and plans can be aligned and integrated within a single budget.

What is Strategic Business Planning?

At the corporate level, an enterprise develops a portfolio of businesses they choose to compete in. This is a high-level analysis of a business’s competitive and core capabilities, and how each business contributes to the overarching corporate goals. Supported by the corporate strategic business planning process, these businesses are then set up, sponsored, and supported as business units at the operating level.

What Are The Types of Corporate Strategy?

When looking at the types of corporate strategy, it is important to consider a positioning grid that looks at the source of competitive advantage as well as the space where the business competes (markets, geography, size, etc).

Strategy 1: Low Cost Strategy

This type of strategy is one in which your source of advantage is simply competing on cost and being the low-cost provider. With this strategy an organization must exploit all sources of cost advantage. This includes things such as:

  • Economies of scale
  • Cost of inputs
  • Operations excellence to help drive down costs
  • This type of strategy requires an organization to compete more broadly (markets, geography, size)

Strategy 2: Differentiated Strategy

In a Differentiated Strategy, the focus is on competing by being unique or distinctively different in your industry. A differentiated strategy provides a product or service in more of a niche market where customers see the importance of offerings and are willing to pay a premium price. While this strategy still has a broad focus on how and where it competes (markets, geography, size), it serves its customers in a differentiated way. Differentiation can include factors such as:

  • Technical superiority
  • Customization
  • Products or services that are difficult to copy
  • Customer Service

Strategy 3: Segmented Strategy

A segmented strategy is one in which you have clearly differentiated yourself from the competition. The space in which you compete has a narrow focus. You serve a distinct group of customers with specialized needs. In this space, there are few product or service substitutes that can be offered and while you may not have the volume of customers, profit margins tend to be higher because of the lack of substitutes. and there are few substitutes for your offerings. It is important for every organization to understand where on a strategic position grid it currently sits and where it may want to be — adapted from Michael Porter

What Is the Difference Between Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy?

Corporate strategy, in contrast, involves the plans that a larger enterprise must form when it is composed of multiple smaller businesses or entities. For example a business unit may need to examine factors unique to the industry or competitive landscape that is fundamentally different than its corporate parent.

As a large enterprise, company, or private equity group takes on more acquisitions, it must work with its respective businesses to craft a business strategy and plan that is unique to them and drive competitive advantage through their products, services, and market positioning.

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The strategic planning process in 4 steps, to help you throughout our strategic planning framework, we have created a how-to guide on the basics of a strategic plan, which we will take you through step-by-step..

Free Strategic Planning Guide

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic Planning is when organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy development.

What

Overview of the Strategic Planning Process:

The strategic management process involves taking your organization on a journey from point A (where you are today) to point B (your vision of the future).

Part of that journey is the strategy built during strategic planning, and part of it is execution during the strategic management process. A good strategic plan dictates “how” you travel the selected road.

Effective execution ensures you are reviewing, refreshing, and recalibrating your strategy to reach your destination. The planning process should take no longer than 90 days. But, move at a pace that works best for you and your team and leverage this as a resource.

To kick this process off, we recommend 1-2 weeks (1-hour meeting with the Owner/CEO, Strategy Director, and Facilitator (if necessary) to discuss the information collected and direction for continued planning.)

Strategic Planning Guide and Process

Questions to Ask:

  • Who is on your Planning Team? What senior leadership members and key stakeholders are included? Checkout these links you need help finding a strategic planning consultant , someone to facilitate strategic planning , or expert AI strategy consulting .
  • Who will be the business process owner (Strategy Director) of planning in your organization?
  • Fast forward 12 months from now, what do you want to see differently in your organization as a result of your strategic plan and implementation?
  • Planning team members are informed of their roles and responsibilities.
  • A strategic planning schedule is established.
  • Existing planning information and secondary data collected.

Action Grid:

What

Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness

Set up your plan for success – questions to ask:

  • Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain pitfalls be avoided?
  • Is this the appropriate time for your organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no, where do you go from here?

Step 2: Develop Your Team & Schedule

Who is going to be on your planning team? You need to choose someone to oversee the strategy implementation (Chief Strategy Officer or Strategy Director) and strategic management of your plan? You need some of the key individuals and decision makers for this team. It should be a small group of approximately 12-15 people.

OnStrategy is the leader in strategic planning and performance management. Our cloud-based software and hands-on services closes the gap between strategy and execution. Learn more about OnStrategy here .

Step 3: Collect Current Data

All strategic plans are developed using the following information:

  • The last strategic plan, even if it is not current
  • Mission statement, vision statement, values statement
  • Past or current Business plan
  • Financial records for the last few years
  • Marketing plan
  • Other information, such as last year’s SWOT, sales figures and projections

Step 4: Review Collected Data

Review the data collected in the last action with your strategy director and facilitator.

  • What trends do you see?
  • Are there areas of obvious weakness or strengths?
  • Have you been following a plan or have you just been going along with the market?

Conclusion: A successful strategic plan must be adaptable to changing conditions. Organizations benefit from having a flexible plan that can evolve, as assumptions and goals may need adjustments. Preparing to adapt or restart the planning process is crucial, so we recommend updating actions quarterly and refreshing your plan annually.

Strategic Planning Pyramid

Strategic Planning Phase 1: Determine Your Strategic Position

Want more? Dive into the “ Evaluate Your Strategic Position ” How-To Guide.

Action Grid

Step 1: identify strategic issues.

Strategic issues are critical unknowns driving you to embark on a robust strategic planning process. These issues can be problems, opportunities, market shifts, or anything else that keeps you awake at night and begging for a solution or decision. The best strategic plans address your strategic issues head-on.

  • How will we grow, stabilize, or retrench in order to sustain our organization into the future?
  • How will we diversify our revenue to reduce our dependence on a major customer?
  • What must we do to improve our cost structure and stay competitive?
  • How and where must we innovate our products and services?

Step 2: Conduct an Environmental Scan

Conducting an environmental scan will help you understand your operating environment. An environmental scan is called a PEST analysis, an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological trends. Sometimes, it is helpful to include Ecological and Legal trends as well. All of these trends play a part in determining the overall business environment.

Step 3: Conduct a Competitive Analysis

The reason to do a competitive analysis is to assess the opportunities and threats that may occur from those organizations competing for the same business you are. You need to understand what your competitors are or aren’t offering your potential customers. Here are a few other key ways a competitive analysis fits into strategic planning:

  • To help you assess whether your competitive advantage is really an advantage.
  • To understand what your competitors’ current and future strategies are so you can plan accordingly.
  • To provide information that will help you evaluate your strategic decisions against what your competitors may or may not be doing.

Learn more on how to conduct a competitive analysis here .

Step 4: Identify Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities are situations that exist but must be acted on if the business is to benefit from them.

What do you want to capitalize on?

  • What new needs of customers could you meet?
  • What are the economic trends that benefit you?
  • What are the emerging political and social opportunities?
  • What niches have your competitors missed?

Threats refer to external conditions or barriers preventing a company from reaching its objectives.

What do you need to mitigate? What external driving force do you need to anticipate?

Questions to Answer:

  • What are the negative economic trends?
  • What are the negative political and social trends?
  • Where are competitors about to bite you?
  • Where are you vulnerable?

Step 5: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths refer to what your company does well.

What do you want to build on?

  • What do you do well (in sales, marketing, operations, management)?
  • What are your core competencies?
  • What differentiates you from your competitors?
  • Why do your customers buy from you?

Weaknesses refer to any limitations a company faces in developing or implementing a strategy.

What do you need to shore up?

  • Where do you lack resources?
  • What can you do better?
  • Where are you losing money?
  • In what areas do your competitors have an edge?

Step 6: Customer Segments

What

Customer segmentation defines the different groups of people or organizations a company aims to reach or serve.

  • What needs or wants define your ideal customer?
  • What characteristics describe your typical customer?
  • Can you sort your customers into different profiles using their needs, wants and characteristics?
  • Can you reach this segment through clear communication channels?

Step 7: Develop Your SWOT

What

A SWOT analysis is a quick way of examining your organization by looking at the internal strengths and weaknesses in relation to the external opportunities and threats. Creating a SWOT analysis lets you see all the important factors affecting your organization together in one place.

It’s easy to read, easy to communicate, and easy to create. Take the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats you developed earlier, review, prioritize, and combine like terms. The SWOT analysis helps you ask and answer the following questions: “How do you….”

  • Build on your strengths
  • Shore up your weaknesses
  • Capitalize on your opportunities
  • Manage your threats

What

Strategic Planning Process Phase 2: Developing Strategy

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Developing Your Strategy” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Develop Your Mission Statement

The mission statement describes an organization’s purpose or reason for existing.

What is our purpose? Why do we exist? What do we do?

  • What are your organization’s goals? What does your organization intend to accomplish?
  • Why do you work here? Why is it special to work here?
  • What would happen if we were not here?

Outcome: A short, concise, concrete statement that clearly defines the scope of the organization.

Step 2: discover your values.

Your values statement clarifies what your organization stands for, believes in and the behaviors you expect to see as a result. Check our the post on great what are core values and examples of core values .

How will we behave?

  • What are the key non-negotiables that are critical to the company’s success?
  • What guiding principles are core to how we operate in this organization?
  • What behaviors do you expect to see?
  • If the circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value, would we still keep it?

Outcome: Short list of 5-7 core values.

Step 3: casting your vision statement.

What

A Vision Statement defines your desired future state and directs where we are going as an organization.

Where are we going?

  • What will our organization look like 5–10 years from now?
  • What does success look like?
  • What are we aspiring to achieve?
  • What mountain are you climbing and why?

Outcome: A picture of the future.

Step 4: identify your competitive advantages.

How to Identify Competitive Advantages

A competitive advantage is a characteristic of an organization that allows it to meet its customer’s need(s) better than its competition can. It’s important to consider your competitive advantages when creating your competitive strategy.

What are we best at?

  • What are your unique strengths?
  • What are you best at in your market?
  • Do your customers still value what is being delivered? Ask them.
  • How do your value propositions stack up in the marketplace?

Outcome: A list of 2 or 3 items that honestly express the organization’s foundation for winning.

Step 5: crafting your organization-wide strategies.

What

Your competitive strategy is the general methods you intend to use to reach your vision. Regardless of the level, a strategy answers the question “how.”

How will we succeed?

  • Broad: market scope; a relatively wide market emphasis.
  • Narrow: limited to only one or few segments in the market
  • Does your competitive position focus on lowest total cost or product/service differentiation or both?

Outcome: Establish the general, umbrella methods you intend to use to reach your vision.

What

Phase 3: Strategic Plan Development

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Build Your Plan” How-To Guide.

Strategic Planning Process Step 1: Use Your SWOT to Set Priorities

If your team wants to take the next step in the SWOT analysis, apply the TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix to your strategy map to help you think about the options you could pursue. To do this, match external opportunities and threats with your internal strengths and weaknesses, as illustrated in the matrix below:

TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix

Evaluate the options you’ve generated, and identify the ones that give the greatest benefit, and that best achieve the mission and vision of your organization. Add these to the other strategic options that you’re considering.

Step 2: Define Long-Term Strategic Objectives

Long-Term Strategic Objectives are long-term, broad, continuous statements that holistically address all areas of your organization. What must we focus on to achieve our vision? Check out examples of strategic objectives here. What are the “big rocks”?

Questions to ask:

  • What are our shareholders or stakeholders expectations for our financial performance or social outcomes?
  • To reach our outcomes, what value must we provide to our customers? What is our value proposition?
  • To provide value, what process must we excel at to deliver our products and services?
  • To drive our processes, what skills, capabilities and organizational structure must we have?

Outcome: Framework for your plan – no more than 6. You can use the balanced scorecard framework, OKRs, or whatever methodology works best for you. Just don’t exceed 6 long-term objectives.

Strategy Map

Step 3: Setting Organization-Wide Goals and Measures

What

Once you have formulated your strategic objectives, you should translate them into goals and measures that can be communicated to your strategic planning team (team of business leaders and/or team members).

You want to set goals that convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets. Effective strategic goals clearly state what, when, how, and who, and they are specifically measurable. They should address what you must do in the short term (think 1-3 years) to achieve your strategic objectives.

Organization-wide goals are annual statements that are SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, responsible, and time-bound. These are outcome statements expressing a result to achieve the desired outcomes expected in the organization.

What is most important right now to reach our long-term objectives?

Outcome: clear outcomes for the current year..

Strategic Planning Outcomes Table

Step 4: Select KPIs

What

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the key measures that will have the most impact in moving your organization forward. We recommend you guide your organization with measures that matter. See examples of KPIs here.

How will we measure our success?

Outcome: 5-7 measures that help you keep the pulse on your performance. When selecting your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ask, “What are the key performance measures we need to track to monitor if we are achieving our goals?” These KPIs include the key goals you want to measure that will have the most impact on moving your organization forward.

Step 5: Cascade Your Strategies to Operations

NPS Step #5

To move from big ideas to action, creating action items and to-dos for short-term goals is crucial. This involves translating strategy from the organizational level to individuals. Functional area managers and contributors play a role in developing short-term goals to support the organization.

Before taking action, decide whether to create plans directly derived from the strategic plan or sync existing operational, business, or account plans with organizational goals. Avoid the pitfall of managing multiple sets of goals and actions, as this shifts from strategic planning to annual planning.

Questions to Ask

  • How are we going to get there at a functional level?
  • Who must do what by when to accomplish and drive the organizational goals?
  • What strategic questions still remain and need to be solved?

Department/functional goals, actions, measures and targets for the next 12-24 months

Step 6: Cascading Goals to Departments and Team Members

Now in your Departments / Teams, you need to create goals to support the organization-wide goals. These goals should still be SMART and are generally (short-term) something to be done in the next 12-18 months. Finally, you should develop an action plan for each goal.

Keep the acronym SMART in mind again when setting action items, and make sure they include start and end dates and have someone assigned their responsibility. Since these action items support your previously established goals, it may be helpful to consider action items your immediate plans on the way to achieving your (short-term) goals. In other words, identify all the actions that need to occur in the next 90 days and continue this same process every 90 days until the goal is achieved.

Examples of Cascading Goals:

What

Phase 4: Executing Strategy and Managing Performance

Want more? Dive Into the “Managing Performance” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Strategic Plan Implementation Schedule

Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals.

How will we use the plan as a management tool?

  • Communication Schedule: How and when will you roll-out your plan to your staff? How frequently will you send out updates?
  • Process Leader: Who is your strategy director?
  • Structure: What are the dates for your strategy reviews (we recommend at least quarterly)?
  • System & Reports: What are you expecting each staff member to come prepared with to those strategy review sessions?

Outcome: Syncing your plan into the “rhythm of your business.”

Once your resources are in place, you can set your implementation schedule. Use the following steps as your base implementation plan:

  • Establish your performance management and reward system.
  • Set up monthly and quarterly strategy meetings with established reporting procedures.
  • Set up annual strategic review dates including new assessments and a large group meeting for an annual plan review.

