Drilling Deep on Strategic Questions
Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School at the University of Toronto) and A.G. Lafley (former CEO of Procter and Gamble) pose five strategic questions that can be used to frame the way forward for almost any organization:
- What is our winning aspiration?
- Where will be play?
- How will we win?
- What capabilities must we have in place?
- What management systems are needed for success?
Martin and Lafley augment their list in a two-part blog at the Financial Post, a part of Canada's National Post. Part 1 addresses the first two questions and Part 2 takes up the other three. Beyond their differentiation of "winning aspiration" and a mission statement, the way the authors frame where to play is illuminating:
This question determines where the organization will compete—in which markets, with which customers, in which channels, in which product categories, and at which vertical stages of its industry. In short, where to play represents the set of choices that narrow the competitive field.An organization can be narrow or broad in its where-to-play choices. It can compete in different demographic segments (e.g. large manufacturing companies, men ages 18-24, suburban families) and geographies (local, national, international, by regions and countries). It can choose to compete across any number of services, product lines and categories. It can participate in different channels (like B2B direct sales, online, or mass-merchandise retail). It can participate in just one stage of production in a given industry or be vertically integrated. These choices, taken together, represent the strategic playing field for an organization.
And a bit further along about how P&G addressed the second question:
It was important to determine where P&G capabilities would be decisive and where they would not — in other words, to understand what was truly core to P&G — and to invest disproportionately in those areas.
antivirus software reviewsThe exercise of figuring out what is core alone is worth the time and effort.