Strategic Thinking and Business Planning Training Course

Participants can assess external forces that shape strategic opportunity, threat and timing.

• PESTLE analysis separating material drivers from background environmental noise
• Market definition using customer needs, substitutes, and geographic boundaries
• Porter's Five Forces applied to industry profitability and bargaining power
• Competitor profiling through objectives, assumptions, capabilities, and likely responses
• Regulatory horizon scanning for policy change, compliance costs, and licence risk
• Trend impact matrices ranking certainty, timing, magnitude, and strategic relevance

Participants can identify priority stakeholders and define the value proposition each requires.

• Stakeholder mapping by influence, interest, expectations, and potential opposition
• Customer segmentation using needs, behaviour, profitability, and service requirements
• Voice-of-customer evidence drawn from complaints, research, usage, and retention data
• Value proposition design linking target segments to distinctive benefits
• Beneficiary and funder needs reconciled within mission-led operating models
• Service journey mapping identifies failure points, delays, and unmet needs

Participants can identify the capabilities, assets and constraints affecting strategic feasibility.

• Value-chain analysis locating cost drivers, bottlenecks, and differentiation opportunities
• VRIO assessment of valuable, rare, inimitable, and organised capabilities
• Core capability mapping across people, process, technology, data, and partnerships
• Financial trend analysis using revenue, margin, liquidity, and capital indicators
• Operational capacity assessment against demand, service levels, and workforce constraints
• Benchmarking performance against peers, internal standards, and best available evidence

Participants can synthesize evidence into a clear diagnosis of the strategic challenge.

• SWOT analysis grounded in evidence rather than untested management opinion
• TOWS matrix converts strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats into choices
• Root-cause analysis using five whys and issue-tree logic
• Separating symptoms, constraints, risks, assumptions, and strategic decision questions
• Materiality assessment ranks issues by impact, urgency, and management control
• Writing a strategic problem statement with evidence and decision implications

Participants can define a coherent strategic direction with explicit choices and boundaries.

• Vision statements tested for clarity, relevance, and credible future position
• Mission and mandate translated into strategic design principles
• Strategic ambition expressed through measurable outcomes and time horizons
• Choice cascade: winning aspiration, where-to-play, how-to-win, capabilities, management systems
• Defining strategic boundaries: activities stopped, deferred, outsourced, or avoided
• Strategic narrative links diagnosis, choices, outcomes, and required change

Participants can develop scenarios and use them to test the resilience of strategic choices.

• Critical uncertainty identification distinguishes predetermined trends from volatile drivers
• Scenario axes built from high-impact uncertainties and plausible extremes
• Four-scenario matrix describes operating conditions, stakeholder behaviour, and implications
• Wind-tunnelling tests strategic choices against each plausible future
• Early-warning indicators and signposts trigger management review or course correction
• Contingency actions define no-regrets moves, hedges, and contingent commitments

Participants can create distinct strategic options that address the diagnosed challenge.

• Option generation separates strategic alternatives from implementation activities
• Ansoff Matrix frames market penetration, development, product development, and diversification
• Business model canvas examines customers, channels, revenues, costs, and partners
• Make-buy-partner decisions assessed against control, capability, cost, and speed
• Growth, consolidation, turnaround, and service redesign options compared
• Option descriptions specify target, mechanism, resources, risks, and expected outcomes

Participants can compare strategic options transparently and recommend a preferred course.

• Weighted decision criteria reflect strategic fit, value, feasibility, and risk
• Multi-criteria decision analysis scores options using agreed evidence standards
• Financial logic tests revenue, cost, investment, payback, and affordability
• Sensitivity analysis identifies assumptions that materially change option rankings
• Risk-adjusted appraisal compares downside exposure, mitigations, and residual risk
• Decision papers document recommendation, rejected alternatives, evidence, and approvals

Participants can test whether a chosen strategy has a viable operating and financial model.

• Revenue architecture identifies pricing, funding, cross-subsidy, and collection mechanisms
• Cost-to-serve analysis compares segments, channels, products, and service levels
• Unit economics calculate contribution, acquisition cost, retention, and break-even
• Strategic investment cases distinguish capital expenditure from operating expenditure
• Capacity planning links demand scenarios to workforce, assets, and technology
• Funding strategies assess internal finance, borrowing, grants, and partnerships

Participants can convert strategic choices into measurable objectives and performance measures.

• Strategy maps connect financial, customer, process, and capability objectives
• Balanced Scorecard perspectives adapted for commercial, public, and mission-led entities
• Outcome, output, efficiency, quality, and leading indicators distinguished
• SMART measures defined with formulas, owners, baselines, targets, and data sources
• Cause-and-effect hypotheses tested before embedding measures in performance reports
• Target-setting methods use benchmarks, trend analysis, and strategic ambition

Participants can select initiatives and allocate resources to support strategic objectives.

• Initiative design specifies scope, sponsor, benefits, milestones, and dependencies
• Portfolio matrices compare strategic contribution, cost, risk, and delivery confidence
• Prioritisation separates mandatory commitments from discretionary strategic investments
• Resource allocation aligns budgets, talent, technology, and partner capacity
• Benefits realisation plans define measures, owners, timing, and verification
• Stopping rules identify initiatives requiring redesign, pause, escalation, or closure

Participants can build a practical roadmap that converts strategy into managed delivery.

• Roadmap sequencing identifies critical paths, decision gates, and delivery waves
• Milestone plans connect strategic initiatives to quarterly management commitments
• Dependency mapping exposes linked systems, suppliers, policy, and workforce requirements
• RACI matrices clarify accountable executives, delivery leads, contributors, and consultees
• Change impact assessment identifies affected roles, processes, incentives, and communications
• Implementation risks monitored through escalation thresholds and response owners

Participants can establish governance and review routines that keep strategic plans on track.

• Planning governance defines board, executive, sponsor, and management responsibilities
• Three-lines model clarifies management, risk oversight, and assurance roles
• Strategic risk registers connect objectives, causes, controls, and treatments
• Risk appetite statements guide choices under uncertainty and competing priorities
• Monthly dashboards distinguish performance variance from strategic assumption failure
• Strategy review cycles trigger corrective action, resource shifts, and plan refreshes

Participants can communicate a strategic plan persuasively to senior decision-makers and stakeholders.

• Executive storylining structures context, insight, choice, evidence, and required decision
• Pyramid Principle messaging places recommendation before supporting analysis
• One-page strategy documents communicate priorities, measures, initiatives, and accountabilities
• Board papers distinguish decisions sought, risks, assumptions, and management actions
• Stakeholder communication plans tailor messages, channels, timing, and feedback routes
• Handling challenge through evidence, trade-off explanation, and alternative scenarios

Participants can build, review and present a complete strategic business plan for a defined organisational challenge.

• Strategic diagnosis integrates external evidence, internal capability, and stakeholder findings
• Chosen direction states ambition, scope, strategic choices, and rationale
• Option appraisal evidences why the recommended course merits investment
• Strategy map links objectives, measures, targets, initiatives, and benefits
• Implementation roadmap sets governance, resources, milestones, dependencies, and risk controls
• Executive presentation communicates recommendation, evidence, trade-offs, and decisions required