Now you’re ready to start plan roll-out. Below are sample implementation schedules, which double for a full strategic management process timeline.

Strategic Planning Calendar

Step 2: Tracking Goals & Actions

Monthly strategy meetings don’t need to take a lot of time – 30 to 60 minutes should suffice. But it is important that key team members report on their progress toward the goals they are responsible for – including reporting on metrics in the scorecard they have been assigned.

By using the measurements already established, it’s easy to make course corrections if necessary. You should also commit to reviewing your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) during these regular meetings. Need help comparing strategic planning software ? Check out our guide.

Effective Strategic Planning: Your Bi-Annual Checklist

What

Never lose sight of the fact that strategic plans are guidelines, not rules. Every six months or so, you should evaluate your strategy execution and strategic plan implementation by asking these key questions:

  • Will your goals be achieved within the time frame of the plan? If not, why?
  • Should the deadlines be modified? (Before you modify deadlines, figure out why you’re behind schedule.)
  • Are your goals and action items still realistic?
  • Should the organization’s focus be changed to put more emphasis on achieving your goals?
  • Should your goals be changed? (Be careful about making these changes – know why efforts aren’t achieving the goals before changing the goals.)
  • What can be gathered from an adaptation to improve future planning activities?

Why Track Your Goals?

  • Ownership: Having a stake and responsibility in the plan makes you feel part of it and leads you to drive your goals forward.
  • Culture: Successful plans tie tracking and updating goals into organizational culture.
  • Implementation: If you don’t review and update your strategic goals, they are just good intentions
  • Accountability: Accountability and high visibility help drive change. This means that each measure, objective, data source and initiative must have an owner.
  • Empowerment: Changing goals from In Progress to Complete just feels good!

Step 3: Review & Adapt

Guidelines for your strategy review.

The most important part of this meeting is a 70/30 review. 30% is about reviewing performance, and 70% should be spent on making decisions to move the company’s strategy forward in the next quarter.

The best strategic planners spend about 60-90 minutes in the sessions. Holding meetings helps focus your goals on accomplishing top priorities and accelerating the organization’s growth. Although the meeting structure is relatively simple, it does require a high degree of discipline.

Strategy Review Session Questions:

Strategic planning frequently asked questions, read our frequently asked questions about strategic planning to learn how to build a great strategic plan..

Strategic planning is when organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy..

Your strategic plan needs to include an assessment of your current state, a SWOT analysis, mission, vision, values, competitive advantages, growth strategy, growth enablers, a 3-year roadmap, and annual plan with strategic goals, OKRs, and KPIs.

A strategic planning process should take no longer than 90 days to complete from start to finish! Any longer could fatigue your organization and team.

There are four overarching phases to the strategic planning process that include: determining position, developing your strategy, building your plan, and managing performance. Each phase plays a unique but distinctly crucial role in the strategic planning process.

Prior to starting your strategic plan, you must go through this pre-planning process to determine your organization’s readiness by following these steps:

Ask yourself these questions: Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place now? Can we foresee any pitfalls that we can avoid? Is there an appropriate time for our organization to initiate this process?

Develop your team and schedule. Who will oversee the implementation as Chief Strategy Officer or Director? Do we have at least 12-15 other key individuals on our team?

Research and Collect Current Data. Find the following resources that your organization may have used in the past to assist you with your new plan: last strategic plan, mission, vision, and values statement, business plan, financial records, marketing plan, SWOT, sales figures, or projections.

Finally, review the data with your strategy director and facilitator and ask these questions: What trends do we see? Any obvious strengths or weaknesses? Have we been following a plan or just going along with the market?

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strategic planning corporate level

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What Is Corporate Strategy? The Four Key Components

Download our free Corporate Strategy Template Download this template

What Is Corporate Strategy?

Corporate strategy refers to the overall plan or direction of an organization in pursuit of its long-term objectives. It includes defining the company's mission, vision, values, and goals, as well as identifying the markets and products it will focus on, the competitive advantages it aims to build, and the resources and capabilities it needs to achieve its objectives.

Corporate-level strategy involves developing a strategic roadmap for the organization to guide its actions. By doing so, the organization stays focused on its long-term strategic objectives while remaining agile enough to respond to changes in the business environment.

Free Template Download our free Corporate Strategy Template Download this template

What Are The 4 Components Of Corporate Strategy?

Understanding the components of corporate strategy will help you formulate a well-thought-out strategy that’s easy to follow and execute.

Visioning involves setting the high-level direction of the organization—namely, the vision, mission, and corporate values.

Objective setting

Objective Setting   involves defining specific and measurable outcomes you want to achieve over a chosen timeframe.

Resource allocation

This is the practice of allocating human and capital resources to support objectives.

Strategic trade-offs

This is an essential part of corporate strategic planning since companies can’t always take advantage of all feasible opportunities. Leaders must learn how to determine the optimal strategic mix that will balance risks with returns.

👉 Use this free corporate strategy template to quickly start the development of your own company-level strategy.

The Corporate, Business, And Functional Level Strategies

A complete organizational strategy has three levels :

strategy levels pyramid graph corporate business and functional strategies

Corporate-level strategy

Corporate-level strategy is the highest level of corporate strategic planning. (We’ll dive deeper into it in this guide).

Business-level strategy

Business-level strategy connects the strategic goals of the company strategy with the needs and capacities of the business unit level.

It turns a corporate-level strategic goal into a practical strategic goal based on business-level knowledge and experience.

Functional-level strategy

Functional-level strategy refers to the specific plans and actions developed by individual departments within an organization to achieve the goals and objectives set out in the corporate-level strategy. These strategies are more detailed than corporate strategies, and they focus on the day-to-day activities of the organization.

Functional-level strategies are developed based on the company's overall goals and objectives. Their aim is to ensure that each functional area of the organization contributes to the company's success in a coordinated and strategic way. 

For example, let’s say a company has set a corporate-level goal to reduce costs. One of the functional-level strategies that the operations team can set is to streamline the supply chain to reduce the cost of inventory and raw materials. Another functional strategy would be to optimize the use of technology to reduce costs.

Corporate-Level Strategy vs. Business-Level Strategy

Corporate-level strategy and business-level strategy are two different levels of strategic planning that organizations use to achieve their goals and objectives.

Corporate-level strategy involves making decisions about the overall direction and scope of the organization. This includes deciding which industries and markets to compete in, how to allocate resources across different business units or product lines, and how to diversify the company's portfolio of products or services. This strategy level focuses on long-term goals and objectives and often involves mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, vertical integration, or other strategic alliances.

Business-level strategy , on the other hand, focuses on how individual business units or product lines will compete in their respective markets. This involves making decisions about product differentiation, pricing, marketing, and resource allocation to achieve specific goals and objectives. This strategy level deals with shorter-term goals and objectives, often involving product development, marketing campaigns, and operational improvements.

Both levels of strategy are crucial for organizational success and should be aligned with each other. 

📚 Read more: The 7 Best Business Strategy Examples I've Ever Seen 

corporate vs business strategy differences

How The 3 Strategy Levels Relate To Each Other

The three levels of strategy are interdependent and must be aligned to achieve an organization's overall goals and objectives.

For example, a corporate-level strategy of diversifying a company's portfolio by acquiring a new business unit would require a business-level strategy to integrate the new business and align it with the company's existing operations. The functional-level strategy would then focus on optimizing processes, allocating resources, and developing capabilities to support the new business unit's operations and ensure its success.

Understanding how the three strategy levels communicate helps you build a solid strategic plan .

What Are The Benefits Of A Corporate-Level Strategy?

The benefits of a well-defined corporate strategy for an organization increase as the organization scales . It’s possible for small or even medium-sized businesses to get by without investing time in developing their corporate strategy. However, as the needs of an organization grow, it becomes increasingly necessary to develop the strategic planning process in a way that reflects the complexity of that organization.

In the end, corporate strategy benefits any organization, regardless of size .

The three main benefits of having a solid corporate strategy are:

1. Provides strategic direction

By implementing a corporate strategic plan, an organization can establish its desired direction and provide clear guidance to leaders, stakeholders, and employees on how they prioritize decisions, making strategy execution and goal achievement much easier.

2. Helps you stay flexible and adapt when needed

In a dynamic world, organizations need to keep pace with changes as they happen.

By continually defining corporate strategies and strategic goals in relation to opportunities or threats as they appear, your organization will be able to consistently perform optimally.

3. Improves decision making

Without clearly defined strategies at a corporate level, business, and functional level units will perform sub-optimally.

The abstract level of decision-making at the corporate level will translate to better results at other decision-making levels and help employees feel that their organization has a clear direction and purpose.

benefits of corporate strategy

📚 Recommended read:   Strategic Control Simplified: A 6-Step Process And Tools

The Common Problem With Corporate Strategy

One of the most common problems with strategy, especially corporate strategy, is that it gets stuck in the boardroom. Leaders are the experts, they’ve climbed the ropes, and they have the scars to prove it. It is obvious that they are best suited to make strategic decisions and put together a plan that steers the company in the right direction. 

That statement seems reasonable, but it contains a lie.

Creating a static PowerPoint document is not a strategy, no matter how long or beautiful it is. As Mike Lardner, former Director of Corporate Strategy at Whirlpool points out in Cascade’s state of strategy report : "The main problem with the strategy is that it's usually not even strategy. It's just the first pass at next year's budget!"

There is an annual cycle of secret meetings that exhaust resources and no one can figure out where, why, or what to do. Often, the strategy is left in a PowerPoint until the next year, and it's so manual to synthesize that it's not even updated or tracked on regular basis.

Types Of Corporate Strategy And Examples 

Your corporate strategy must reflect an optimal approach that responds to the needs and the environment of your business. Thus, it’s helpful to divide corporate strategy into four classifications based on external and internal factors.

Growth strategies

These are strategies that focus on a company’s growth and might include entering new markets, increasing or diversifying existing ones, or using forward or backward integration to take advantage of economies of scale.

Growth strategies are typical with most tech companies like Facebook ( Meta ), Google, and Amazon , which consistently take advantage of new opportunities. 

When Facebook launched in 2004, it was a small social media network among several competitors. Using a market penetration growth strategy aimed at Harvard college students and eventually a tech acquisition strategy that purchased emerging technology, Facebook grew from that small campus social network into the ubiquitous company it is today.

Stability strategies

These are designed to consolidate an organization's current position, with an eye toward creating a strategic environment that will provide greater flexibility for the future employment of growth or retrenchment strategies.

Stability strategies are more conservative strategies, focused on preserving profit, reducing costs, and investigating future strategic possibilities.

Steel Authority of India adopted a stability strategy focused on increasing efficiency rather than increasing the number of plants. This move helped address the over-capacity in the industry and retain the company’s position as the third-fastest growing steel producer in the world.

Retrenchment strategies

These are a response to unprofitable or damaging elements of a business or organization, such as eliminating unprofitable assets or product lines.

General Motors (GM) , once the world’s largest automaker, started implementing retrenchment strategies as it pulled out its brands from major global markets like Russia, India, and Western Europe. Declining sales and profitability were the main culprits as its competitors consistently took the top sales spots. 

📚 Recommended read: Strategy study: The Journey of General Motors 

Combination Strategy

Sometimes, organizations combine the above-mentioned strategies even if they appear contradictory. 

For example, a company may utilize a stability and retrenchment strategy to keep profits growing while preserving capital. Or they can continue taking risks to pursue growth while keeping certain portions of the enterprise stable. 

A combination strategy is useful when organizations are large and operate in complex environments, such as having several enterprises operating in different industries with different needs. 

For example, McDonald’s continues to pursue growth by expanding to new markets worldwide while maintaining a profitable core menu and focusing on improving operational efficiency. 

Another example is the move by Hewlett-Packard to split the company into two in order to pursue a stability and growth strategy at once. HP Inc., the stagnant arm that sells personal computers and printers, focuses on a stability strategy to maintain profitability. Meanwhile, HPE, the exciting business that sells industrial-grade server computers to enterprises, focuses on a growth strategy as it taps an underserved market segment. 

📚 Want to study strategies of leading global companies, including Heineken, Coca-Cola, and Unilever? Click here to check out our Strategy Factory with 100+ strategy studies. 

What Should My Corporate Strategy Model Look Like?

There are a number of different models you can apply to the strategic planning process, each with its own merits. We’re going to show you how to build your corporate strategy model based on our tested and proven strategic planning model—the Cascade model, used by +20,000 teams worldwide.

The Cascade Model Overview cheatsheet

Corporate strategy planning is the highest level of strategic planning within a business or organization and must take into account a huge number of variables.

1. Defining a vision

Reducing complexity is a must . The basis for corporate planning is defining an abstract vision or overarching goal based on the current organization and its environment.

The vision will provide a point of reference for your mission, and the mission will serve as a benchmark for measuring goals and evaluating strategies.

Follow our guide for an in-depth explanation of the process of writing a vision statement . 

2. Describe your company’s values

Your company’s vision statement is a destination. Company values describe how you will arrive at this destination.

The values that you outline should be clear, concise, and, above all, real. To get a good sense of how to define your company values, read our guide .

3. Choose focus areas

Think of focus areas as the foundation for your corporate planning. They are strategic priorities that your organization will be focusing on within a given timeframe. 

4. Define objectives

Once you’ve defined a clear vision and selected your focus areas, you must outline the strategic objectives .

These objectives will represent a more concrete example of what you want to achieve, with stated deadlines and milestones.

5. Establish KPIs

The corporate planning process ends with the definition of KPIs that will allow corporate strategists to track and adjust the strategic objectives based on results.

📚 Dive deeper into each element with this comprehensive guide on how to write a strategic plan . 

Get A Blueprint For Corporate Strategic Planning

Corporate strategic planning gives your company the essential conceptual tools to succeed in competitive markets. Taking the time to plan a well-structured corporate strategy will quickly yield benefits that are quantifiable and provide insights into your operations .

Get your free corporate strategy template to follow a structured approach and create a highly effective corporate strategic plan that keeps everyone aligned with the business objectives. 

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The Ultimate Guide to Corporate Strategic Planning

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Corporate strategic planning is essential to businesses and one of the basics of a business plan. It allows you to proceed toward your objectives with direction and focus. However, setting strategic goals is more complex than writing them down during a board meeting. The process requires careful evaluation and analysis to garner the best business results. 

Corporate strategy includes all the steps in strategic planning that turn your high-level goals into actionable objectives, maintain and elevate your competitive position and provide quantifiable feedback to keep a flexible and workable strategic framework. 

In This Article

What Is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Objective setting, allocating resources, making strategic trade-offs, why is corporate strategic planning important, what is the difference between corporate strategy and business strategy.

  • Formulation
  • Implementation
  • Modification
  • Establish the Your Corporate Strategic Objectives
  • Develop Strategies for Achieving Goals
  • Implement Your Corporate Strategy
  • Monitor Your Strategic Plan’s Performance
  • Analyze the Plan’s Success

How AchieveIt Helps With Strategic Planning

Sharpen your corporate strategy with achieveit.

