When engaging in strategy and planning, the focus is on the future, as it should be. Savvy planners know that a great place to start is by looking at the recent past and separating what is working from what is not.

A clear-eyed view of underperforming elements of the organization forms the foundation for the Strategic Renewal Process™: a systematic, structured way of evaluating your products, services, customers and yes, your people. Here’s the insight: in each of these four categories, the organization likely has some that contribute more than others. Some need to be developed, some better aligned, some removed completely.

The strategic renewal process looks at each of these factors and rates them by asking three key questions: are they significant, are they strategic and are they profitable? Let’s take a close look at each.

Significant means a noticeable, positive impact on the enterprise. In the case of customers, volume of activity is one measure but not the only one. Maybe you’ve launched a new product or service, and a particular customer is trying it out. This would make the product and/or service, the customer and quite possibly the employees directly engaged in deploying this significant.

Strategic means that any of these groups are aligned with the strategic intent the planning group (usually the senior leadership team) has mapped out. For customers, this may mean one or more that are in a key vertical targeted for growth. Or one that has significant influence in a target market you are looking to grow. The same applies to team members and to your product/service offerings. In each case, the fundamental question is whether and to what extent they are a good fit for the strategic direction the organization is taking.

Profitability is perhaps the most obvious of the three criteria yet even here, close analysis is useful. For a customer group that is strategic and/or significant, there may be a ramp up time before they become profitable at the desired level. This is where the powerful effect of a three-dimensional view (significant, strategic, and profitable) can be invaluable.

Close, detailed analysis of products/services, employees, and customers, determining which are contributing most to organizational success, which need a re-set and which need to be dropped is an essential part of strategy and planning. The Strategic Renewal Process™ brings needed structure to this exercise and will yield valuable results.

For more information on ways to begin or improve your process for strategy & planning, contact me at joe@ajstrategy.com, or visit my website ajstrategy.com.