Strategy tools for your business

Getting your strategy right

Beginning a review of your existing businesses strategy can be a daunting task however, there are well researched strategic tools that can help your business. The tools shown below provide ideas for how a business can make significant steps in documenting both existing strategy and when beginning your new strategic journey.

SWOT/TOWS: One of the most well-known tools is a SWOT analysis that is often dismissed as being too basic. However if you are at the beginning of your strategy consulting review, a SWOT is a good place to start. Heinz Weihrich introduced the TOWS framework that enables matching of internal and external factors to help recognise strategic options for a company. Here VP Consulting discuss the SWOT/TOWS tool that helps business management consultants identify and challenge perceived Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Comparing the external market with the internal market: As a business management consultancy, VP Consulting are often tasked with understanding both what the organisation’s existing internal capabilities and external market opportunities. The TOWS framework provides four perspectives:

Strengths/Opportunities (SO): Using internal strengths to exploit external market opportunities.

Example: Reviewing how existing business strengths can be harnessed by management to extend a product range to a new market segment.

Strengths/Threats (ST): Using internal strengths to perceive how your business can avoid external threats.

Example: VP Consulting help businesses identify its core competencies so that strengths can be improved to better compete against other business in the market.

Weaknesses/Opportunities (WO): Looking at business internal weaknesses to exploit external opportunities.

Example: Identifying a business weakness within your organisation and formulating a strategy to upskill the organisation to harness an external growth opportunity.

Weaknesses/Threats (WT): Understanding internal weaknesses to avoid external threats.

Example: A partnership with a complimentary company could help an organisation overcome a weakness and mitigate external threats from competitors.

“TOWS enables businesses to assess internal competetencies and formulate ways to overcome weaknesses into opportunities (Panagiotou, 2003)"

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