Current and emerging market trends are discussed; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business are assessed and new goals outlined. This corporate ritual is very much a part of how business is done. Therefore, strategy and planning have become close to being synonymous.
Is planning really the best foundation for strategy? Well, until recently, the assumption that the past is a good proxy for the future was reliable. Nowadays, however, historical knowledge and expertise is no longer sufficient for interpreting current developments.
Today, changes are often less about how things are done than what is to be done. Some 40 years ago, companies were adopting information technology to do basic operations through computerised systems rather than manually. The basic work itself remained the same, but the speed improved. But the present situation is different.
The world is changing rapidly
The past is no longer a proxy for the future. We cannot always anticipate the future by looking back. Disruptive innovation is becoming the norm. Therefore we cannot predict what lies ahead by analysing what has already been.
So what can we do? Today successful strategies are often not planned, but rather discovered. We need to be good at creating things that have never existed before. Planning is no longer the foundation for strategy. Nowadays, planning is useful – and vital – only for tactical execution.
-jk-