There are plenty of strategies that you can put in place to optimize your business. When choosing a strategy to use in a business you must consider all of the different models that exist and which one fits you and your business the best. There are models that are beneficial to a business at the beginning stages of planning, or models that are good for ongoing strategies within a business. Here are a few of the most popular and favorite models that are proven effective.
Balanced Scorecard
One of the most common strategies that you can put in place. It was created by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton. It brings together your objectives, measurements, and initiatives. Your objectives are the end goals, measurements are the numbers or stats that can define your progress to the goals, and initiatives are the steps in place to progress towards your goals. There are multiple ways to create one of these, but Excel, or another spreadsheet software, is the easiest to do so. You can easily color coordinate your objectives and measurements to see the progress on each. This model is easy for your whole business to see the progress and what steps are needed to take in place to reach the target goals.
SWOT Analysis
This is a model that can be used when businesses are in the initial steps of strategy planning. It stands for “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats”. It analyses strengths and weaknesses as internal components and opportunities and threats as external components. Strengths are what you can identify as something your business does well or has as an advantage. Weaknesses are the parts of your business that are not as fleshed out or can be seen as a point of failure. Opportunities are areas in which you can turn weaknesses or new ideas into a strength. Threats are factors in which your business can find failure from other sources, these can come from outside competition as well. This model can be an easy way to start your planning for a business to see the initial areas of improvement as well as where you need focus your strengths.