Market Focused Strategic Planning

During this intensive and applied four-day business course, you will be equipped with essential strategic planning tools, techniques and frameworks needed to design and deliver defensible, market-winning strategies.

Our overarching objective is to help you overcome competitive forces and fully meet your customer objectives with superior segmentation, targeting and positioning.

Course topics

During this course, you will work through a funnel of learning objectives that result in a fresh mindset for strategic thinking and an essentials-toolkit for market-focused strategic planning.

Not only will you be able to contribute valuable insights to strategic, senior-level conversations about the direction of your business, but undertake strategic planning by yourself, or lead a team to do so.

First, you will: 

• Learn how to establish your strategic context and:

• Identify the shareholder-value-driving growth areas of your business; and

• Uncover your truly valuable markets and correct strategic objectives

We then concentrate on your competition and show you how to:

• Identify the true range of your competition; and

• Dissect competitor strategies systematically and pinpoint their strengths and weakness

Next, we turn to your target market segments and learn to:

• Qualify the value of your potential customer segments and uncover those truly valuable to your business; and

• Develop a defensible and persuasive case for senior stakeholders in your organisation around which segments to retain, enter or exit

We then proceed with how to position yourself in your chosen target market segments to be customer-compelling, and you will learn how to:

• Develop definitive value propositions for your customers; and

• Test whether your proposed propositions really are as compelling as you think and meet the needs of your customers, new and old

There will be a course dinner on evening three, in an iconic Manchester venue, offering the opportunity for your class to come together with a wider cohort of short-course learners to expand your networking opportunities. 

Finally, we move to branding your strategic positions and learn how to: 

• Reposition, reinforce or revitalise your brands; and

• Expand into new markets and market segments with existing and new brands

There will be a networking drinks reception on evening one?where you will get to know your course colleagues. There will also be a course dinner on evening three, in an iconic Manchester venue, offering the opportunity for your class to come together with a wider cohort of short-course learners to expand your networking opportunities.