Focus Your Business: Strategic Planning in Emerging Companies - Softcover

Brandt describes emerging companies as those that are no longer small and are certain to be firmly established in the future. He urges these companies to implement comprehensive strategic planning to help decide what the company should become and how to achieve it. The author first offers perspectives on how management practices in a growing company must be adapted to its larger size and scope. He then shows how strategic planning is a necessary discipline to ensure focus in an emerging enterprise. Final chapters deal with the requirements for executing the strategic plan in order to achieve optimum results. We learn that the basic tools for ensuring long-term growth are understanding the internal and external environment, setting expectations, deciding on strategy, adapting the organization's design and processes, adjusting management and leading styles, improving people skills, and cultivating a desired culture. The author claims that thoughtful and action-oriented strategic planning will help the emerging company establish a sustainable competitive advantage and become bigger without getting fatter. Mary Whaley