The Strategic Five: Critical Questions Your Strategy Should Answer (2024)

The Strategic Five: Critical Questions Your Strategy Should Answer (1)

The Strategic Five: Critical Questions Your Strategy Should Answer (2)

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Aug 31, 2016

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Great strategies answer five critical questions (“the strategic five”) in ways that are unique to your company: (1) What business or businesses should your company be in? (2) How should you add value to your businesses? (3) Who should be the target customers for your businesses? (4) What should be your value propositions to those target customers? (5) What capabilities should differentiate your ability to add value to your businesses and deliver their value propositions?

You won’t find the answers to these questions in most strategy concepts. Consider total quality management (TQM), a prescription for reducing cost by minimizing error. TQM is mostly silent on what kind of businesses should be in your portfolio and why, or who your target customers should be and why they’re glad your company exists. It is also a dangerously narrow prescription for what you have to be better at doing than anyone else to achieve and sustain great success.

Instead of asking “Should we adopt TQM?” leaders should ask “How can TQM improve our answers to the strategic five?” A company such as Danaher, which actively seeks to add operational value to each business in its portfolio, would have an answer very different from those of Berkshire Hathaway or IKEA, because the three companies have different strategies for adding value to their businesses. Furthermore, because these companies can answer each of the strategic five questions with precision, they can be disciplined about whether they use TQM and, if so, how. In other words, their strategies are not just unique and specific, but also complete. This enables them to get the most out of strategy concepts without becoming hostage to them.

The above excerpt is from the article “Why Popular Strategies Always Fade.”

The Strategic Five: Critical Questions Your Strategy Should Answer (3)
The Strategic Five: Critical Questions Your Strategy Should Answer (2024)

FAQs

The Strategic Five: Critical Questions Your Strategy Should Answer? ›

Great strategies answer five critical questions (“the strategic five”) in ways that are unique to your company: (1) What business or businesses should your company be in? (2) How should you add value to your businesses? (3) Who should be the target customers for your businesses? (4) What should be your value ...

What are the 5 key questions for strategy? ›

Here are 5 questions you can pose to ensure that your strategy achieves that aim:
  • What is the fundamental challenge that our strategy addresses? Answering this question provides you with the 'why' of your strategy. ...
  • How will we make our customers' lives better? ...
  • How will we win? ...
  • What are our priorities for action?
Jun 28, 2022

What are the 5 strategic options? ›

In our terms, a strategy is a coordinated and integrated set of five choices: a winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, core capabilities, and management systems. … The five choices make up the strategic choice cascade, the foundation of our strategy work and the core of this book.

What are the five key areas of strategy? ›

These five elements of strategy include Arenas, Differentiators, Vehicles, Staging, and Economic Logic. This model was developed by strategy researchers Donald Hambrick and James Fredrickson.

What questions should a strategic plan answer? ›

Six Key Questions in Strategic Planning
  • Where do you want to go from here? What do you want to accomplish? ...
  • What obstacles will you have to overcome? What problems will you have to solve? ...
  • What additional knowledge, skills, or resources will you require to achieve your strategic objectives?
Jan 24, 2019

What are the 5 points of strategy? ›

Each of the 5 Ps stands for a different approach to strategy:
  • Plan.
  • Ploy.
  • Pattern.
  • Position.
  • Perspective.

What are the 5 basic tasks of strategy making? ›

While there is no single approach to creating a strategic plan, most approaches can be boiled down to five overarching steps:
  • Define your vision.
  • Assess where you are.
  • Determine your priorities and objectives.
  • Define responsibilities.
  • Measure and evaluate results.
Jan 31, 2024

What are the five 5 different phases of strategy? ›

The 5 phases of the strategic process
  • Definition of the orientation/direction that the company wants to take. At this level, we define the Vision, the Mission, and the Goals, but also the Business Perimeter. ...
  • Situational analysis (external and internal) ...
  • Decision-making process. ...
  • Implementation. ...
  • Control. ...
  • Conclusion.
Aug 5, 2019

What are the five elements of a strategic plan? ›

5 Elements of Effective Strategic Planning
  1. Take time to get it right. ...
  2. Understand your organization's capacity. ...
  3. Be open and honest. ...
  4. Include stakeholders and gather feedback. ...
  5. Include a plan to follow through.
Oct 27, 2022

What are the 5 strategic positions? ›

What are the 5 common positioning strategies?
  • Customer service positioning strategy.
  • Convenience-based positioning strategy.
  • Price-based positioning strategy.
  • Quality-based positioning strategy.
  • Differentiation strategy.
Aug 25, 2021

What are the 5 P's of strategic planning? ›

But fear not, as Henry Mintzberg has developed a powerful framework for developing successful strategies. Drawing inspiration from the Five Wizards, Mintzberg's 5 Ps of Strategy - Plan, Ploy, Pattern, Position, and Perspective - provide different paths to achieving strategic victory.

What are the 5 key elements of strategic decisions? ›

A strategy consists of an integrated set of choices. These choices relate to five elements managers must consider when making decisions: (1) arenas, (2) differentiators, (3) vehicles, (4) staging and pacing, and (5) economic logic.

What are the 5 elements of strategic thinking? ›

Slow down and organize our strategic thoughts with our five elements of strategic thinking, including the vision, investment in solidifying capabilities, focused opportunity, market impact, and performance result. Set a vision of what you want: Set an aspirational stretch goal for the future.

What are the critical questions in strategic management? ›

Great strategies answer five critical questions (“the strategic five”) in ways that are unique to your company: (1) What business or businesses should your company be in? (2) How should you add value to your businesses? (3) Who should be the target customers for your businesses? (4) What should be your value ...

What are examples of strategic questions? ›

Strategic questions to ask when building a company strategy
  • Who is your target customer? ...
  • What are the biggest challenges the company is facing? ...
  • How can you improve the company's current product? ...
  • How did the company get to where it is? ...
  • Where does the company want to go? ...
  • What should the company do more of?
Mar 10, 2023

What is the 5 W's of strategy? ›

That's why we have the five Ws, the bread and butter of marketing, if you will – who, what, where, when and why. Put simply, if you can't answer one of these points, it's probably a good idea to review your strategy. Without the five Ws, planning and organising your brand strategy will be virtually impossible.

What are the five pillars of strategy? ›

5 key pillars for effective strategy execution
  • No. 1: Strategy formulation.
  • No. 2: Execution planning.
  • No. 3: Performance management.
  • No. 4: Strategy communication.
  • No. 5: Organizational bandwidth.

What are the five key elements of strategic decisions? ›

A strategy consists of an integrated set of choices. These choices relate to five elements managers must consider when making decisions: (1) arenas, (2) differentiators, (3) vehicles, (4) staging and pacing, and (5) economic logic.

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