What Is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Corporate strategic planning is a branch of strategy that focuses on the organization. A corporate strategic plan manages a business’s objectives and overall direction, and the associated processes are critical to the organization’s strategic objectives.

The corporate strategic planning process includes defining companywide strategic goals from the top tiers of an organization and implementing them throughout every level. For many businesses, corporate strategic planning is the first step and strategic planning goals define annual budgeting and allocation of resources. 

Corporate strategic plans can be external, focusing on business objectives and the overarching direction for the organization, or internal, such as corporate diversity and inclusion strategic plan.

A corporate strategy — in terms of business planning basics — has four main components, each providing valuable insight through self-evaluation. The four elements of corporate strategic planning include the following:

The Four Elements of Corporate Strategic Planning

The Four Elements of Corporate Strategic Planning

Visioning involves creating a high-level direction for your business, including business plan basics like corporate values and vision and mission statements. Setting a vision for your company’s future is a robust tool in corporate leadership. In general, companies plan between three and five years ahead. 

Your vision and values will guide your daily operations and procedures, and involving key team members fosters engagement throughout the organization. 

Aligning your strategic objectives with the overarching vision for your business is the key to successful objective setting. Strategic objectives are the high-level goals of your business and describe what your team needs to do to fulfill its mission over the next three or five years.

The objective setting takes your qualitative goals into measurable objectives , which is critical to get your ideas into an actionable format. In the context of goal setting in an organization, the most effective strategic goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound (SMART). Communication is also vital in the objective-setting phase. It ensures that team members are focused on priority tasks and operating in a unified manner, aiming towards furthering the company in the future.

With your objectives outlined, you now have a clear list of priorities to allocate human and capital resources. With a clear and actionable overview of your strategic goals, you can plan, manage and assign resources to facilitate reaching them. Determining how best to allocate resources to teams and business units is integral to your overall planning process. 

Also known as prioritization is one of the most challenging core elements of corporate strategy. Taking advantage of every opportunity may not be possible, and almost all business decisions contain an element of risk. Anyone who manages strategic plans and initiatives in an organization must consider all these factors to determine the optimal strategy when setting strategic goals. 

Businesses must balance risk and reward and pay close attention to risk management processes to maximize returns and minimize threats to operational procedures. 

Why Is Corporate Strategic Planning Important?

Strategic plans are more than just abstract ideas conceptualized in a board room. When actualized correctly, they power organizational alignment and allow teams to direct their efforts in the most productive places. Strategic planning communicates your mission and vision throughout your organization to effect strategic change at every level and prioritize your most important objectives in your daily operations. 

Strategic planning can highlight your shortcomings and biases and present new opportunities to streamline your operations. Then, you can track your goal process with actionable key performance indicators (KPIs) and align them with your business processes. 

Most importantly, a well-conceived strategic plan provides a competitive advantage in your industry, allowing you to anticipate competitors’ next moves and stay one step ahead. With actionable strategies in mind, your business can accomplish goals ahead of the competition and ensure you provide the best possible results for your customers. 

What Is the Difference Between Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy?

There is a marked difference between business-level strategy vs. corporate-level strategy. Corporate strategies operate at a higher level than business strategies and focus on growth and profits. A business strategy, on the other hand, focuses on competing in the marketplace. Organizations should develop their business strategies with their corporate strategy in mind. 

Stages of Corporate Strategic Planning

Stages of Corporate Strategic Planning

Like any successful strategic plan or initiative, teams must tackle corporate strategic planning in four stages. The four stages of corporate strategic planning include the following:

1. Formulation

For an actionable strategic plan, you must take the time to create a roadmap of your most profitable action to achieve your strategic objectives. In this phase, you and your team will set your strategic plan goals and explore the best means to achieve them. Consider conducting a SWOT analysis — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats — for your business to reveal growth opportunities and areas within your operations that require attention. Consider looking into successful corporate strategic plan examples as part of your research. 

Before you start, ensure you have a purpose for formulating your strategy based on your core vision and mission. You’ll consider current events and trends as part of your SWOT analysis. Ensure you set actionable and measurable goals in the formulation phase of strategic goal setting and communicate them effectively throughout your organization. 

Often, organizational leaders formulate a corporate strategy. Every team member adds a different perspective to the process, so drawing on their input could illuminate and provide a more pronounced competitive edge for your business. 

2. Implementation

Implementation is the phase where your corporate strategies become corporate actions . Your team has designed and communicated your strategy, so that all members understand their roles and responsibilities. Setting up KPIs aligned with your strategic objectives is critical in the implementation phase, as it provides quantifiable feedback on positive impacts and information on opportunities for change. 

During implementation, your team must focus on details and day-to-day processes to implement quick changes. Corporate strategy is a fluid process that requires daily attention to succeed.

3. Evaluation

Evaluating the strategies you executed in the implementation phase provides you with valuable feedback on the efficacy of your corporate strategy. Some businesses  perform a gap analysis to identify the need for new products or additions in the gap between their current and desired future positions. 

At this stage of the process, your data is vital. An   integrated plan management software allows you to track resources, changes, schedules, and the quality of your corporate strategic initiatives. With actionable data on team members and projects, you can make changes and refine your corporate strategy.

4. Modification

In the modification phase, your team can correct and refine underperforming elements of your corporate strategy. You have identified your strongest areas, which your team could leverage to assist in further implementation in areas that need further attention. 

How to Create a Successful Corporate Strategic Plan

You and your team may be used to taking a reactive route where you only deal with problems as they arise. However, this can stifle your vision and make it difficult to see the big picture or prepare for obstacles along the way. By following the fundamentals of strategic planning, your company can gain a better understanding of common issues that complicate your short- and long-term goals and make you more proactive in resolving them.

A progressive approach is critical to corporate strategic planning success, so you can pay attention to each step and garner the best results. The five steps in the strategic management process include the following: 

Establish the Your Corporate Strategic Objectives

1. Establish the Your Corporate Strategic Objectives

Corporate strategic objectives must be clear, achievable and easy to communicate. Consider what business objectives your team needs to achieve and communicate these objectives throughout all levels of your organization. Foster collaboration, allow everyone in your organization to think strategically and offer suggestions for achieving your corporate strategic initiatives. 

Employees throughout your organization can provide valuable input to drive your objectives forward. Gather as many insights as possible and set your objectives with as much information as possible. At the end of this step, you should have a broad view of what your business wants to achieve and how the various teams can contribute. 

2. Develop Strategies for Achieving Goals

From your broad overview, you can now break your objectives into specific projects and courses of action within those projects. Include metrics and KPIs to quantify the success or failure of each. Establish objectives and key results (OKR) framework so each goal has quantifiable key results to measure the initiative’s success. 

Pay attention to your human resources during this critical step. Think outside the box, eliminate silos within your teams, and ensure every team member has roles and responsibilities aligned with their strengths. 

3. Implement Your Corporate Strategy

It’s time to take your strategic plan off the boardroom table and implement it into your business workflow . Making your corporate strategy successful requires focus and input from every team member. Ensure everyone in your organization can clearly see and understand their role within your strategy and how their actions move your plan forward. 

You can reply heavily on your OKR framework here for each individual to have a solid view of their roles. When team members see their impact on your overall strategy, they will be more engaged and productive in their efforts to achieve your objectives. Team engagement comes from management and managers should focus on managing outcomes, not people, for the best results. 

Partnering with an integrated planned management specialist is essential for maximizing employee productivity and engagement. Strategic planning software can give you a competitive edge. User-friendly interfaces, clearly defined goals, and change management will make implementation smoother, faster and easier for team members.

Monitor Your Strategic Plan's Performance

4. Monitor Your Strategic Plan’s Performance

Remember that your strategic plan is fluid and needs regular monitoring for your organization to maintain a competitive position. Again, use your valuable human resources and consult everyone who owns a strategic objective. Foster an environment where you can receive honest input on the strategic plan’s progress so your management doesn’t feel more comfortable concentrating their team’s efforts in weak areas. 

Ensure your plan is flexible enough to catch it early if your organization’s efforts go off course. If there’s an opportunity to produce better results, you can stay ahead of the competition and execute it immediately. Measuring your team’s performance with employee performance metrics is an excellent method of assessing where you’re achieving your outcomes and where you may need to rethink the allocation of resources. 

Consider organization performance reporting to analyze how your business performance compares with your goals and initiatives. You can assess your successes and make adjustments when necessary. 

5. Analyze the Plan’s Success

Analyzing the impact of your corporate strategy is vital to set a benchmark for what elements to continue with and change. It clearly shows areas to improve and strengthens your teams’ engagement and commitment to your strategic initiatives. Include team members from across your organization when you conduct your analysis and foster open and thorough communication so they can share their insights and experiences. 

Together, you can define your plan’s strengths and opportunities for improvement . Once you have gathered input from across your teams, your strategic team can apply this insight to your new strategic initiatives and amplify your successes. 

How AchieveIt Helps With Strategic Planning

Organizations that struggle to get their important initiatives from the boardroom into reality and keep their performance on track may falter with their objectives. With AchieveIt, your business can improve visibility, uniformity and accountability within your strategic planning process.

Our automated platform and strategic planning software enable your teams to connect, execute your goals and evaluate how your essential plans are performing. Integrated plan management solutions from AchieveIt can revitalize how your organization reaches for its goals with dashboards, reporting, updates and more strategic planning tools.

Some of the many ways AchieveIt can help you with your corporate strategy include the following:

  • Streamlining your corporate strategic execution:  Create alignment and organize your strategic initiatives with our process-focused software to integrate and execute corporate strategies. 
  • Using automated updates:  AchieveIt focuses on the end user, integrating process updates from different sources for a seamless automated update system. 
  • Consistent expert support and training:  AchieveIt conducts regular business reviews, so you can measure your return on investment (ROI) and access quantifiable data about how your corporate strategy aligns with your progress. Your strategic expert is there to provide feedback if needed, and on-site training allows for excellent change management, improved adoption rates and better team engagement. 
  • Data-driven insights and accessible results:  You can filter and create outcome-specific reports aligning with your corporate strategy with a holistic view of your strategic business progress to combine your data with applicable contexts. This actionable information gives you a clear picture of what works and what needs work. 

Sharpen Your Corporate Strategy With AchieveIt

Many businesses use outcomes-based corporate strategies to drive them towards goals, benefit their bottom line and motivate their teams. With AchieveIt, your organization can improve the execution of key plans and initiatives , increase visibility and improve accountability from a centralized, integrated plan management platform. 

Whether you have an existing corporate strategy, want an implementation partner, or like some help streamlining your corporate strategy, you can use AchieveIt’s two-pronged approach to strengthen your competitive position . The combination of our management software and an experienced consultant ensures your initiatives are correctly set up for effortless execution.

Schedule a demo today if you would like to learn more about AchieveIt strategic management software. Alternatively, take a self-guided tour and experience the magic of AchieveIt firsthand. Together we can connect, manage and execute key plans and initiatives with innovative corporate strategic plan management. 

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Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

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  • 06 Oct 2020

Do you know what your organization’s strategy is? How much time do you dedicate to developing that strategy each month?

If your answers are on the low side, you’re not alone. According to research from Bridges Business Consultancy , 48 percent of leaders spend less than one day per month discussing strategy.

It’s no wonder, then, that 48 percent of all organizations fail to meet at least half of their strategic targets. Before an organization can reap the rewards of its business strategy, planning must take place to ensure its strategy remains agile and executable .

Here’s a look at what strategic planning is and how it can benefit your organization.

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What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

It’s important to highlight that strategic planning is an ongoing process—not a one-time meeting. In the online course Disruptive Strategy , Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen notes that in a study of HBS graduates who started businesses, 93 percent of those with successful strategies evolved and pivoted away from their original strategic plans.

“Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works,” Christensen says. “When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that’s at work 24/7 in almost every industry.”

Strategic planning requires time, effort, and continual reassessment. Given the proper attention, it can set your business on the right track. Here are three benefits of strategic planning.

Related: 4 Ways to Develop Your Strategic Thinking Skills

Benefits of Strategic Planning

1. create one, forward-focused vision.

Strategy touches every employee and serves as an actionable way to reach your company’s goals.

One significant benefit of strategic planning is that it creates a single, forward-focused vision that can align your company and its shareholders. By making everyone aware of your company’s goals, how and why those goals were chosen, and what they can do to help reach them, you can create an increased sense of responsibility throughout your organization.

This can also have trickle-down effects. For instance, if a manager isn’t clear on your organization’s strategy or the reasoning used to craft it, they could make decisions on a team level that counteract its efforts. With one vision to unite around, everyone at your organization can act with a broader strategy in mind.

2. Draw Attention to Biases and Flaws in Reasoning

The decisions you make come with inherent bias. Taking part in the strategic planning process forces you to examine and explain why you’re making each decision and back it up with data, projections, or case studies, thus combatting your cognitive biases.

A few examples of cognitive biases are:

  • The recency effect: The tendency to select the option presented most recently because it’s fresh in your mind
  • Occam’s razor bias: The tendency to assume the most obvious decision to be the best decision
  • Inertia bias: The tendency to select options that allow you to think, feel, and act in familiar ways

One cognitive bias that may be more difficult to catch in the act is confirmation bias . When seeking to validate a particular viewpoint, it's the tendency to only pay attention to information that supports that viewpoint.

If you’re crafting a strategic plan for your organization and know which strategy you prefer, enlist others with differing views and opinions to help look for information that either proves or disproves the idea.

Combating biases in strategic decision-making requires effort and dedication from your entire team, and it can make your organization’s strategy that much stronger.

Related: 3 Group Decision-Making Techniques for Success

3. Track Progress Based on Strategic Goals

Having a strategic plan in place can enable you to track progress toward goals. When each department and team understands your company’s larger strategy, their progress can directly impact its success, creating a top-down approach to tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) .

By planning your company’s strategy and defining its goals, KPIs can be determined at the organizational level. These goals can then be extended to business units, departments, teams, and individuals. This ensures that every level of your organization is aligned and can positively impact your business’s KPIs and performance.

It’s important to remember that even though your strategy might be far-reaching and structured, it must remain agile. As Christensen asserts in Disruptive Strategy , a business’s strategy needs to evolve with the challenges and opportunities it encounters. Be prepared to pivot your KPIs as goals shift and communicate the reasons for change to your organization.

Which HBS Online Strategy Course is Right for You? | Download Your Free Flowchart

Improve Your Strategic Planning Skills

Strategic planning can benefit your organization’s vision, execution, and progress toward goals. If strategic planning is a skill you’d like to improve, online courses can provide the knowledge and techniques needed to lead your team and organization.

Strategy courses can range from primers on key concepts (such as Economics for Managers ), to deep-dives on strategy frameworks (such as Disruptive Strategy ), to coursework designed to help you strategize for a specific organizational goal (such as Sustainable Business Strategy ).

Learning how to craft an effective, compelling strategic plan can enable you to not only invest in your career but provide lasting value to your organization.

