The StrategyFrame®

Instrument from practice - for practice

If you are a corporate manager on the road to a new strategy, you can hardly escape the clever approaches from academia, consultants and self-appointed experts of all stripes. Many strategy managers therefore find it difficult to find the right way to develop and implement a coherent and activating corporate strategy. After months of grueling strategy work alongside day-to-day business, enthusiasm and momentum have fallen by the wayside and in the end one is disappointed with the result.

From our work with strategy managers in small and medium-sized companies as well as in corporate groups, we know the questions that are bothering you:

These needs of strategy practitioners have driven us to develop a simple, practical tool for the strategy process from the formulation of a strategy to its implementation. The StrategyFrame® connects and visualizes the essential elements of strategy work in an overall picture that provides orientation and clarity in terms of content, process and perhaps even emotion for all those involved and affected. Along its three core modules, the central basic questions - what do we need to know, what do we need to decide, and what do we need to do - can be answered.

The three core modules

1. situation analysis

The aim here is to analyze your company's situation in its current fields of activity, identify possible new fields and understand the external environment. The aim is to find answers to the following questions: Where is your greatest potential in the "market"? Which markets are addressed? What are the needs of the "customers" and how are they changing? Who are the "competitors"? What "trends" are changing your industry? What is happening in the "general environment"? What are your "own realities"? Finally, what are the "challenges" facing your company?

2. target image

In the second core module, you develop the "focus" of your corporate strategyat four target levels:

EFFECT

With the "impact statement" you define how your company intends to achieve a sustainable impact on the economy, the environment and society.

CUSTOMER BENEFITS & SUPERIOR PROFITS

With the differentiating "customer value" you make clear what your company wants to do better or differently than the competition and how it wants to achieve "superior profits" with it in order to be one step ahead of the competition.

PLAYING FIELD

At the heart of focusing is staking out the playing field for your company. In which "target markets" do you want to operate? Which "customer segments" do you want to address with which "offerings"? With which competitors are you entering the ring?

PRIORITIES

With the "goals" and "key results" you define what is pending for your company and in which order. Goals and key results can be motivated both quantitatively and qualitatively.

3. fields of action

Once your target image is in place, it's time to realize it. What do you need to tackle with your team in the company? What "structures & processes" are necessary? How can you make the best possible use of "data & IT" in the digital age? Which "people" with which skills does your company need? Which "culture" unleashes the power for "innovation"? Which strategic "partners" could help you achieve your goals? If your corporate strategy is to have an impact on different business units, geographies and functional areas, you can define the expected value contribution of the individual units here. To ensure that your strategy does not remain a mere statement of intent, draw up a "roadmap" for its implementation and the transformation of your company. It determines the "steering" in terms of time and content, the "cascading" of the strategy through the individual business units, geographies, and functions, and with which "dramaturgy" you want to act in the different phases.

Strategy workflow

We want you to maintain an overview in the strategy process and also have perspective. You see the forest and its trees. Our StrategyFrame® is based on the idea of learning at the moment of application. Therefore, we have designed our strategy process as a "workflow". The StrategyFrame® is designed to provide you with the "right" resources for your strategy work at the "right" time in the "right" amount of content in consumable form and at cascading levels of guidance. For this reason, we have not aligned and prepared this content around specialist topics, but instead break it down into individual specific tasks to be completed in the strategy process. This way, you receive the relevant support immediately at the moment of need. Our workflow includes eight action steps that you should take in the strategy process. We explain the necessity of each process step and provide you with concrete action instructions for processing, including guiding questions, tips, examples and tools. However, the workflow is not a one-way street. You will go through the StrategyFrame® several times along the workflow.