Competitive intelligence serves companies in three main areas: market knowledge, analysis, and activities, which includes technologies, products and services. Integrating these resources and data into strategy planning enables a company to view the full picture of its current positioning and composition as well as where it should be heading with investments and planning. In this blog we look at why strategy planning matters, how to strategize and how to successfully leverage CI in your strategy plan.

What Is Strategy Planning (and Why Does It Matter)?

As companies face new struggles across the market, affecting consumer interaction, portfolio management and composition, and resource structure, overall strategies need to be refreshed. The pandemic opened the door for companies to embed resiliency and flexibility across strategies and business operations. The increased adaptability equips companies to better shift their strategies and prepare for related changes.

 

Strategy planning involves bringing together pieces from across the business and defining a plan moving forward. With environmental, social and governance needs moving to the forefront of company activities, it becomes more important to properly budget for strategy planning and allow for essential changes to take effect.

 

With ongoing market changes, the importance of strategy planning increases as it dictates a company’s success. According to TBR’s definition, strategy consulting facilitates executive planning to define an organization’s vision, set goals and address the alignment of resources to achieve specific goals or results. It involves analytic methods, such as competitive analysis and market analysis, among other strategic plays, to achieve these objectives.

 

Demand for strategy consulting accelerated during 2022 as many companies looked to redefine objectives and transform their business orientation and offerings. However, with a shift toward generative AI (GenAI) and analytics, strategy consulting decelerated among TBR’s tracked management consulting firms.

 

While firms leverage different capabilities to facilitate strategy projects, a focus on technology consulting pressures strategy engagements as clients look to integrate GenAI and analytics solutions to drive changes across operations. With AI remaining a primary investment area, strategy planning becomes a necessity to properly analyze and identify adoption opportunities.
 

Strategize Strategy Planning

While strategy planning has its benefits, helping companies drive overall business growth and identify the right path forward, there are three caveats that can change the outcome.

• First, establishing and maintaining a successful cadence will enable the company to effectively capture opportunities. Engaging in strategy planning too frequently does not allow for thorough execution while engaging in it too infrequently could lead to overlooked items and missed signs, moving the company in the wrong direction.
• Second, identifying areas and inputs to pursue and measure that align with the company’s goals and thought leadership will help drive the company’s strategy Using a consistent set of inputs from trusted sources can underpin a shared set of facts and assumptions, preventing a company from swinging from one strategy to another. However, consistently relying on the same information, rather than considering new ideas and directions, can also put a company on the wrong course.
• Lastly, challenges can arise in translating a strategy plan into an operational one, hindering a company’s ability to scale its plans.

 

Engaging in thorough planning and ensuring that validated and relevant data are utilized can enable companies to better understand competitor and peer strategies as well as the areas that should be invested in and to what degree. Without analyzing external and internal factors, companies can experience slowed progress or end up heavily rooted in the wrong area, placing them far behind the competition.

 

With rapidly changing technologies and trends in the business landscape, identifying and pursuing opportunities that best align with a company’s goals and composition will dictate the success of the company’s expansion efforts. For example, the hype around the metaverse did not quite live up to expectations as vendors have made stronger bets and investments in other technologies, including AI, digital and cloud. While metaverse technology remains valuable and brings a different experience to users, it was not scaled as aggressively by vendors as other capabilities

How to Leverage Competitive Intelligence in Strategy Planning

While keeping in mind the three caveats outlined above that can alter the outcome of strategy planning, companies must also be aware of peers’ and competitors’ activities and investments. Taking into account this information can help a company determine its market position as well as which avenues it can utilize to successfully expand.

 

Competitive intelligence serves companies in three main areas: market knowledge, analysis, and activities, which includes technologies, products and services. Integrating these resources and data into strategy planning enables a company to view the full picture of its current positioning and composition as well as where it should be heading with investments and planning.

Conclusion

Strategy planning is an important piece of companies’ successes in the market and paths forward. Through strategic planning — provided it is executed at the right cadence and rooted in valid and relevant data — companies can determine the appropriate investment areas and where best to place their bets to keep pace with peers. With technology trends changing so rapidly, companies need to remain flexible and resilient through strategy planning, enabling them to pursue opportunities that best align with their goals and business composition. Additionally, through strategy planning, companies can improve their positioning through proper analysis of trends and business alignment.