Do you want to formulate winning strategies for your organization? Explore our portfolio of online strategy courses and download the free flowchart to determine which is the best fit for you and your goals.

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Business Level Strategy Examples & Types for Corporate Strategy Success

Published: 07 February, 2024

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Stefan F.Dieffenbacher

Digital Strategy

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Table of Contents

In business, the right business strategy can make or break success . Business-level strategy is crucial in defining how a company positions itself within its industry and competes in the market.

Nowadays, successful businesses blend this strategy with digital transformation and innovation strategies. At Digital Leadership, our  Innovation Consulting  and  Digital Transformation Consulting  services, we foster creativity and ensure seamless alignment of technology adoption with  business goals . Our approach involves   integrating Jobs to be Done   into your right  business-level strategy,  focusing on understanding customers’ fundamental needs and motivations to establish meaningful and lasting connections.

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In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the definition, examples, types, importance, steps of implementation, and comparison with corporate level strategy of business level strategies . We will also explore successful companies and their effective business-level strategies, providing insights and inspiration for entrepreneurs aiming to achieve sustainable growth.

What is Business Level Strategy Definition

A business level strategy involves the stratgeic planning and actions taken to set the direction for a particular business unit . It’s about how a company aims to excel and gain an edge in a specific market area or industry. This strategy outlines how the business plans to distinguish itself from rivals, deliver value to customers, and reach its business goals within its chosen market.

Benefits of business level strategy encompass heightened revenue generation, enhanced forecasting of future requirements, swifter responses compared to rivals, and a fortified brand capable of navigating changes with resilience. Two prevalent strategies often employed are cost leadership and differentiation.

The Business Model Canvas plays a pivotal role in business level strategy in aligning different elements to ensure that they collectively support the overarching strategic goals. By focusing on customer-centric components and resource allocation, the canvas aids in decision-making crucial to gaining a competitive advantage. Its adaptability allows businesses to innovate and respond to market changes, a vital aspect in executing effective business-level strategies.

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Levels of strategy: corporate, business and functional level strategies.

  • Corporate Level Strategy: This level of strategy includes decisions related to the overall direction and scope of the organization. It encompasses decisions such as diversification, acquisitions, and strategic alliances to maximize overall corporate performance.
  • Business Level Strategy: It focuses on how a business unit or division positions itself within a specific industry or market segment to gain a competitive advantage.
  • Functional Level Strategy : Functional level strategy deals with the formulation and implementation of strategies specific to various functional areas within the organization, such as marketing, finance, operations, and human resources.

Business level strategies are narrower than corporate level strategies yet not as narrowly focused as functional level strategies. For instance, if your corporate level strategy aimed to enhance market share, your business level strategy could be: Expand market reach.

To learn more about different Levels of strategies – like corporate and business strategies you will find it in our book “ How to create innovation “. Understanding these strategies will help you make smart decisions for your own organization. Download the book now to start learning and taking control of your strategic planning.

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Business Level Strategy Examples of Successful Companies

Let’s explore examples of successful companies and their business-level strategies:

1) Apple Business Level Strategy

Apple’s successful business-level strategy is based on product differentiation and innovation. By consistently delivering high-quality, innovative products with sleek designs and user-friendly interfaces, Apple has positioned itself as a premium brand in the technology industry.

2) Starbucks Business Level Strategy

Starbucks employs a differentiation strategy by offering a unique and immersive customer experience. Through its cozy atmosphere, personalized service, and premium coffee offerings, Starbucks has built a loyal customer base and differentiated itself from competitors in the coffeehouse industry.

3) Walmart Business Level Strategy

Walmart follows a cost leadership strategy by offering a wide range of products at low prices. By leveraging economies of scale, efficient supply chain management, and strategic partnerships, Walmart, a cost leader in the retail industry, attracts price-conscious consumers.

Five Types of Business Level Strategy

Cost leadership, differentiation, focused low-cost, focused differentiation, integrated, and customer intimacy are successful business-level strategies used to achieve a competitive edge . Business-level strategies can be classified into five main types:

1. The Cost Leadership Strategy

The strategy of cost leadership entails striving to become the most economical producer within an industry. Businesses employing this approach seek to gain a competitive edge by providing products or services at lower prices compared to rivals, all while upholding acceptable quality standards. This tactic enables companies to attract price-sensitive customers and secure a significant share of the market. Through a concerted emphasis on cost efficiency and operational optimization, organizations can achieve cost leadership, establishing themselves as formidable contenders in their respective sectors.

2. The Differentiation Strategy

The differentiation strategy, a variant of business-level strategies, revolves around offering distinctive products or services perceived by consumers as superior in quality, value, or features. By setting themselves apart from competitors, companies can leverage their strategic initiatives to command premium prices and foster customer loyalty.

3. The Focused Leadership Strategy

The focused leadership strategy, commonly known as the niche strategy, entails directing efforts towards a specific market segment or niche with specialized offerings. By addressing the distinct needs and preferences of a narrow customer base, companies can attain a competitive advantage and bolster profitability.

4. The Focused Differentiation Strategy

A focused differentiation strategy blends elements of differentiation and focus strategies by delivering unique products or services tailored to a particular market segment. Firms embracing this strategy aim to carve out a niche market where they can demand premium prices and cultivate strong customer allegiance.

5. The Integrated Cost Leadership / Differentiation Strategy

The integrated cost leadership/differentiation strategy involves concurrently pursuing both cost leadership and differentiation strategies within a single business unit or division. By providing products or services that are both distinctive and cost-effective, companies can embrace a low-cost approach appealing to a broad customer base while sustaining competitive pricing.

Importance of Integrating Business Level Strategy

Integrating business-level strategy into business plan and decision-making processes is crucial for several reasons:

  • Alignment with Corporate Strategies: Business-level strategies align with corporate objectives and contribute to the overall success of the organization.
  • C reating Unique Value Proposition: It helps companies create unique value propositions that differentiate them from competitors and attract customers.
  • Competitive Advantage: Effective business-level strategies provide companies with a competitive advantage in the market, enabling them to outperform rivals.
  • Long-term Sustainability : It focuses on long-term sustainability and growth, ensuring the organization’s viability and relevance in the future.
  • Optimizing Resource Allocation: By aligning resources with strategic objectives, business level strategies help optimize resource allocation and maximize returns on investment.
  • Enhanced Coordination and Collaboration: It promotes coordination and collaboration across different functions and departments, fostering a unified approach towards achieving corporate goals.
  • Simplification of Decision Making : Clear and well-defined corporate and business level strategies simplify decision-making processes by demonstrating a roadmap for action and guiding resource allocation.
  • Streamlining Adaptation to Market Positioning: It enables organizations to adapt quickly to changes in market conditions and customer preferences, ensuring continued relevance and competitiveness.
  • Risk Management: Effective business-level strategies help organizations identify and mitigate risks associated with market dynamics, competitive pressures, and industry disruptions.
  • Customer Centricity: It prioritizes customer needs and preferences, driving customer-centric innovation and value creation.

The Value Proposition Canvas is crucial for integrating business-level strategy as it aids in crafting a unique value proposition. By aligning with corporate objectives, it helps businesses differentiate themselves, gain a competitive advantage, and ensure long-term sustainability. Moreover, it optimizes resource allocation, enhances coordination, simplifies decision-making, and streamlines adaptation to market changes. Additionally, it aids in risk management and promotes customer-centricity by focusing on meeting unmet customer needs effectively.

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2) understand the competitive environment.

Analyze competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market positions to identify competitive threats and opportunities. Identify gaps in the market where the organization can gain a competitive advantage.

3) Define Strategic Objectives:

Define clear and measurable objectives aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and business model values. Set targets for revenue growth, market share, profitability, customer satisfaction, and other key performance indicators (KPIs).

4) Identify Target Customer Segments

Segment the market based on demographic, psychographic, geographic, and behavioural factors to identify target customer segments. Understand the needs, preferences, and purchasing behaviour of target customers to tailor products or services accordingly.

5) Select the Right Business-Level Strategy

Evaluate different business level strategies based on their alignment with strategic objectives, competitive advantage potential, and resource requirements. Choose the successful strategy that best fits the organization’s capabilities, market position, and growth aspirations.

6) Develop Action Plans:

Develop detailed action plans outlining specific initiatives, tasks, timelines, and resource allocations required to implement the chosen business level strategy . Assign responsibilities to team members and define performance metrics for monitoring progress and success.

7) Build Organizational Support Culture

Foster a supportive organizational culture that encourages collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement. Communicate the rationale behind the chosen business level strategy and engage employees at all levels in the implementation process.

Organizational culture Canvas provides a framework for understanding the values, norms, and behaviors that are desired within the company. By aligning the chosen business-level strategy with the prevailing organizational culture, leaders can ensure consistency and coherence in the implementation process. Leveraging an organizational culture model enhances the cohesion, effectiveness, and sustainability of the business-level strategy implementation process.

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8) implement and monitor key performance indicators (kpis).

Implement the action plans and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and identify areas for improvement. Regularly review and analyze KPIs to ensure that the business level strategy is on track to achieve its objectives.

9) Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Strategy

Conduct regular reviews and evaluations to assess the effectiveness of the business level strategy in achieving strategic objectives. Identify lessons learned and make necessary adjustments for optimizing performance and driving sustainable growth through strategic planning.

Business Level Strategy vs Corporate Level Strategy

While business-level strategy focuses on how a business unit or division competes in a specific market segment, corporate-level strategy deals with the overall direction and scope of the organization as a whole. While business-level strategy determines how a company positions itself within its industry, corporate-level strategy defines the portfolio of businesses and the allocation of resources across them to maximize overall corporate performance.

In conclusion, business level strategy plays a crucial role in driving sustainable growth and competitive advantage for organizations. By understanding the definition, examples, types, importance, steps of implementation, and comparison of corporate and business-level strategies , entrepreneurs can develop and execute effective strategies that position their modern businesses for long-term success in dynamic and competitive markets.

Frequently Asked Questions

1) what is the advantage of setting business-level strategies.

Setting business-level strategies provides several advantages, including:

  • Competitive Advantage: It enables companies to gain a competitive advantage in the market by differentiating themselves from competitors and creating unique value propositions for customers.
  • Resource Allocation: It helps optimize resource allocation by aligning resources with strategic objectives and focusing investments on areas with the highest potential for growth and profitability.
  • Long-term Sustainability: Effective business-level strategies contribute to the long-term sustainability and success of the organization by ensuring continued relevance and competitiveness in the market.

2) How often should a business-level strategy be reassessed?

It should be reassessed regularly to ensure alignment with changing market dynamics, competitive pressures, and organizational capabilities. Depending on the pace of change in the industry and the organization’s strategic priorities, business-level strategies may need to be reviewed and adjusted annually, quarterly, or even more frequently.

3) Business-level strategy addresses which overarching question?

It addresses the overarching question of how a business unit or division positions itself within its industry or market segment to gain a competitive advantage and achieve its successful business goals . It focuses on defining the approach and tactics necessary to differentiate the organization from competitors and create value for customers in the chosen market.

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Three Levels of Strategy: Corporate Strategy, Business Strategy and Functional Strategy

Strategy is at the foundation of every decision that has to be made within an organization. If the strategy is poorly chosen and formulated by top management, it has a major impact on the effectiveness of employees in pretty much every department within the organization. In our previous article on ‘ What is Strategy?! ‘ we have already tried to define and explain what business strategy refers to and what is NOT considered to be part of strategy. In this article, we will dissect strategy in three different components or ‘ Levels of Strategy ‘. These three levels are: Corporate-level strategy, Business-level strategy and Functional-level strategy. Together, these three levels of strategy can be illustrated in a so called ‘ Strategy Pyramid ’ (Figure 1). Corporate strategy is different from Business strategy and Functional strategy. Even though Corporate-level strategy is at the top of the pyramid, we start this article by explaining Business-level strategy first.

Figure 1: Three Levels of Strategy Pyramid

Business-level strategy

The Business-level strategy is what most people are familiar with and is about the question “How do we compete?”, “How do we gain (a sustainable) competitive advantage over rivals?”. In order to answer these questions it is important to first have a good understanding of a business and its external environment. At this level, we can use internal analysis frameworks like the Value Chain Analysis and the VRIO Model and external analysis frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces and PESTEL Analysis . When good strategic analysis has been done, top management can move on to strategy formulation by using frameworks as the Value Disciplines , Blue Ocean Strategy and Porter’s Generic Strategies . In the end, the business-level strategy is aimed at gaining a competitive advantage by offering true value for customers while being a unique and hard-to-imitate player within the competitive landscape.

Functional-level strategy

Functional-level strategy is concerned with the question “How do we support the business-level strategy within functional departments, such as Marketing, HR, Production and R&D?”. These strategies are often aimed at improving the effectiveness of a company’s operations within departments. Within these department, workers often refer to their ‘Marketing Strategy’, ‘Human Resource Strategy’ or ‘R&D Strategy’. The goal is to align these strategies as much as possible with the greater business strategy. If the business strategy is for example aimed at offering products to students and young adults, the marketing department should target these people as accurately as possible through their marketing campaigns by choosing the right (social) media channels. Technically, these decisions are very operational in nature and are therefore NOT part of strategy. As a consequence, it is better to call them tactics instead of strategies.

Corporate-level strategy

At the corporate level strategy however, management must not only consider how to gain a competitive advantage in each of the line of businesses the firm is operating in, but also which businesses they should be in in the first place. It is about selecting an optimal set of businesses and determining how they should be integrated into a corporate whole: a portfolio. Typically, major investment and divestment decisions are made at this level by top management. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) is also an important part of corporate strategy. This level of strategy is only necessary when the company operates in two or more business areas through different business units with different business-level strategies that need to be aligned to form an internally consistent corporate-level strategy. That is why corporate strategy is often not seen in small-medium enterprises (SME’s), but in multinational enterprises (MNE’s) or conglomerates.

BCG Matrix and Levels of Strategy Video Tutorial

Example Samsung

Let’s use Samsung as an example. Samsung is a conglomerate consisting of multiple strategic business units (SBU’s) with a diverse set of products. Samsung sells smartphones, cameras, TVs, microwaves, refrigerators, laundry machines, and even chemicals and insurances. Each product or strategic business unit needs a business strategy in order to compete successfully within its own industry. However, at the corporate level Samsung has to decide on more fundamental questions like: “Are we going to pursue the camera business in the first place?” or “Is it perhaps better to invest more into the smartphone business or should we focus on the television screen business instead?”. The BCG Matrix  or the GE McKinsey Matrix  are both portfolio analysis frameworks and can be used as a tool to figure this out.

Figure 2: Hierarchy of Strategy

Levels of Strategy In Sum

The most common level of strategy is Business strategy and exist within strategic business units with as goal to gain competitive advantage in a certain market. If a company has multiple SBU’s, there needs to be an overarching Corporate strategy that ties all SBU’s together through corporate configuration. Here, top management must decide on resource allocation and where to invest and where to divest. Lastly, Functional strategy exist within departments such as Marketing, HR and Production. Ideally, we should refer to tactics instead of strategies because of the operational nature of the decisions made within these departments.  

