Strategic Planning For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Assessing Your Strategic Position in a Dynamic Environment

In This Chapter

• Classifying opportunities for and threats to your operating business

• Capitalizing on opportunities in your operating environment

• Predicting your industry shifts

• Sizing up your competition

• Rounding out your SWOT analysis

You're headed down your strategy road with a bus that is primed and tuned. It's time to look out the windows and check out what is going on around you. How's the landscape? Is it breathtaking or gray? What's happening with the weather and how is the condition of the road? All of these factors influence how smoothly you travel down your path to success.

Assume there are several storms brewing on the horizon. Three to be exact. Each one of them is a little further away from the next. The closer the storm, the more potential impact it will have on your trip. The ones furthest out may or may not impact you, but you keep on eye on them nevertheless. The landscape your company operates in is exactly the same. If you are the bus or at the center, there are three influences on your business. Starting with the outer ring of Figure 9-1 , they are

Figure 9.1.  Figure 9-1: A view of your environment.

Some external influences or factors have more direct impact on your business than others. Others just take a little longer to get there. By looking at your landscape in four areas, you won't miss anything ...