In the Autumn of 2000 I was invited to present a course on business planning for erstwhile entrepreneurs. Investment was booming. Entrepreneurs were passionate. The future looked rosy. On the day of the first presentation came the initial rumbles of the coming Dot Com Crash.The investment community has slowly recovered from the crash and is once again enthusiastically investing high tech. So, this is an ideal time to dust off the old course for the new generation of entrepreneurs, as well as strategic planners at established companies.
Part I of the course lays the foundation of strategic thinking required to create a successful business plan:
- Mission: The overall purpose or charter of an organization or business
- Vision: A very broad scheme for satisfying the mission of a business
- Goal: A broad desired result or purpose to be achieved
- Strategy: The plan or scheme designed to achieve a goal
- Objective: The specific deliverable that implements part of a strategy
- Tactic: A scheme or plan intended to meet a specific objective
For each of these definitions I provide an example based on the military tactics of Genghis Khan. I recommend sticking to less gruesome, though not necessarily less aggressive, strategies and tactics in your business plans.