Developing Commercial Awareness - Career Development From MindTools. Understanding How Businesses Make Money Learn why developing commercial awareness is so important, and find out how you can cultivate this understanding. © iStockphoto/paparazzit Kate is a successful HR manager, and she has just applied to become Head of Department.
There are many competitors for the open position, but Kate manages to impress the board during her interview. She demonstrates an in-depth understanding of how the organization works, and she outlines how HR can help strengthen their market position. She explains how she's negotiated with recruitment agencies to bring their fees down from 15 percent to 12 percent, and how she plans to keep rates competitive. These insights are news to the board. Kate wins the promotion because she has demonstrated commercial awareness. Commercial awareness, or business acumen, can make an enormous difference in your career, whether you're just starting out or you're an experienced professional. What is Commercial Awareness? Benefits and Uses Tip: Competitive Intelligence - Strategy Skills Training from MindTools. Understanding Your Competitive Position Competitive intelligence helps you plan your next move. © iStockphoto/ssuni Your business doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Whatever sector you operate in, and however unique your selling proposition, there will always be other businesses competing for customers in your field. A competitor is a rival company operating in the same industry as you, selling similar goods or services. You may be competing against your rivals to win customers on the basis of price, the type of product you sell, the type of promotions you run, or perhaps the quality of service you offer. When you look around at your current competitors, do you know what they're doing? This sort of knowledge is competitive intelligence (CI).
Using CI practices, you can monitor and assess the actions of competitors and long-term market prospects. What is Competitive Intelligence? Competitive intelligence focuses on five basic categories of information: ... for the complete article: Dsa.umich.edu/files/dsa/Getting%2BStarted%2BGuide.pdf. Web.mit.edu/professional/pdf/sp-docs/pre-reading/1010-turn-strategy-into-action.pdf. Www.cida-ecco.org/CIDARoadMap/RoadMapEnvoy/documents/LFA - Making it Results Oriented.pdf. Www.intrac.org/data/files/resources/518/The-Use-and-Abuse-of-the-Logical-Framework-Approach.pdf.
Strategy Consulting Firms & Companies. Posted by admin on July 9, 2010 Strategic Planning is a misunderstood and often misused term, lacking a well-defined and widely agreed upon definition.
Strategy, and the planning associated with it, has origins dating back to its military usage as early as the 6th century. In the corporate world, strategic planning generally refers to the defining of the organization’s go-forward plan for the future and accompanying desired outcomes. The spectrum of corporate strategic planning models and processes is broad, and the term has taken on many different connotations over recent decades. This White Paper aims to more definitively define the term, “Strategic Planning” in its corporate context and explores the basic components of what should be done in the planning process to make it worthwhile - delivering value, profits and securing competitive advantage.
The Opportunity Afforded By Strategic Planning The History of Strategic Planning Let us next define the term, “strategic planning”. Innovation.