The Certified Strategist: Advanced Tools and Techniques

Why Attend

Why do some organizations continually succeed in meeting stakeholders’ expectations while others do not? Why do some organizations continuously outperform the competition while others struggle to keep up? One of the key differentiators between all these types of organizations is the existence and proper execution of a well thought out strategy that takes into account the complexities of today’s competitive world. In this course, we will dig deep into many well-established frameworks, tools and techniques for strategic thinking and planning. Participants will be able to pinpoint the real reasons behind long-term strategic performance and will be able to replicate this success in their own organizations.

Course Methodology

This is a highly interactive course that focuses on the application of each strategic framework to a different business case study. The techniques used in this course include team exercises, group discussions, videos and group presentations. In addition, this course offers participants the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned by passing an exam that will earn them the ‘Meirc Professional Certification’ (MPC).

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Apply essential strategic thinking and planning tools and techniques
• Employ models and frameworks to strategically analyze the internal and external environment of an organization
• Plan future strategic moves based on industry characteristics
• Identify and build organizational competencies, capabilities and a competitive position
• Define a corporate culture that promotes good strategy execution

Target Audience

All levels of managers and company personnel who are involved in charting and supporting the execution of the company plans to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.

Target Competencies

• Strategic thinking
• Strategic planning
• Strategic analysis
• Competitive analysis
• Trend analysis
• Driving customer value
• Analytical thinking

Developing a strategic perspective

• The 20 mile march
• Murphy’s law
• What does strategy mean?
• The three big strategic questions
• The blind men and the elephant
• What is the purpose of strategy?

Strategy and the quest for competitive advantage

• What distinguishes great companies?
• Competitive advantage examples
• Strive to be the industry’s low-cost provider
• Outcompete rivals on a key differentiating feature
• Focus on a certain market niche
• Develop capabilities not easily imitated by rivals
• The importance of strategy
• Case study: Build a company

Using strategic frameworks

• Using frameworks for analysis
• Frameworks for situation analysis
• Overview of Porter’s 5 forces
• Impact of Porter’s 5 forces
• Creating and capturing value
• SWOT analysis
• The SWOT matrix
• Linking SWOT to objectives and initiatives
• Fundamentals of the PEDESTL framework
• The strategy canvas
• Innovating using the strategy canvas

Future foresight

• The link between strategic management and futures research
• Futures wheel
• Futures table
• Weak signals
• Black swans and wild cards
• Futures toolkit
• The Delphi method
• Axes of uncertainty
• Policy stress-testing
• Backcasting

Organizational strategies

• The most important asset
• Optimizing people processes
• Streamlining processes
• Optimizing information systems
• Measuring results