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12 thoughts on “ Three Levels of Strategy: Corporate Strategy, Business Strategy and Functional Strategy ”

I can see how a business wants to build up its cooperation and they want to make sure that they can grow and build and get more revenue. Getting some better strategies to do so and to prevent them from losing money in a crisis with some help from a professional. It was interesting to learn about how there are some better investments and divestments so that they can be integrated into a portfolio.

Great Articles

Well explained with examples.. Thank you Keep posting such an articles

Such a wonderful blog about levels of strategy corporate business functional and I appreciate your effort for bringing this in to notice. Great blog indeed, will visit again future to read more!!

I appreciate your help in bringing this information or strategy and marketing framework to my notice.

A good insight indeed. So it literally means they is no how you can think of your business strategy before you study your environment ?Internal by VRIO,SWOT etc. and external by PESTEL or Porters 5 forces

Well explained the BCG model with suitable example . Thank you for uploading the video. It will be great help for all the students of strategic management. looking towards more such videos on strategic management area.

well simplified

thank you for the well explained BCG matrix, can you also look at Parenting advanrage concept and the Ashridge theory

As a student,I now knows that the ability to learn is an ultimate competitive advantage.Thanks for the simplicity and it’s very nice to invest my energy and time to read such instilling articles.

A commercial effectiveness strategy is critical for every business’s success, but it is especially critical for small businesses. A commercial effectiveness strategy, by definition, is a method for finding and delivering value to consumers through the production and distribution of goods or services.

thank you very much, very helpful information

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  • Business strategy |
  • 7 strategic planning models, plus 8 fra ...

7 strategic planning models, plus 8 frameworks to help you get started

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Strategic planning is vital in defining where your business is going in the next three to five years. With the right strategic planning models and frameworks, you can uncover opportunities, identify risks, and create a strategic plan to fuel your organization’s success. We list the most popular models and frameworks and explain how you can combine them to create a strategic plan that fits your business.

A strategic plan is a great tool to help you hit your business goals . But sometimes, this tool needs to be updated to reflect new business priorities or changing market conditions. If you decide to use a model that already exists, you can benefit from a roadmap that’s already created. The model you choose can improve your knowledge of what works best in your organization, uncover unknown strengths and weaknesses, or help you find out how you can outpace your competitors.

In this article, we cover the most common strategic planning models and frameworks and explain when to use which one. Plus, get tips on how to apply them and which models and frameworks work well together. 

Strategic planning models vs. frameworks

First off: This is not a one-or-nothing scenario. You can use as many or as few strategic planning models and frameworks as you like. 

When your organization undergoes a strategic planning phase, you should first pick a model or two that you want to apply. This will provide you with a basic outline of the steps to take during the strategic planning process.

[Inline illustration] Strategic planning models vs. frameworks (Infographic)

During that process, think of strategic planning frameworks as the tools in your toolbox. Many models suggest starting with a SWOT analysis or defining your vision and mission statements first. Depending on your goals, though, you may want to apply several different frameworks throughout the strategic planning process.

For example, if you’re applying a scenario-based strategic plan, you could start with a SWOT and PEST(LE) analysis to get a better overview of your current standing. If one of the weaknesses you identify has to do with your manufacturing process, you could apply the theory of constraints to improve bottlenecks and mitigate risks. 

Now that you know the difference between the two, learn more about the seven strategic planning models, as well as the eight most commonly used frameworks that go along with them.

[Inline illustration] The seven strategic planning models (Infographic)

1. Basic model

The basic strategic planning model is ideal for establishing your company’s vision, mission, business objectives, and values. This model helps you outline the specific steps you need to take to reach your goals, monitor progress to keep everyone on target, and address issues as they arise.

If it’s your first strategic planning session, the basic model is the way to go. Later on, you can embellish it with other models to adjust or rewrite your business strategy as needed. Let’s take a look at what kinds of businesses can benefit from this strategic planning model and how to apply it.

Small businesses or organizations

Companies with little to no strategic planning experience

Organizations with few resources 

Write your mission statement. Gather your planning team and have a brainstorming session. The more ideas you can collect early in this step, the more fun and rewarding the analysis phase will feel.

Identify your organization’s goals . Setting clear business goals will increase your team’s performance and positively impact their motivation.

Outline strategies that will help you reach your goals. Ask yourself what steps you have to take in order to reach these goals and break them down into long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals .

Create action plans to implement each of the strategies above. Action plans will keep teams motivated and your organization on target.

Monitor and revise the plan as you go . As with any strategic plan, it’s important to closely monitor if your company is implementing it successfully and how you can adjust it for a better outcome.

2. Issue-based model

Also called goal-based planning model, this is essentially an extension of the basic strategic planning model. It’s a bit more dynamic and very popular for companies that want to create a more comprehensive plan.

Organizations with basic strategic planning experience

Businesses that are looking for a more comprehensive plan

Conduct a SWOT analysis . Assess your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats with a SWOT analysis to get a better overview of what your strategic plan should focus on. We’ll give into how to conduct a SWOT analysis when we get into the strategic planning frameworks below.

Identify and prioritize major issues and/or goals. Based on your SWOT analysis, identify and prioritize what your strategic plan should focus on this time around.

Develop your main strategies that address these issues and/or goals. Aim to develop one overarching strategy that addresses your highest-priority goal and/or issue to keep this process as simple as possible.

Update or create a mission and vision statement . Make sure that your business’s statements align with your new or updated strategy. If you haven’t already, this is also a chance for you to define your organization’s values.

Create action plans. These will help you address your organization’s goals, resource needs, roles, and responsibilities. 

Develop a yearly operational plan document. This model works best if your business repeats the strategic plan implementation process on an annual basis, so use a yearly operational plan to capture your goals, progress, and opportunities for next time.

Allocate resources for your year-one operational plan. Whether you need funding or dedicated team members to implement your first strategic plan, now is the time to allocate all the resources you’ll need.

Monitor and revise the strategic plan. Record your lessons learned in the operational plan so you can revisit and improve it for the next strategic planning phase.

The issue-based plan can repeat on an annual basis (or less often once you resolve the issues). It’s important to update the plan every time it’s in action to ensure it’s still doing the best it can for your organization.

You don’t have to repeat the full process every year—rather, focus on what’s a priority during this run.

3. Alignment model

This model is also called strategic alignment model (SAM) and is one of the most popular strategic planning models. It helps you align your business and IT strategies with your organization’s strategic goals. 

You’ll have to consider four equally important, yet different perspectives when applying the alignment strategic planning model:

Strategy execution: The business strategy driving the model

Technology potential: The IT strategy supporting the business strategy

Competitive potential: Emerging IT capabilities that can create new products and services

Service level: Team members dedicated to creating the best IT system in the organization

Ideally, your strategy will check off all the criteria above—however, it’s more likely you’ll have to find a compromise. 

Here’s how to create a strategic plan using the alignment model and what kinds of companies can benefit from it.

Organizations that need to fine-tune their strategies

Businesses that want to uncover issues that prevent them from aligning with their mission

Companies that want to reassess objectives or correct problem areas that prevent them from growing

Outline your organization’s mission, programs, resources, and where support is needed. Before you can improve your statements and approaches, you need to define what exactly they are.

Identify what internal processes are working and which ones aren’t. Pinpoint which processes are causing problems, creating bottlenecks , or could otherwise use improving. Then prioritize which internal processes will have the biggest positive impact on your business.

Identify solutions. Work with the respective teams when you’re creating a new strategy to benefit from their experience and perspective on the current situation.

Update your strategic plan with the solutions. Update your strategic plan and monitor if implementing it is setting your business up for improvement or growth. If not, you may have to return to the drawing board and update your strategic plan with new solutions.

4. Scenario model

The scenario model works great if you combine it with other models like the basic or issue-based model. This model is particularly helpful if you need to consider external factors as well. These can be government regulations, technical, or demographic changes that may impact your business.

Organizations trying to identify strategic issues and goals caused by external factors

Identify external factors that influence your organization. For example, you should consider demographic, regulation, or environmental factors.

Review the worst case scenario the above factors could have on your organization. If you know what the worst case scenario for your business looks like, it’ll be much easier to prepare for it. Besides, it’ll take some of the pressure and surprise out of the mix, should a scenario similar to the one you create actually occur.

Identify and discuss two additional hypothetical organizational scenarios. On top of your worst case scenario, you’ll also want to define the best case and average case scenarios. Keep in mind that the worst case scenario from the previous step can often provoke strong motivation to change your organization for the better. However, discussing the other two will allow you to focus on the positive—the opportunities your business may have ahead.

Identify and suggest potential strategies or solutions. Everyone on the team should now brainstorm different ways your business could potentially respond to each of the three scenarios. Discuss the proposed strategies as a team afterward.

Uncover common considerations or strategies for your organization. There’s a good chance that your teammates come up with similar solutions. Decide which ones you like best as a team or create a new one together.

Identify the most likely scenario and the most reasonable strategy. Finally, examine which of the three scenarios is most likely to occur in the next three to five years and how your business should respond to potential changes.

5. Self-organizing model

Also called the organic planning model, the self-organizing model is a bit different from the linear approaches of the other models. You’ll have to be very patient with this method. 

This strategic planning model is all about focusing on the learning and growing process rather than achieving a specific goal. Since the organic model concentrates on continuous improvement , the process is never really over.

Large organizations that can afford to take their time

Businesses that prefer a more naturalistic, organic planning approach that revolves around common values, communication, and shared reflection

Companies that have a clear understanding of their vision

Define and communicate your organization’s cultural values . Your team can only think clearly and with solutions in mind when they have a clear understanding of your organization's values.

Communicate the planning group’s vision for the organization. Define and communicate the vision with everyone involved in the strategic planning process. This will align everyone’s ideas with your company’s vision.

Discuss what processes will help realize the organization’s vision on a regular basis. Meet every quarter to discuss strategies or tactics that will move your organization closer to realizing your vision.

6. Real-time model

This fluid model can help organizations that deal with rapid changes to their work environment. There are three levels of success in the real-time model: 

Organizational: At the organizational level, you’re forming strategies in response to opportunities or trends.

Programmatic: At the programmatic level, you have to decide how to respond to specific outcomes or environmental changes.

Operational: On the operational level, you will study internal systems, policies, and people to develop a strategy for your company.

Figuring out your competitive advantage can be difficult, but this is absolutely crucial to ensure success. Whether it’s a unique asset or strength your organization has or an outstanding execution of services or programs—it’s important that you can set yourself apart from others in the industry to succeed.

Companies that need to react quickly to changing environments

Businesses that are seeking new tools to help them align with their organizational strategy

Define your mission and vision statement. If you ever feel stuck formulating your company’s mission or vision statement, take a look at those of others. Maybe Asana’s vision statement sparks some inspiration.

Research, understand, and learn from competitor strategy and market trends. Pick a handful of competitors in your industry and find out how they’ve created success for themselves. How did they handle setbacks or challenges? What kinds of challenges did they even encounter? Are these common scenarios in the market? Learn from your competitors by finding out as much as you can about them.

Study external environments. At this point, you can combine the real-time model with the scenario model to find solutions to threats and opportunities outside of your control.

Conduct a SWOT analysis of your internal processes, systems, and resources. Besides the external factors your team has to consider, it’s also important to look at your company’s internal environment and how well you’re prepared for different scenarios.

Develop a strategy. Discuss the results of your SWOT analysis to develop a business strategy that builds toward organizational, programmatic, and operational success.

Rinse and repeat. Monitor how well the new strategy is working for your organization and repeat the planning process as needed to ensure you’re on top or, perhaps, ahead of the game. 

7. Inspirational model

This last strategic planning model is perfect to inspire and energize your team as they work toward your organization’s goals. It’s also a great way to introduce or reconnect your employees to your business strategy after a merger or acquisition.

Businesses with a dynamic and inspired start-up culture

Organizations looking for inspiration to reinvigorate the creative process

Companies looking for quick solutions and strategy shifts

Gather your team to discuss an inspirational vision for your organization. The more people you can gather for this process, the more input you will receive.

Brainstorm big, hairy audacious goals and ideas. Encouraging your team not to hold back with ideas that may seem ridiculous will do two things: for one, it will mitigate the fear of contributing bad ideas. But more importantly, it may lead to a genius idea or suggestion that your team wouldn’t have thought of if they felt like they had to think inside of the box.

Assess your organization’s resources. Find out if your company has the resources to implement your new ideas. If they don’t, you’ll have to either adjust your strategy or allocate more resources.

Develop a strategy balancing your resources and brainstorming ideas. Far-fetched ideas can grow into amazing opportunities but they can also bear great risk. Make sure to balance ideas with your strategic direction. 

Now, let’s dive into the most commonly used strategic frameworks.

8. SWOT analysis framework

One of the most popular strategic planning frameworks is the SWOT analysis . A SWOT analysis is a great first step in identifying areas of opportunity and risk—which can help you create a strategic plan that accounts for growth and prepares for threats.

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Here’s an example:

[Inline illustration] SWOT analysis (Example)

9. OKRs framework

A big part of strategic planning is setting goals for your company. That’s where OKRs come into play. 

OKRs stand for objective and key results—this goal-setting framework helps your organization set and achieve goals. It provides a somewhat holistic approach that you can use to connect your team’s work to your organization’s big-picture goals.  When team members understand how their individual work contributes to the organization’s success, they tend to be more motivated and produce better results

10. Balanced scorecard (BSC) framework

The balanced scorecard is a popular strategic framework for businesses that want to take a more holistic approach rather than just focus on their financial performance. It was designed by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in the 1990s, it’s used by companies around the globe to: 

Communicate goals

Align their team’s daily work with their company’s strategy

Prioritize products, services, and projects

Monitor their progress toward their strategic goals

Your balanced scorecard will outline four main business perspectives:

Customers or clients , meaning their value, satisfaction, and/or retention

Financial , meaning your effectiveness in using resources and your financial performance

Internal process , meaning your business’s quality and efficiency

Organizational capacity , meaning your organizational culture, infrastructure and technology, and human resources

With the help of a strategy map, you can visualize and communicate how your company is creating value. A strategy map is a simple graphic that shows cause-and-effect connections between strategic objectives. 

The balanced scorecard framework is an amazing tool to use from outlining your mission, vision, and values all the way to implementing your strategic plan .

You can use an integration like Lucidchart to create strategy maps for your business in Asana.

11. Porter’s Five Forces framework

If you’re using the real-time strategic planning model, Porter’s Five Forces are a great framework to apply. You can use it to find out what your product’s or service’s competitive advantage is before entering the market.

Developed by Michael E. Porter , the framework outlines five forces you have to be aware of and monitor:

[Inline illustration] Porter’s Five Forces framework (Infographic)

Threat of new industry entrants: Any new entry into the market results in increased pressure on prices and costs. 

