Getting Your Strategic Plan Right The First Time

Preparing a comprehensive strategy for entering new markets is a balancing act for many technology vendors. Take too much time in the planning process and your organization is likely to miss market opportunities and lose ground to faster-moving competition. On the other hand, aggressively moving into new markets without a well-defined plan and a complete understanding of market dynamics can be far more costly than any planning process. At Forrester, we review countless presentations from technology vendors planning to operate in new markets and find that many of them suffer from similar flaws. To help with your planning process and your presentation focus, we've outlined six steps to make sure you cover the fundamentals. We outline the importance of factors like creating vision, defining resource support, developing a story around market trends, establishing the business case, selecting the implementation team, and mitigating risks. We've also included a self-assessment tool to ensure that you've addressed the right questions in your strategy proposals and funding pitches.