Asking the right strategic questions is crucial for business game play.  The right strategic questions and your answers provide a framework from which you can prepare your company to move forward—and ahead—of the competition.  Below are some of the key macro questions that will enable you to take a hard look at your current position as well as your next moves to propel your company into the future.

Complete a high-level S.W.O.T. analysis of you company

Strengths

  • What are your company’s strengths?
  • How can you leverage them?

Weaknesses

  • What are your company’s weaknesses?
  • What methods could you use to address and minimize them?

Opportunities

  • What are your company’s opportunities?
  • How can you seize them?
  • Is there a way to create new opportunities for your company?

Threats

  • What are your company’s threats?
  • How can you mitigate them?

Competition

  • Who will be your future competitors (suppliers, partners)?
  • What is your competitive advantage? Differentiation?

Trends

  • What are the current business trends of the industry?
  • What are the future business trends of the industry?
  • How are the current trends impacting your company?
  • How will the future trends impact your company?
  • How can you proactively capitalize on current and future trends?

Growth

  • To what level do you want to take your company?
  • How fast do you want to grow?
  • How are you going to accomplish this growth and the rate of it?

Gaps

  • Where are the gaps in your people, process, technology, and tools that will prevent you from meeting your future objectives?

Action (To Achieve Objectives)

  • What are you not doing today that you need to start doing to achieve your objectives?
  • What are you doing today that you need to stop doing so that you have the available resources to start doing?

Ongoing

  • Paradigm Shift Question:  “What is impossible today, that if were possible, would have a fundamental and dramatic improvement in your business?”  Joel Barker, Futurist

In order to survive—and thrive—in the future, there must be a plan for today.  Make that plan and stick to it.  It’ll be a win for you and your entire organization.