Competition in the industry: The more competitors that exist, the more difficult it will be for you to create value in the market with your product or service.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers can wield more power if there are less alternatives for buyers or it’s expensive, time consuming, or difficult to switch to a different supplier.

Bargaining power of buyers: Buyers can wield more power if the same product or service is available elsewhere with little to no difference in quality.

Threat of substitutes: If another company already covers the market’s needs, you’ll have to create a better product or service or make it available for a lower price at the same quality in order to compete.

Remember, industry structures aren’t static. The more dynamic your strategic plan is, the better you’ll be able to compete in a market.

12. VRIO framework

The VRIO framework is another strategic planning tool designed to help you evaluate your competitive advantage. VRIO stands for value, rarity, imitability, and organization.

It’s a resource-based theory developed by Jay Barney. With this framework, you can study your firmed resources and find out whether or not your company can transform them into sustained competitive advantages. 

Firmed resources can be tangible (e.g., cash, tools, inventory, etc.) or intangible (e.g., copyrights, trademarks, organizational culture, etc.). Whether these resources will actually help your business once you enter the market depends on four qualities:

Valuable : Will this resource either increase your revenue or decrease your costs and thereby create value for your business?

Rare : Are the resources you’re using rare or can others use your resources as well and therefore easily provide the same product or service?

Inimitable : Are your resources either inimitable or non-substitutable? In other words, how unique and complex are your resources?

Organizational: Are you organized enough to use your resources in a way that captures their value, rarity, and inimitability?

It’s important that your resources check all the boxes above so you can ensure that you have sustained competitive advantage over others in the industry.

13. Theory of Constraints (TOC) framework

If the reason you’re currently in a strategic planning process is because you’re trying to mitigate risks or uncover issues that could hurt your business—this framework should be in your toolkit.

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a problem-solving framework that can help you identify limiting factors or bottlenecks preventing your organization from hitting OKRs or KPIs . 

Whether it’s a policy, market, or recourse constraint—you can apply the theory of constraints to solve potential problems, respond to issues, and empower your team to improve their work with the resources they have.

14. PEST/PESTLE analysis framework

The idea of the PEST analysis is similar to that of the SWOT analysis except that you’re focusing on external factors and solutions. It’s a great framework to combine with the scenario-based strategic planning model as it helps you define external factors connected to your business’s success.

PEST stands for political, economic, sociological, and technological factors. Depending on your business model, you may want to expand this framework to include legal and environmental factors as well (PESTLE). These are the most common factors you can include in a PESTLE analysis:

Political: Taxes, trade tariffs, conflicts

Economic: Interest and inflation rate, economic growth patterns, unemployment rate

Social: Demographics, education, media, health

Technological: Communication, information technology, research and development, patents

Legal: Regulatory bodies, environmental regulations, consumer protection

Environmental: Climate, geographical location, environmental offsets

15. Hoshin Kanri framework

Hoshin Kanri is a great tool to communicate and implement strategic goals. It’s a planning system that involves the entire organization in the strategic planning process. The term is Japanese and stands for “compass management” and is also known as policy management. 

This strategic planning framework is a top-down approach that starts with your leadership team defining long-term goals which are then aligned and communicated with every team member in the company. 

You should hold regular meetings to monitor progress and update the timeline to ensure that every teammate’s contributions are aligned with the overarching company goals.

Stick to your strategic goals

Whether you’re a small business just starting out or a nonprofit organization with decades of experience, strategic planning is a crucial step in your journey to success. 

If you’re looking for a tool that can help you and your team define, organize, and implement your strategic goals, Asana is here to help. Our goal-setting software allows you to connect all of your team members in one place, visualize progress, and stay on target.

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8.6 Portfolio Planning and Corporate-Level Strategy

Learning objectives.

  • Understand why a firm would want to use portfolio planning.
  • Be able to explain the limitations of portfolio planning.

Executives in charge of firms involved in many different businesses must figure out how to manage such portfolios. General Electric (GE), for example, competes in a very wide variety of industries, including financial services, insurance, television, theme parks, electricity generation, lightbulbs, robotics, medical equipment, railroad locomotives, and aircraft jet engines. When leading a company such as GE, executives must decide which units to grow, which ones to shrink, and which ones to abandon.

Portfolio planning can be a useful tool. Portfolio planning is a process that helps executives assess their firms’ prospects for success within each of its industries, offers suggestions about what to do within each industry, and provides ideas for how to allocate resources across industries. Portfolio planning first gained widespread attention in the 1970s, and it remains a popular tool among executives today.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is the best-known approach to portfolio planning ( Table 8.7 “The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix” ). Using the matrix requires a firm’s businesses to be categorized as high or low along two dimensions: its share of the market and the growth rate of its industry. High market share units within slow-growing industries are called cash cows . Because their industries have bleak prospects, profits from cash cows should not be invested back into cash cows but rather diverted to more promising businesses. Low market share units within slow-growing industries are called dogs . These units are good candidates for divestment. High market share units within fast-growing industries are called stars . These units have bright prospects and thus are good candidates for growth. Finally, low-market-share units within fast-growing industries are called question marks . Executives must decide whether to build these units into stars or to divest them.

8.6.0 R

Owning a puppy is fun, but companies may want to avoid owning units that are considered to be dogs.

Jonathan Kriz – Puppy – CC BY 2.0.

The BCG matrix is just one portfolio planning technique. With the help of a leading consulting firm, GE developed the attractiveness-strength matrix to examine its diverse activities. This planning approach involves rating each of a firm’s businesses in terms of the attractiveness of the industry and the firm’s strength within the industry. Each dimension is divided into three categories, resulting in nine boxes. Each of these boxes has a set of recommendations associated with it.

Table 8.7 The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is the best-known approach to portfolio planning—assessing a firm’s prospects for success within the industries in which it competes. The matrix categorizes businesses as high or low along two dimensions—the firm’s market share in each industry and the growth rate of each industry. Suggestions are then offered about how to approach each industry.

Limitations to Portfolio Planning

Although portfolio planning is a useful tool, this tool has important limitations. First, portfolio planning oversimplifies the reality of competition by focusing on just two dimensions when analyzing a company’s operations within an industry. Many dimensions are important to consider when making strategic decisions, not just two. Second, portfolio planning can create motivational problems among employees. For example, if workers know that their firm’s executives believe in the BCG matrix and that their subsidiary is classified as a dog, then they may give up any hope for the future. Similarly, workers within cash cow units could become dismayed once they realize that the profits that they help create will be diverted to boost other areas of the firm. Third, portfolio planning does not help identify new opportunities. Because this tool only deals with existing businesses, it cannot reveal what new industries a firm should consider entering.

Key Takeaway

  • Portfolio planning is a useful tool for analyzing a firm’s operations, but this tool has limitations. The BCG matrix is one of the most widely used approaches to portfolio planning.
  • Is market share a good dimension to use when analyzing the prospects of a business? Why or why not?
  • What might executives do to keep employees within dog units motivated and focused on their jobs?

Mastering Strategic Management Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Strategic Planning (Overview)

Last updated 31 May 2020

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What is meant by the term strategic planning? This revision video for A-Level Business students explains the concept and links it to some key strategic planning models.

  • Strategic planning
  • SWOT Analysis
  • Planned Strategy

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Marketing: swot analysis and marketing (gcse), what is strategy, business planning - introduction, marketing planning: what is a mission statement, the role of competitor analysis, our subjects.

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How Fast Should Your Company Really Grow?

  • Gary P. Pisano

strategic planning corporate level

Growth—in revenues and profits—is the yardstick by which the competitive fitness and health of organizations is measured. Consistent profitable growth is thus a near universal goal for leaders—and an elusive one.

To achieve that goal, companies need a growth strategy that encompasses three related sets of decisions: how fast to grow, where to seek new sources of demand, and how to develop the financial, human, and organizational capabilities needed to grow. This article offers a framework for examining the critical interdependencies of those decisions in the context of a company’s overall business strategy, its capabilities and culture, and external market dynamics.

Why leaders should take a strategic perspective

Idea in Brief

The problem.

Sustained profitable growth is a nearly universal corporate goal, but it is an elusive one. Empirical research suggests that when inflation is taken into account, most companies barely grow at all.

While external factors play a role, most companies’ growth problems are self-inflicted: Too many firms approach growth in a highly reactive, opportunistic manner.

The Solution

To grow profitably over the long term, companies need a strategy that addresses three key decisions: how fast to grow (rate of growth); where to seek new sources of demand (direction of growth); and how to amass the resources needed to grow (method of growth).

Perhaps no issue attracts more senior leadership attention than growth does. And for good reason. Growth—in revenues and profits—is the yardstick by which we tend to measure the competitive fitness and health of companies and determine the quality and compensation of its management. Analysts, investors, and boards pepper CEOs about growth prospects to get insight into stock prices. Employees are attracted to faster-growing companies because they offer better opportunities for advancement, higher pay, and greater job security. Suppliers prefer faster-growing customers because working with them improves their own growth prospects. Given the choice, most companies and their stakeholders would choose faster growth over slower growth.

Five elements can move you beyond episodic success.

  • Gary P. Pisano is the Harry E. Figgie Jr. Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the author of Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation (PublicAffairs, 2019).

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  • “Beyond GBS” organizations strengthen their ownership of end-to-end outcomes. They run GBS like a business in terms of performance, cost, and service levels, and they attract more attention from the C-suite.
  • They lead digitization initiatives, scale their best practices internally using consistent structures and processes globally, and provide new value-added services adjacent to their core delivery.
  • Implementing this model involves building a robust digital and data backbone, fostering internal partnerships, and redefining the GBS mandate to include value-added activities beyond traditional transactional processes.

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/ article, transforming global business services into a strategic function.

By  Fabrice Roghé ,  Sascha Kleebaur , and  Kai Sondermann

Key Takeaways

Once a revolutionary organization inside many companies, global business services (GBS) today stands at a crossroads. Created in the 1990s to centralize transactional tasks for finance, HR, and other internal units, many GBS functions have reached a strategic tipping point—requiring corporate leaders to make crucial decisions on the future of their GBS organizations.

A recent BCG study showed that only 41% of companies believe that GBS creates value. With that in mind, the leaders of these support functions must raise their game at a time when companies around the world face unprecedented challenges in how they operate. Marginal adjustments to GBS strategy are no longer sufficient.

As the limitations of traditional models become evident, GBS must transition from a purely operational role to a more strategic one. Although global business service organizations have been at the forefront of change in the past, they now need to reinvent themselves to build support and enabling functions that are more resilient, flexible, and scalable. They also need to expand their charters and provide more value-added activities such as collections and payments, customer management, and even sales functions.

The next generation of GBS functions are becoming more closely intertwined with corporate success—and the GBS model, as a key amplifier of change, is about to take center stage, creating value beyond its legacy contributions. GBS can lead the transformation of areas such as customer experience , operations , and worker training. This requires corporations to adopt a new mindset—and a new framework that we call “Beyond GBS.”

A Bold Vision for Global Business Services

Under the traditional GBS model, C-suite and GBS executives alike have focused largely on consolidating tasks, maximizing transactional processing efficiency, and minimizing costs by bundling resources and operating from low-cost locations around the world.

But the legacy model may have hit its limits: between 2009 and 2021, overhead costs—as measured by sales and general administration—grew 35% more than overall corporate margins, giving rise to what’s known as the “GBS value dilemma.”

This creates three imperatives for GBS organizations:

  • To further strengthen their ownership of end-to-end outcomes
  • To run GBS like a business in terms of performance, cost, and service levels
  • To attract more attention from the C-suite

The “Beyond GBS” model puts these imperatives into practice. It offers a bold vision, strategy, mandate, and governance structure that is aligned with the company’s strategic direction and initiatives and promoted by the group, business, and functional leadership. “Beyond GBS” organizations lead digitization initiatives, scale their best practices internally around the world using consistent structures and processes, and provide new value-added services adjacent to their core delivery.

Taking Support Functions to the Next Level

“Beyond GBS” is the highest of five levels in the support-function journey. At the first, or bottom, level are the roughly 15% of companies that either have no GBS function or have standalone centers siloed across multiple geographies. Companies at this level suffer the most: one company we’ve studied has 117,000 accounting cost centers for 72,000 employees, 150 reporting lines between shared services and the business units they support, and a $5 billion gap in cost optimization versus their peers.

The second level, representing 40% of companies, are those organizations still running multifunctional service factories. The third level and fourth levels, each representing another 20% of companies, consist of organizations with integrated global support functions.

The fifth, and highest, level consists of the roughly 5% of all companies who have gone beyond GBS. These companies have digitized transactional activities and developed effective platform deliveries and end-to-end solutions. They achieve all this while rebalancing workloads seamlessly between global worksites.

Reaching this top level remains a challenge for many companies. In our experience, GBS organizations achieve roughly 80% of the potential gains—the low-hanging fruit, in other words—if they depend on labor arbitrage, process efficiencies, and the first-time digitization of processes. Despite the complexity and high costs of most GBS initiatives, GBS teams tend to hit an early ceiling and incremental improvements tend to be small. This is particularly true for laggard GBS functions, which represent about two-thirds of all organizations.

The success of GBS organizations is mainly limited by weakly aligned top-management GBS priorities, a nonaligned target picture, and subsequently having a very rigid governance and ineffective steering of the GBS model. Leapfrogging from a less mature GBS model to an advanced one has only proven successful in isolated cases, given the lack of synchronized implementation across the organization. Thus, rather than focusing on incremental improvement of traditional practices—which add value for no more than 10% of companies—companies need to completely rethink and redesign the GBS function.

How to Get Started

Before implementing the best practices of the “Beyond GBS” model, corporate leaders must ensure that they have a firm foundation in place. That starts with an enhanced digital and data backbone with the latest technology solutions and continues with the following three building blocks:

  • An agile internal customer front line that brings GBS close to its customers and fosters rapid delivery of services and a responsive iteration of new offerings
  • A highly effective delivery platform that drives exceptional operations, focuses on value-adding activities, and attracts high-quality employees
  • A digital innovation center that delivers a steady stream of new capabilities and technologies, enabling constant improvement in the GBS unit’s interfaces and delivery platforms

Assured that a solid foundation is in place, organizations can then begin implementing the “Beyond GBS” model. There are five steps companies should take to unlock the most business value:

1. Forge internal “value partnerships.” This step repositions GBS teams from a siloed, transactional processing unit to a partner that can help other business units optimize their processes to create total company value through outcome- and impact-based solutions.

2. Boldly rescope your mandate. Leaders need to think beyond the transactional core mindset of the past to a bolder, broader, and even more radical vision of what GBS can provide. To be sure, transactional processing cannot be ignored. But by embracing AI and analytics, GBS can play a valuable role in ESG and compliance reporting and user experience design—all with a clear link to overall strategy and business outcomes. Once the foundation is secured, GBS leaders have an opportunity to sell the CEO and C-suite team on a broader charter.

