Plan To Win

Book excerpt: Plan To Win: LEADER'S GUIDE TO CREATING BREAKTHROUGH BUSINESS STRATEGY. Someone very wise once said, "the world is not short on strategy, it's short on execution." And the evidence bears this out, as most business plans, whether for a start-up or a mature business, end up stacked on office bookshelves or buried in file drawers. Using his vast experience of guiding companies of all sizes throughout the world, Peter von Braun knows that the key to developing a truly winning business strategy is to follows a disciplined and scientific process that quickly cuts to the important issues and includes the managers who are critical to executing the plan. Planning and execution are interdependent, which is why planners and implementers need to work together from the beginning of plan development. Plan To Win outlines a clear, step-by-step process using the four market-tested principles of successful strategies and helps the reader avoid the most common mistakes of strategic business planning. As a serious student of military strategy, von Braun draws upon the great Prussian strategic thinker, Karl von Clausewitz, to provide the first three principles: 1) concentrate on the most important goal, 2) commit sufficient resources up front to ENSURE success; and 3) continue to focus on the goal until success is achieved. To these three, the author, Peter von Braun adds the fourth imperative, bring your key people together in the process of creating a business plan that will be understand, committed to and most importantly acted upon. That's not to say the strategy should be a big "group-think" exercise. The key is to follow a disciplined and scientific process that can cut through the unimportant information and focus on the meat of the opportunity. The author guides the reader through the step-by-step process of identifying the core issues and developing THE winning strategy using the first round strategic framework created during a real world case study. Creating a strategic plan is hard work, but by following the principles put forth in this book effectively and thoroughly, success is far more likely. This is a terrific book for business owners and executives, division managers, strategic planners, young executives interested in finding tools to further their careers, students and those interested in strategy.