[SOUND] Hi,
welcome back.
Today we will explore the relationship between strategic planning and sales,
the differences in their perception on the market,
the need of alignment and how competitive intelligence could help.
Strategic planning is a management process designed to help companies to define
their objectives and choose which action plans should be use to reach them.
The preparation of strategic plans requires a detailed analysis
of the external and the internal conditions of the organization.
The analysis of the external conditions identify the opportunities and threats.
On the other hand, the internal analysis determine which resources are available to
the firm and these resources could be divided in weaknesses and strengths.
This strategy helps the company to define how to use their resources so
that the companies achieves its objectives.
The analysis of the external elements should assess not only
the current situation, but also estimate its probable evolution.
And implications for the comparative position of the firm, the result of
the strategic analysis generates probable scenarios of market evolution.
And allows the company to understand why it's performance
should be in the possible future alternatives identified.
The analysis of the internal elements is important to identify if,
if the way the firm generates value will remain relevant in the current and
future competitive scenarios and if there is a need for changes.
The internal analysis also identify which factors generate competitive advantage or
competitive disadvantage to the firm.
The combined analysis of internal and external variables helps identifying
which actions will be necessary to ensure the survival and prosperity of the firm.
The relative value of the company's internal factors varies with changes
in the external environment.
So it is important to constantly monitor the market to identify,
and if possible, anticipate changes.
In the past, when the external environment was more stable,
it was safe to evaluate the company's competitive position annually.
Today, however, market conditions change so fast and
it changes the companies competitive position,
forcing companies to adapt quickly to the changes.
Companies need to realize how the market will change,
and the implications to the firm.
The inability to realize the need to adapt threatens the survival of companies.
The sales team plays a very important role in organization,
and it is one of the key elements for strategy materialization.
That is the reason the sales strategy should be aligned with the company's
overall strategy.
Although obvious, this alignment if often difficult.
Because the time horizon in strategic planning and sales work is different.
The sales errors have a much shorter time perspective than a strategy,
and perceive the opportunities and threats differently.
Long term technology changes are often not perceived by sales until their
effects is filled directly by the external element with which sales interact.
This difference of perceptions about the market generate an inconsistency
between the companies overall strategy and
execution which leads to a dangerous misalignment.
Sales may pursue objectives which are incompatible
with the company's long term survival.
On the other hand, the sales areas maintain a very close relationship with
customers and they should, they should have the ability to understand
what their visions of the future and how their intent to evolve in the future.
Knowledge about future customer actions and intentions is extremely important and
valuable and should be incorporated into strategic planning.
In this sense, competitive intelligence can play a very important role in
helping to generate a single view of the current market and it's future evolution.
The importance of competitive intelligence in our organizations
is to offer instructor processes of information collection and analysis.
In order to generate knowledge, based on professional processes.
A good intelligence process has tools to estimate the time in which the company
would be able to explore a market, and
indicate when the company needs to look for alternatives.
How is your sales efforts integrate to the strategy and
competitive intelligence functions?
How can you make these functions work together?