3. Expand talent and capability access. To expand beyond extended-workbench thinking requires the creation of vibrant capability hubs and global capability teams that provide nonclassical GBS services, including R&D and other center-of-expertise activities. This shift allows these services to collocate to locations with the best mix of cost and talent. At the same time, attracting and retaining the best talent remain priorities and can be enhanced with upskilling and cross-skilling initiatives. This approach places greater emphasis on expertise and digital capabilities.

4. Rethink global ways of working. This critical step moves teams beyond the obligatory, if not forced, cross-functional and organizational alignment to a new model promoting institutionalized global ownership. This includes a globally organized mandate and the formation of distributed teams with global coverage. The goal is to maximize the contribution of global team members. GBS leaders can play a key role in fostering global functional ownership that enhances the contributions of these global teams.

5. Build in scale and resilience. The optimal setup for a “Beyond GBS” approach is a platform-based operating and technology model that provides agility, flexibility, and a healthy redundancy of globalized and localized services along a multicapability hub infrastructure that leverages external partners. The three key components of this model are a customer-centric interface, an agile (and digital) “center of competence,” and a global network of shared delivery platforms managed by the GBS team and vendors as needed. This setup ensures the company is globally resilient even as it scales—and enables the company to continuously rebalance workloads based on the geopolitical climate.

In the “Beyond GBS” model, vibrant service hubs are built around a globally consistent, modular approach that enables new “plug-and-play” services. This approach also allows for the collocation of noncore GBS functions at hubs to leverage GBS’s infrastructure costs and capabilities in the broader organizational ecosystem.

The main objective, of course, is to attract and retain the best talent while operating at the lowest costs. In addition, building out core process standards atop a digital and data backbone based on the latest tech solutions will create even more value. Leading these efforts are GBS’s global process owners, who will shape service operations globally and lead process optimization and digitization initiatives.

The evolution of the traditional GBS function into a more strategic business unit creates vast new opportunities for companies. By expanding beyond its historic back-office role, GBS teams can provide real value and drive impact rather than maintaining rigid structures and services. Solutions will become innovative and highly customized. And most important, “Beyond GBS” functions operate as business-like entities—actively managed by leading talent and measured against clear outcomes.

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Managing Director & Senior Partner

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Partner and Associate Director

Kai Sondermann

Partner and Associate Director, Organization Transformation

ABOUT BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

© Boston Consulting Group 2024. All rights reserved.

For information or permission to reprint, please contact BCG at [email protected] . To find the latest BCG content and register to receive e-alerts on this topic or others, please visit bcg.com . Follow Boston Consulting Group on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) .

A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

How Early Adopters of Gen AI Are Gaining Efficiencies

February 20, 2024 • 10 min read.

Enterprises are seeing gains from generative AI in productivity and strategic planning, according to speakers at a recent Wharton conference.

strategic planning corporate level

Generative AI can affect managerial decision-making in “a transformative way” by boosting value generation, according to Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe , Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions. Tambe is also faculty co-director of AI at Wharton , which fosters AI activities across the University of Pennsylvania. He was speaking at a conference hosted jointly by Wharton’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management and AI at Wharton in November 2023, titled “ Driving Innovation with Generative AI: Strategies and Execution. ”

Its unique strengths in translation, summation, and content generation are especially useful in processing unstructured data. Some 80% of all new data in enterprises is unstructured, he noted, citing research firm Gartner . Very little of that unstructured data that resides in places like emails “is used effectively at the point of decision making,” he noted. “[With gen AI], we have a real opportunity” to garner new insights from all the information that resides in emails, team communication platforms like Slack, and agile project management tools like Jira, he said.

Those insights will be helpful in a variety of ways, such as more accurately predicting delivery times for say, software development projects, Tambe said. In recent work, he and his research colleagues found “enormous potential” in one specific use case, where they processed raw patent texts and gained more accurate “blue-ocean” insights than was previously possible. They brought a superior understanding of “where firms are innovating, and where there’s room for an entry-level firm to innovate,” he added.

“With generative AI, one important use case is to take these millions of documents in any context and try to boil them down into a small set of factors that managers can understand,” Tambe said. “Generative AI tools can be used to create intuitive answers to questions, and the technology is better at representing ideas in a way that’s intuitive for people to understand.”

“Generative AI tools can be used to create intuitive answers to questions, and the technology is better at representing ideas in a way that’s intuitive for people to understand.” — Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe

For enterprises, gen AI’s power in providing personalized learning will “fundamentally allow people to learn on their own terms, and meet them where they are,” said Scott Snyder , a senior fellow at the Mack Institute and chief digital officer at EVERSANA, a provider of commercialization services to the life sciences industry. He shared those perspectives as he moderated a conference panel that delved into how businesses can leverage large language models (LLMs) using their proprietary data for training and fine-tuning commercial and open-source foundation models.

”As a digital leader, you’re always looking for the burning platform, and we had it handed to us with the pandemic,” Snyder said. “It forced us all to operate completely differently as companies. All of a sudden we were distributed virtual companies.”

“I see gen AI as the same kind of burning platform,” Snyder noted. “In fact, it’s caught the attention of executives like nothing I’ve ever seen. Eighty percent of executives surveyed now say this will impact their company and industries significantly, but only about 50% think they have the capabilities to fully realize its potential ; 92% of Fortune 500 companies are doing something or building something with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Now everybody is a data scientist in some ways.”

Gains in Strategic Planning and Customer Service

Gen AI can help enterprises become more efficient strategic planning in new ways. Gen AI’s ability to process millions of text documents also helps identify “actionable factors” for organizations, Tambe noted. For instance, it could help companies analyze competition dynamics in their industries and plan on allocating their resources and investing, said he said. Or, it could find uses in performance reviews and instilling corporate culture.

“If you want to take 30,000 performance reviews every year over 10 years and boil it down to a small number of factors that people most care about at your company, such as culture or fairness, what are those few things?” he asked. “How can you boil information from say, thousands of customer service conversations, down into an actionable number of factors? Gen AI can help us distill all that data and represent it back to decision-makers in a way that they can start to act on it.”

Enterprise-level learning is another area where gen AI has big promise. Chris Callison-Burch , professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania said, “These pre-trained models can do amazing work with learning.” As it happens, his research areas include natural language processing, from where sprung large language models.

Callison-Burch pointed in particular to a feature called RAG, or ”retrieval augmented generation,” which allows users to post web queries to retrieve information and summarize it. Enterprises could also use that tool to upload their internal documents and index them for retrieval via semantic search. “Those are super exciting,” he said.

“[Gen AI] is about marrying the AI and the humans, and the companies that figure out how to unlock that are going to get there the fastest.” — Scott Snyder

A Measured Adoption Curve

Businesses are not rushing in to use gen AI, and their adoption curve is dictated by the risk sensitivity of their activities, among other factors. Avi Patel , chief marketing officer and chief data scientist at Fulton Bank, said companies are experimenting with gen AI, but at a measured pace. “Companies should stay current with gen AI and learn what works and what doesn’t work for them.”

In especially tightly regulated industries, companies will try out gen AI based on the risk sensitivity of their activities, Patel continued. For instance, they might begin by experimenting with gen AI in relatively lower-risk tasks such as document summarization, which would enable their teams to be more effective in their daily jobs, he said. One concern would be the risk of sensitive documents getting leaked out in the process of summarization with third-party tools, he explained.

Other early adopters of gen AI are focusing initially on activities with low complexity, such as Automation Anywhere, which provides automation services to businesses. Tejasvi Devaru , vice president of business applications and data at the firm, is encouraged by some early success with gen AI. His firm had rolled out more than 20 use cases in the six months prior to the conference. In one case involving robotic process automation in the customer service area, his firm was able to automate 60% to 65% of workflows, which freed up the team to focus on escalated emails and provide better customer service. That amounted to savings of nearly 10,000 hours, he said.

In another instance, Devaru’s team tapped GPT to extract specific information from purchase orders to ensure accuracy between sales orders and customer purchase orders. It allowed them to extract “structured information from unstructured documents such as purchase orders,” he said, noting that it was challenging to sift through product information and other details for more than 20,000 purchase contracts with each customer having a different format. Traditional methods were too expensive or time consuming. Devaru’s team is using GPT to process information for about 80% of the purchase contracts, which happen to be relatively less complex. But that shift to GPT is already making a big impact in improving cash flows by about $850,000, he said.

Automation Anywhere is counting gains also in its customer service “deflection rate,” which is a measure of customer support requests that are resolved through self-service mechanisms like chatbots and tutorials, without human intervention. “Right now we have a 30% deflection rate, and we want to increase that to 60%,” Devaru said.

One big challenge for users of gen AI is its so-called “hallucination” problem, where inadequately trained data can produce output that is inaccurate or biased, and does not match real-world settings. “It becomes a problem if you want to solve a business case that requires higher accuracy, and having a human-in-the loop in these scenarios is useful,” said Devaru.

“Companies should stay current with gen AI and learn what works and what doesn’t work for them.” — Avi Patel

Early Questions Facing Gen AI Users

Businesses that want to use gen AI will necessarily have to make some choices based on their specific requirements, Devaru noted. One is to pick the technology that works for them from among the roughly 17,000 large language models that currently exist; ChatGPT is only one of those. “We need to think about what the business use case is and which language model to use for that,” he said. Some, like Google’s Bard, are especially useful in dealing with security threats, while others like OpenAI Ada are good at summarizing documents, he added.

Another question for business users is to decide whether they should use a public model like ChatGPT that is on the cloud versus using an in-house model. Even if a company were to use a public model, it could incorporate security features such as ensuring that its proprietary data is not used by its gen AI provider to train language models, or anonymizing its information before sending it to the gen AI provider, Devaru said.

As companies get more and more comfortable with gen AI and begin to see tangible gains, they would use the technology for higher-level or more sensitive activities. “[For now], companies are likely to think about very, very low-risk items,” Patel said. “But the biggest impact will be when companies use their tabular data and the power of context learning in large language models to understand risks relating to customers, or their likelihood of purchasing the next product,” he added.

Another gen AI feature that Devaru is excited about is the ability to translate from conversation or text to SQL (structured query language), which allows access to databases. “The use case that we are thinking about is exposing a conversational user interface to our leaders where they could get responses to questions like ‘What’s our sales data for the last quarter? Or what are our biggest deals in a quarter? How is it trending?’” he said. “That’s the power we want to unlock.”

Snyder, whose company EVERSANA is in the life sciences industry, sees even bigger possibilities ahead. “There are so many that I get excited about, like giving a voice back to people that have lost it because you can now generate it from their previous history and conversations. Or sight,” he said.

“Ultimately, I think of AI not as artificial intelligence, but augmented intelligence,” Snyder said. “It’s about marrying the AI and the humans, and the companies that figure out how to unlock that are going to get there the fastest.”

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Start » strategy, 9 steps to creating a procurement process for your small business.

An effective procurement strategy is the foundation for implementation success. Learn how to plan your approach, choose the right technologies, and find suitable suppliers.

 A small business owner checks a delivery. Before her is an open box. She is holding the shipping invoice in her right hand and comparing it against the goods delivered.

Disruptions, shortages, and out-of-stock situations impact your uptime and ability to meet customer expectations. Indeed, in the second quarter of 2023, supply chain issues remained a top concern for 23% of small business owners, according to the MetLife and U.S. Chamber Small Business Index . A procurement strategy increases supply chain visibility and resiliency while reducing your financial and operational risks.

In addition, a purposeful approach to procurement can save your company money and bolster relationships with suppliers. Follow this step-by-step guide to develop a procurement process suitable for your business goals and needs.

1. Assess your needs, goals, and budget

Procurement cycles differ by company; small and medium businesses (SMBs) should refrain from trying to create a one-size-fits-all plan. Instead, complete an internal review to learn what goods and services each department requires. Categorize these as direct (raw materials or services for production) or indirect (supports business activities). Then, break them into goods or services. Remember to include pricing and quantities to understand the spend for each group.

This step aims to see how much your business spends on direct and indirect goods and services. These figures will give you an idea of how procurement can benefit your company and how a strategy can help you overcome supply chain challenges .

[ Read more: 6 Ways to Protect Your Business From a Supply Chain Disruption ]

2. Establish metrics to measure your procurement performance

Procurement key performance indicators (KPIs) track your company’s efficiency and process goals. Monitoring metrics increases visibility into your supply chain and shows where you’re improving or need further action. You should set small business KPIs before beginning any new process.

Consider tracking the following metrics:

  • Rate of emergency purchases.
  • Procurement return on investment (ROI) and benefits.
  • Supplier defect rate.
  • Purchase order (PO) and invoice accuracy.
  • Compliance rate.
  • Supplier lead time.
  • Vendor availability.
  • PO cycle time.
  • Cost per invoice and PO.
  • Procurement ROI and benefits.
  • Spend under management.
  • Price competitiveness.

[ Read more: Big Brands’ Inventory Management Partners Share Top Tips to Slay Supply Chain Snarls ]

3. Consider current and new procurement technologies

Capterra stated, “Nearly 30% of SMBs plan to implement a new supply chain management tool in 2023.” Moreover, MHI predicts that “digital supply chains will be the norm” by 2033.

Although companies can choose an all-in-one procure-to-pay suite, Capterra found that many organizations opt for specialized tools. Niche programs are easier to use, integrate, and deploy.

See if your current software supports your procurement process, and while planning your strategy, look for opportunities to automate tasks using supply chain tech . Doing so can decrease errors and save time, allowing your procurement team to focus on high-value activities instead of data entry.

Procurement software solutions fall into the following categories (and several tools cover multiple areas):

  • Accounts payable and spend analysis: This software helps companies understand the procurement process and find cost-saving opportunities. Solutions include Coupa , SAP Ariba , Precoro , and PRM360 .
  • Procure to pay: These end-to-end platforms centralize many procurement activities. Consider solutions like mjPRO , Procurify , Precoro , Basware , and MHC Software .
  • Purchasing: Automate your approval workflows and view real-time spend data with SAP S/4HANA Cloud , Emburse Certify Expense , Spendwise , Veeqo , Unleashed , Planergy , Teampay , and Order.co .
  • Request for proposal (RFP): Create a central database for your procurement documents and use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve your workflows. Software solutions include Responsive (formerly RFPIO), Loopio , Avnio Response Cloud , RFP360 , QorusDocs , and RocketDocs .
  • Spend management: Manage your expenses automatically and visualize your costs with software like BILL Spend & Expense (Formerly Divvy), Ramp , Brex , Airbase , and Spendesk .
  • Strategic sourcing: Automate your sourcing and procurement process with software such as aPriori , Procol , and Anvyl .
  • Vendor management: Review, track, and manage suppliers with solutions from QuickBooks Online , Vanta , SAP Fieldglass , Venminder , Ncontracts , and Tradeshift Pay .

4. Find and evaluate suppliers

Identify vendors for each good, electronic component, service, raw material, or service your business requires. Obtain supply market intelligence using free resources from the U.S. Small Business Association and the U.S. Census Bureau . Also, consider paid services, such as IBIS World , Crain’s , Bloomberg , and Gartner . Consider each vendor’s cost structure, market information, past performance, and commodity profile.

