Management tools & Strategic Analytical Frameworks – My tryst

Its always wonderful to work with revolutionary entrepreneurs. They bring perspectives to the table which can only be gained through experiences. My work over the last couple of months has given me the amazing opportunity to work with someone who pioneered unbelievable initiatives in the field of consumer healthcare. He continues to do so with a slew of new products and services.

One of the most admirable aspects about this personality, who must be in his late 50s, is his commitment to management education. He continues to learn so many tools, techniques, analytical frameworks etc. For the first time in my short career of SME consulting I saw an entrepreneur practically applying these tools for strategic planning as a way of life. He has attended workshops from so many great management thinkers of our times like CK Prahalad, Jack Trout etc has through our conversations quotes at length about how things they said are relevant to our context.

We have been involved in the communication strategy for his upcoming project. So much of the larger strategy has been based on tools like Value Innovation, Four Actions Framework, The Decision Matrix etc. The only way we could move forward with our work was to understand these frameworks. So we were forced to read books like Blue Ocean Strategy, Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing etc.

Contained in these books are a wealth of tools and insights. I knew the beauty of tools before. Though not from a traditional management education background, I have used tools like Marketing Mix, Porter’s five forces, SWOT etc in different assignments and strategic plans. I knew tools give a direction to think. I remember subscribing to some newsletters and collecting tools so that I will use it “somewhere”. But this was different.

I got to see a seasoned entrepreneur apply these tools with diligence. This process of understanding what he did was a great way to learn, how to apply tools. By the time out turn to do our work, we decided to use some tools to help ourselves.

A lot of product strategy had already been designed and we had access to approaches used for that purpose, which had to be adapted to our process. For the purpose of designing the Decision Acceleration process, after much research, we had looked to Buyer Utility Matrix, Kotler’s Consumer Buying Process & The Decision Matrix. The outcome was that we designed our own framework to designing a decision acceleration process.

Buying Cycle Stage

Decision Frictions

Strategic Communication

Call to action

Trigger to move to next stage

WoM Generator

The most important learning of this entire journey was that “Management Tools are Useful”

• Tools help in giving direction to our thinking processes.
• Tools allow us to set on a deeper inquiry through relevant questions
• Tools allow us to give shape and meaning to what may otherwise seem unintelligent.
• Tools are a great format for presenting strategic elements of an idea

On the flip side I also realized, getting caught on with tools is also not too great. Also in context of management thinking there is no ONE TOOL, like a magic wand for all problems. Several thoughts are available, many similar with little difference, it’s the user who must apply them wisely. The other important thing I’ve learnt is that the understanding tools must not an intellectual exercise; it must be an experiential exercise. The more we use a tool, the more we discover about it.

I am so glad and thankful for this opportunity to explore tools and management education in a totally experiential way. Hope to work more, be pushed harder for excellence and thrive longer to explore deeper depths and discover newer wonders of the work I do!

Advertisement