"Ruthlessly Prioritize" 

 
Good companies prioritize at every step - from choosing the right market in which to compete, to which part of the industry value chain to focus on, to which customers should be prioritized to the detailed on-the-ground tactics used to target those customers. Choose the wrong market and it doesn't matter how good you are at everything else; choose the wrong customers and your tactics won't matter. The magic happens in strategy when you find key customer needs in your high priority segments in areas of the industry value chain where only you have capabilities (we call these Strategic Control Points). This course walks you through a process for prioritizing each step of the process, following the course's companion book, Compete Smarter, Not Harder, and gives you specific tools to apply the processes and tools to your business. 
 
Thus, the program follows the process developed through best-of-practice academic research, consulting practice and business strategy – as detailed in the best-selling book, Compete Smarter, Not Harder: A Process for Developing the Right Priorities Through Strategic Thinking (John Wiley and Sons, 2014).
 
Business today transcends “business as usual” versus the “new normal,” “live” versus “remote” and “yesterday” versus “tomorrow.” Finding deep-seated, often latent, needs of high priority segments and matching this to unique competencies in areas of strategic control in the industry’s value chain is at the core of business, full stop. Always has, always will. The fundamental approach of the processes that stand the test of time is where one should begin to make sense out of times of volatility. As such, we apply rigorous, state-of-the-art processes to understanding how we can uniquely deliver the deep-seated needs of our most desirable customers.