Forecasting
To avoid stagnation in your business, you must maintain forward momentum, which means looking forward even as you focus on the present. Forecasting and planning for growth is an exercise in strategic thinking, and it is critical to your continued success. Business forecasting can be tailored to meet the needs and requirements of different businesses.
What is strategic thinking? Strategic thinking is the process of learning how to make your business vision a reality by developing your abilities in team work, problem solving, and critical thinking. It is also a tool to help you confront change, plan for and make transitions, and envision new possibilities and opportunities. When you think strategically, you envision the ideal outcome for your business, then work backwards by developing the story of how you will this your vision.
There are various techniques and methodologies to hone your strategic thinking skills. As you define your ideal outcome, focus on the following five elements of the strategic thinking process. Not only will focusing on these elements help you shape your vision, they will also help you set up and develop the steps necessary to make this vision a reality.
The five elements of strategic thinking are:
- Organization. The organization of your business involves the people you have working for you, the organizational structure of your business, and the resources necessary to make it all work. What will your organization look like? What type of structure will support your vision? How will you combine people, resources, and structure to achieve your ideal outcome?
- Observation. When you are looking down at the world from an airplane, you can see much more than when you are on the ground. Strategic thinking is much the same in that it allows you to see things from higher up. By developing your powers of observation, you will begin to become more aware of what motivates people, how to solve problems more effectively, and how to distinguish between alternatives.
- Views. Views are simply different ways of thinking about something. When strategically forming your business vision, take these four viewpoints into consideration: the environmental view, the marketplace view, the project view, and the measurement view. Views can be used as tools to help you think about outcomes, identify critical elements, and adjust your actions to achieve your ideal position.
- Driving Forces. What are the driving forces that will make your ideal outcome a reality? What is your company's vision and mission? Driving forces usually lay the foundation for what you want people to focus on in your business (i.e., what you will use to motivate others to perform). Examples of driving forces might include: individual and organizational incentives; empowerment and alignment; qualitative factors such as a defined vision, values, and goals; productive factors like a mission or function; quantitative factors such as results or experience; and others such as commitment, coherent action, effectiveness, productivity, and value.
- Ideal Position. After working through the first four phases of the strategic thinking process, you should be able to define your ideal position. Your ideal position outline should include: the conditions you have found to be necessary if your business is to be productive; the niche in the marketplace that your business will fill; any opportunities that may exist either currently or in the future for your business; the core competencies or skills required in your business; and the strategies and tactics you will use to pull it all together.
By working through these five elements, you will begin to get a clearer picture of exactly how your business vision can be accomplished. As your vision becomes more focused, your ideas will appear stronger and more credible. Not only will it be easier to convince others that your idea is a good one, it will also be easier to maintain your own conviction and motivation when you suffer pitfalls or obstacles in the road.
References:
• Small Business Administration
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