Strategy formulation

Shape and communicate a strategy

The formulation of a strategy starts with the strategy teams agreeing on their strategic orientation. As a strategy can be described as "path to the vision", it implies both visionary mission statements and precise actions. The following elements of a company’s strategy can be distinguished:

• Mission statement: The formal short description of a vision. It can be a mission statement of a whole company, the mission statement of a business branch or another specific mission statement. A mission statement is much more than the summary of the operative targets. The mission statement contains three elements which can be combined in different ways: the mission, the targets and the values of the company.
• Strategic positioning: The success in the business world depends primarily on a clear positioning among the possible competitors. Whereas the mission statement consists of long term objectives and values, the strategic positioning answers the following questions: Which prospective products and services do we want to offer on the market? Who are our customers and what are their needs? Who are our customers and intermediaries - or in other words - what are our channels of distribution?
• Strategic competencies: The strategic management implies the organisation and the accurate care and support of specific abilities and skills. Such strategic competencies serve the bundling of particular interests so that all the company’s activities focus on the building or the upgrading of the competencies which are considered important for the success of the company.
• Consequences: To get the development from the presence toward the company’s vision started, precise consequences arise for an organization. These consequences describe what exactly should happen so that the mission statement could be reached, a particular position has to be occupied or a strategic competence to be secured. The consequences are quite important because they serve as a bridge between the vision and its implementation.

Whether particular actions form part of the strategy  has to be determined with reference to each individual case. generally, actions serve as the transition towards the strategy implementation.