This prescreening process is enough to move to the next stage for some services and goods (office supplies or standard maintenance items like grease). However, you should further evaluate complex parts and essential production components when the products substantially impact your budget and production capacity. The more risk that’s involved, the more time you should dedicate to the vetting process.

Consider criteria such as the following:

  • Location: Review the geographic stability, distance from your company, and supply chain infrastructure.
  • Cultural and language differences: Determine if barriers will cause communication issues during the process.
  • Working conditions: Focus on health and safety practices, child labor usage, and general working conditions.
  • Employee capabilities: See if there is a history of labor disputes or strikes, the turnover rate, and the workforce skill level.
  • Cost structure: Go over the total costs, including production, marketing, material, administrative, and supply chain expenses.
  • Technological capabilities: Consider the company’s approach to technology in design, equipment, processes, methods, and any current or future investments in research and development.
  • Quality control: Look at what system they use and record to ensure consistency for current and anticipated demand.

In the second quarter of 2023, supply chain issues remained a top concern for 23% of small business owners, according to the MetLife and U.S. Chamber Small Business Index.

5. Choose a sourcing strategy

After approving a purchase, your procurement team must select a supplier and either buy directly from them, send an RFP or a request for quote (RFQ), or enter into an agreement.

An RFP solicits bids from suppliers. It should outline your project and provide delivery requirements, financial terms, pricing structure, and product or service details. Alternatively, a company uses an RFQ when they only need a price quote, not information about products or services.

[ Read more: Do You Have a Supply Chain Backup Plan? How to Plan Ahead ]

6. Select suppliers and negotiate

Once you review the documents and choose a supplier, it’s time to negotiate vendor contracts . The agreement should outline the scope of work, delivery dates, budget, contract duration, legalities, terms, and conditions.

It’s important to remember that, ideally, you’re building a long-term relationship. You need to get the best deal possible. At the same time, compromise is part of negotiation.

7. Finalize documents and keep records

The onboarding process begins immediately after signing and approving the contract. Larger organizations often require individuals to complete a purchase requisition (PR). This form requests the procured goods or services and requires approval from an internal department manager or leader.

From there, the business creates a purchase order (PO). This document goes to the supplier and details the services or goods and negotiated terms and conditions.

Small businesses should keep all records on file, whether those records are paper files or digital forms. Doing so helps show your overall ROI and can support you when negotiating future vendor payment terms . Moreover, it’s essential for business tax and audit purposes.

Store the following documents:

  • Supplier invoices.
  • Delivery reports.
  • Company policies.
  • Purchase orders.
  • Packing lists.
  • RFPs and RFQs.
  • Procurement budget approvals.
  • Goods received note.

8. Inspect shipments and pay suppliers

Check out your first shipment to ensure everything is in good condition and in the correct quantity. Also, note if the supplier met the delivery schedule and satisfied the services outlined in the contract. If you have any concerns, contact the vendor for a meeting. Otherwise, you can go over the invoice for payment.

Companies often use the three-way matching method. It compares the purchase order, invoice, and itemized list for accuracy. From there (depending on your payment terms), your financial department will process the payment and send it to the supplier.

9. Review and adjust your procurement strategy

All business strategies are living documents. Nothing, including contracts, is set in stone.

Your procurement KPIs will highlight opportunities for improvement and areas where you could save money by adjusting your process or negotiating better contract terms. Likewise, you may realize inefficient processes are driving up administrative costs. In this case, automated spend management software or vendor management tools can boost productivity while reducing errors and ensuring policy compliance.

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Local News | CSUF’s Strategic Plan includes a focus on…

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Local News | CSUF’s Strategic Plan includes a focus on enhancing students’ experience

strategic planning corporate level

Before announcing the goals of Cal State Fullerton’s Strategic Plan for 2024-2029, university President Sylvia Alva outlined the six values that served as a guide to develop the plan:

Student success, faculty and staff diversity, equity and inclusion, scholarly and creative activities, shared governance, and civic and community engagement.

Titled “Fullerton Forward,” the Strategic Plan for the next five years was presented Feb. 7 at the Meng Concert Hall with hundreds from the Titan community in attendance and more watching via livestream.

From left are Elva Rubalcava, chief of staff; Tonantzin Oseguera,...

From left are Elva Rubalcava, chief of staff; Tonantzin Oseguera, vice president, Student Affairs; Alexander Porter, vice president, Administration and Finance, and chief financial officer; Su Swarat, senior associate vice president, Institutional Effectiveness and Planning; Sylvia A. Alva, president; Amir Dabirian, provost and vice president, Academic Affairs; and David Forgues, vice president, Human Resources, Diversity and Inclusion. (Courtesy of CSUF News Media Services)

Some of the members of CSUF’s Strategic Plan Development Committee...

Some of the members of CSUF’s Strategic Plan Development Committee (Courtesy of CSUF News Media Services)

President Sylvia Alva addresses attendees at the presentation event for...

President Sylvia Alva addresses attendees at the presentation event for the Cal State Fullerton 2024-2029 Strategic Plan. (Courtesy of CSUF News Media Services)

“These values point us in the direction to envision an even brighter future and the opportunity to be more strategic and mission-driven in our work,” Alva said. “Cal State Fullerton is an extraordinary place that serves as a model university where members of our community have come together to define who we are and, more importantly, who we want to become.”

To develop the Strategic Plan, the 52-member Strategic Plan Development Committee hosted 28 campus forums in 2023, inviting students, faculty, staff, administrators, community partners and alumni to share their ideas.

Co-chairs of the committee were sociology professor Eileen Walsh and Su Swarat, associate vice president of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning.

More than 5,600 individuals participated and responded with more than 3,600 entries of feedback by individuals and groups.

The five goals of the Strategic Plan for 2024-2029 are:

Enhance support for student access, learning and academic successFoster student engagement and well-beingRecruit, develop and retain high-quality and diverse faculty and staffExpand and strengthen physical and financial capacity and community relationsInnovate and improve campus operations

“The Strategic Plan is not one person’s plan,” Walsh said. “When we set out to envision how we will bring this plan together, the number one priority was for the committee to ensure that the plan reflects the diversity and the voices of our broad university community and that it represents our collective dreams and hopes.”

Strategies for reaching each goal were announced, along with the goal’s overall objectives and criteria for measuring its progress.

The objective of the first goal is to “expand access to higher education for all learners, enrich their learning experience through diverse and innovative academic offerings and enhance support services and infrastructure to ensure not only students’ timely graduation, but also their mastery of the knowledge and skills needed to reach professional and personal goals,” said HyeKyeung Seung, chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, who led the development of the goal. “In developing this goal, we aimed to reflect the changes in our student population, prepare for changes in the higher education landscape and incorporate the voices of our students.”

The second goal’s objective is to “support student success and holistic growth in an inclusive campus environment.”

The objective of goal No.3 — to recruit, develop and retain high-quality and diverse faculty and staff —  is a continuation of the same goal in the Strategic Plan for 2018-2023.

Goal No.4 calls for expanding and strengthening CSUF’s physical and financial capacity and community relations.

The fourth goal was also part of the Strategic Plan for 2018-2023, noted political science professor Stephen Stambough, who led the formation of the goal for the new strategic plan.

“We will not only continue our efforts of campus modernization and financial capacity growth but also amplify them,” Stambaugh said. “We aim to augment our revenue opportunities and philanthropic investment and also expand support for externally funded research.”

Goal No.5 reflects a major collective ask from the campus community, said goal chair Nina Garcia, executive assistant and special projects liaison in Human Resources.

“In many convenings, in committee meetings, we heard time and time again that our community wants to break down silos, remove administrative barriers, and also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our operations,” Garcia said.

President Alva said the new Strategic Plan is being built on the success of the 2018-23 Strategic Plan, which exceeded all of its goals in providing a “transformational educational experience and environment for all students.”

Accomplishments included recruitment and retention of a more diverse faculty and staff.

Graduation rates increased for freshmen and transfer students, and resources were put in place to help ensure the success of graduate students.

The “It Takes a Titan” philanthropic campaign raised more than $270 million, enabling campuswide infrastructure and facilities upgrades, additional academic resources and enhanced programming.

“The outcomes of the 2018-2023 strategic plan are clearly impressive and propel the university forward,” Alva said. “Today, we build on that superb work.”

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IMAGES

  1. Three Levels of Strategy: Corporate, Business and Functional EXPLAINED

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  3. Engage the Entire Organization in Strategic Planning in Business and at

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COMMENTS

  1. Corporate Level Strategy: Explained with Examples and Types

    A corporate-level strategy refers to the overarching strategic plan that dictates the direction of the entire organization. It's the highest level of strategy, covering all of the firm's diverse operations, and is typically set by top management and the board of directors. Key aspects of corporate-level strategy include:

  2. What is Corporate Strategic Planning?

    1) Competitive Analysis A competitive analysis needs to be conducted, to understand the trends that could impact the success of your strategy. Common factors that could be analyzed include political, legal, social, environmental, technological. There may be other factors you may want to consider that are relevant to your business and industry.

  3. What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

    How to build an organizational strategy Get our free ebook and learn how to bridge the gap between mission, strategic goals, and work at your organization. Get the ebook What is strategic planning? Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years.

  4. The 4 Levels Of Strategy: The Difference & How To Apply Them

    The 4 Levels Of Strategy: The Difference & How To Apply Them Article by Cascade Team — Published November 8, 2023 Every business leader should be familiar with the different levels of strategy. Like any business, strategy comes in various shapes and sizes. The strategy for a multi-national company will contrast with one from a startup.

  5. What Is a Corporate-Level Strategy? (With Examples)

    A corporate-level strategy is a multi-tiered company plan that leaders use to define, outline and achieve specific business goals.

  6. Strategic Planning: A Guide to Develop a Strategic Plan

    Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its direction and long-term goals, creating specific plans to achieve them, implementing those plans, and evaluating the results. On one hand, that definition makes strategy planning sound like a Business 101 concept—define your goals and a plan to achieve them.

  7. The Strategic Planning Process in 4 Steps

    Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness Set up your plan for success - questions to ask: Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain pitfalls be avoided? Is this the appropriate time for your organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no, where do you go from here?

  8. What Is Corporate Strategy? The Four Key Components

    Corporate-level strategy is the highest level of corporate strategic planning. (We'll dive deeper into it in this guide). Business-level strategy Business-level strategy connects the strategic goals of the company strategy with the needs and capacities of the business unit level.

  9. Strategic Planning Tools: What, Why, How, Template

    Strategic planning starts with setting strategy at the enterprise level, but that strategy must then be turned into action. The three levels of strategic planning typically refer to corporate versus business unit and functional.

  10. The Ultimate Guide to Corporate Strategic Planning

    Corporate strategy includes all the steps in strategic planning that turn your high-level goals into actionable objectives, maintain and elevate your competitive position and provide quantifiable feedback to keep a flexible and workable strategic framework. In This Article What Is Corporate Strategic Planning?

  11. Breaking Down The Three Levels Of Strategy In Any Business

    Level 1: The Corporate Level Level 2: The Business Unit Level Level 3: The Functional Level Having a solid understanding of these levels of strategy will help you break your strategy into the correct levels, so you can align your company-wide goals from the top of your organization (the corporate level) to the bottom (the functional level).

  12. Strategic Planning

    All three steps in strategic planning occur within three hierarchical levels: upper management, middle management, and operational levels. Thus, it is imperative to foster communication and interaction among employees and managers at all levels, so as to help the firm to operate as a more functional and effective team.

  13. Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

    Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization's goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning. It's ...

  14. Strategic Planning in Diversified Companies

    Strategic Planning in Diversified Companies. by. Richard F. Vancil. and. Peter Lorange. From the Magazine (January 1975) The widely accepted theory of corporate strategic planning is simple: using ...

  15. Business Level Strategy Examples & Types for Corporate Strategy Success

    A business level strategy involves the stratgeic planning and actions taken to set the direction for a particular business unit. It's about how a company aims to excel and gain an edge in a specific market area or industry.

  16. Corporate Planning

    Corporate planning is the process through which companies draw a map of their plan of action that enables their growth in quantifiable terms. It is typically carried out through the top-level management of the company. It is a medium-term goal that acts as the basis for macro-level planning, called strategic planning.

  17. PDF How to write a strategic plan

    Overcoming Challenges and Pitfalls. Challenge of consensus over clarity. Challenge of who provides input versus who decides. Preparing a long, ambitious, 5 year plan that sits on a shelf. Finding a balance between process and a final product. Communicating and executing the plan. Lack of alignment between mission, action, and finances.

  18. What is Strategic Planning? Definition and Steps

    Strategic planning is a process in which organizational leaders determine their vision for the future as well as identify their goals and objectives for the organization. The process also includes establishing the sequence in which those goals should fall so that the organization is enabled to reach its stated vision .

  19. Three Levels of Strategy: Corporate Strategy, Business Strategy and

    These three levels are: Corporate-level strategy, Business-level strategy and Functional-level strategy. Together, these three levels of strategy can be illustrated in a so called ' Strategy Pyramid ' (Figure 1). Corporate strategy is different from Business strategy and Functional strategy.

  20. 7 Strategic Planning Models and 8 Frameworks To Start [2023] • Asana

    1. Basic model. The basic strategic planning model is ideal for establishing your company's vision, mission, business objectives, and values. This model helps you outline the specific steps you need to take to reach your goals, monitor progress to keep everyone on target, and address issues as they arise.

  21. Strategic planning

    Strategic planning is an organization 's process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals. Furthermore, it may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains ...

  22. 8.6 Portfolio Planning and Corporate-Level Strategy

    The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix is the best-known approach to portfolio planning (Table 8.7 "The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix").Using the matrix requires a firm's businesses to be categorized as high or low along two dimensions: its share of the market and the growth rate of its industry.

  23. Strategic Planning (Overview)

    Strategic Planning (Overview) Business. Reference. Topic Videos. Strategic planning. SWOT Analysis. Planned Strategy. What is meant by the term strategic planning? This revision video for A-Level Business students explains the concept and links it to some key strategic planning models.

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    Read more on Growth strategy or related topics Corporate strategy, Strategy, Strategy execution, Mergers and acquisitions, Decision making and problem solving and Organizational change Partner Center

  25. Global Business Services as a Strategic Function

    Companies at this level suffer the most: one company we've studied has 117,000 accounting cost centers for 72,000 employees, 150 reporting lines between shared services and the business units they support, and a $5 billion gap in cost optimization versus their peers. ... BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963 ...

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    Indeed, in the second quarter of 2023, supply chain issues remained a top concern for 23% of small business owners, according to the MetLife and U.S. Chamber Small Business Index. A procurement strategy increases supply chain visibility and resiliency while reducing your financial and operational risks.

  28. CSUF's Strategic Plan includes a focus on enhancing students

    Before announcing the goals of Cal State Fullerton's Strategic Plan for 2024-2029, university President Sylvia Alva outlined the six values that served as a guide to develop the plan: Student ...