If you own a business or a company and don’t have a strategy, let me tell you that you are like a sailor without a compass.
A business without a strategy is a business without a clear vision of the industry in which it operates, which makes the business flounder and suffer from continuous changes in the market because the strategy that will face these changes is not found.
A business without a strategy is not an option, but its circumstances may force it to operate without a strategy. This article will show you this topic in all its aspects. let’s start
💡 Helpful Statistics About Strategy: ● 67% of well-formulated strategies failed due to poor execution. (HBR) ● 48% of leaders spend less than a day on strategy each month. (HBS) ● 61% of executives feel they are not prepared for the strategic challenges. (HBR) ● 77% of successful companies translate their strategy into operational terms and evaluate it on a day-to- day basis. (Palladium) ● 98% of leaders think strategy implementation takes more time than strategy formulation. ● 42% of managers and 27% of employees get access to the strategic plan ● 95% of employees do not understand their organization's strategy ● 84% of all staff members are clear on their organization’s top priorities
Table of Contents
Troubles facing a business without a strategy
Doing business without a strategy gets you into many problems and troubles, mainly if you work in a highly competitive environment with few resources.
Going haphazardly without a proper strategy for action is just a gamble that may succeed in the short term but often ends up losing.
The business faces many problems without a clear strategy; here are the most common of these challenges:
- Your business will be dispersion and lack of clarity of objectives or lack thereof at all. This results from a lack of a future vision for the business and the industry it operates.
- Resources are not employed correctly. The strategy works on coordinating goals and focusing resources to achieve them. In the absence of a strategy and purposes, the resources will be dispersion.
- The administrative structure of the business is not clear. As a reflection of the lack of commercial focus to achieve a clear goal, sometimes conflicting communication and authority lines will appear.
- Action plans are fragile and unfocused towards specific goals. In the absence of strategic goals and objectives, action plans, if any, are weak and do not achieve the desired results.
- Not making the right decisions at the correct times. Making decisions that do not depend on specific policies but only on the experience of management.
- Absent of competition advance of your business in the market. And thus the deterioration of the financial and economic situation of the company.
- The business hires workers randomly, which negatively affects the growth of the company.
- Failure to choose the means and available forces and the inability to select the best among them. Lack of coordination within the company.
Why do some businesses operate without a strategy?
Usually, a business operates without a strategy for the following reasons: It is impossible to develop a strategy or lack knowledge of its importance.
So things are left to depend on the experience of managers of the business in the conduct of things.
Despite the importance of strategy for business, in some cases, companies operate without a strategy. Because of different reasons, here are some of them:
- Information and data are scarce, preventing business owners from developing a clear vision for the industry’s future.
- Significant fluctuations in the market make it hard to anticipate the future and make a long-term action plan.
- The business is new to the market and does not have sufficient knowledge of the industry variables in which it operates. He cannot build a long-term vision.
- Lack of awareness of the management of the strategic importance of business growth. So they don’t pay enough attention to it.
- Small businesses are not looking forward to growth and increasing spread and are satisfied with their current situation.
These are the main reasons why a business operates without a strategy.
Without a strategy, the business operates with short-term plans according to the available experience and vision of the various market changes.
The success of a business in the absence of a strategy depends mainly on the business acumen and experience managers and the way they make decisions.
How the strategy present in the business
The strategy appears in business in different forms and degrees. The size, nature of the business, and the business’s age in the market all affect the ship of the strategy’s present.
For example, small companies differ from medium and large companies, and startups differ from old ones.
Small businesses that their owners usually run, these businesses don’t care about strategy. But in fact, most successful small businesses operate with an unwritten or announced strategy, a strategy in the minds of these business owners.
The unwritten strategies embodied in managers’ minds resulted from the long experience of the managers of these businesses in the market.
Therefore, this type of business depends on the manager or the owner personally. The mere stepping down of the person responsible for managing this business will lead to its significant deterioration.
Large and medium companies cannot rely on the minds of managers to reduce strategy and plans. Because there are many departments and sections in this type of business, a written strategy is vital for coordinating and defining policies and working methods.
What is the function of strategy in the business?
The strategy determines how you should work within the company and helps you set goals and develop plans to reach these goals.
An effective strategy helps you to beat competitors and increase the value and profitability of the business.
The five most important functions of strategy in business:
- Building a comprehensive future vision for the industry in which the company operates.
- Study the current situation of the market in terms of competitors, customers, and alternative products.
- Defining strategic goals and objectives for the business
- Analyze your company’s strengths and weaknesses
- Building action plans that enable you to reach the set goals.
Features that the strategy provides for the business:
- Exploiting the available resources efficiently and practically, and all business activities automatically become more efficient, which raises the business level.
- The strategy helps you to control and to direct activities according to the objectives set.
- A successful strategy helps you stand out from the rest of your competitors in the market by taking advantage of your strengths, using them as a competitive advantage, and developing a distinctive brand.
- The strategy helps you reach your business goals smoothly and clearly. It ensures the achievement of goals and maintains the course of action, and avoids distraction and loss.
Therefore, the strategy is the company’s cornerstone because it is the map of the direction that leads it to the expected goals,
an imbalance at the level of strategy that leads to the loss and dispersion of work among many competitors.
With the high level of competition, it has become necessary to develop prior and thoughtful planning for every step taken by the company.
To learn more about this topic, you can refer to the article The purpose of the strategy.
Are goals effective without strategy?
Many companies give up on their goals simply because they do not have a business strategy to achieve them regularly. Over time, these goals become not a source of inspiration and passion as they were initially.
When company managers do not have a strategic plan, reaching these goals and objectives is nothing more than a dream.
The strategy gives goals meaning; knowing the reasons behind these goals and understanding the context in which the goals are set will make all company employees and sections move in the same direction, creating understanding and harmony.
For more information about how goals are set, you can refer to the strategy responsibilities and stages of strategy articles.
Conclusion:
We conclude that working without a strategy for the company is very difficult.
By formulating an accurate strategy, we can solve many problems facing the business.
A business without a strategy is a business without a clear vision of the industry’s future in which it operates, which makes it flounder at most times and suffer from continuous changes in the market.
As a final note before ending this article, a success that is not based on a strategic plan is possible. Some companies have achieved some success, and if you are among those, consider yourself lucky because it rarely occurs in the business market.
