Company strategy, SWOT analysis, risk management and other dances with tambourines for those who want to grow

Attention to the owners of small and medium-sized IT, Internet and software companies! Another valuable report from the equally valuable ISDEF IT conference fell into Alconost's tenacious hands . In it, Alexander Lyskovsky, co-founder and CEO of Alawar Entertainment , told how to grow a company and what needs to be done for its successful growth.

At the very beginning of the formation of the company, few people think about the tactics of its development and SWOT analysis. Moreover, all these terms in themselves can scare off work on the company's strategy. But developing a strategy and defining tactics are key points for the continuous and sustainable development of the company. Unfortunately, the average company owner is not familiar with the concepts of strategic management. This is a consequence of education in our universities, where the issues of strategy are not considered at all or are studied at optional, optional courses.

Interesting fact: any activity related to the strategy seems untimely. Like, if the company is doing well, then why waste time and energy on an incomprehensible strategy? On the other hand, in case of problems, in times of crisis, it is also not up to the strategy - you need to do something faster, rather than “plan plans”.

Do not think that the issue of strategy can be left to the consulting companies. Of course, you cannot do without the help of experts, but you will have to do everything yourself. But there is good news. It consists in the fact that strategy is a skill that can be learned!

Therefore, we begin to consider the basic terms and concepts in the difficult task of creating a company’s strategy.

Life hack from Alexander Lyskovsky: “The key moment for a company when it’s worth starting to work on a strategy is the moment when it missed one market”

Strategy is the director’s task

First you need to realize that writing a strategy is the task of a company leader. This vision of the company's goals will form the basis of strategy and tactics. Remember that the leader of the company has two main qualities that give him undeniable advantages over others. First: he knows where he is going. And the second: he is able to convince others to follow him.

To facilitate the process of writing a strategy, answer the question: “Where do we want to come?” Or more precisely, “For what purpose was the company created?”. This will be the goal of your company. The term “vision” is associated with the term “goal”. And if the goal is a brief explanation of the endpoint on the company's development path, then vision implies an emotional decoding of the goal. An important nuance: the goal of the company should not be only financial.

After you have presented the goal of your company, answer the question “Which way do we choose to achieve the goal?” ". This will be your strategy. Agree that it is much more understandable and simpler. Remember that the specialists who work in your company need to explain in simple and understandable words what they are doing and, in fact, why they are doing it. And we’ll leave difficult terms for teachers of academic universities.



After answering the question about the company's strategy, it is worth answering the question of how to achieve this. Therefore, we move on to the next point, namely, tactics.

A strategy without tactics is just a pretty picture

A typical and gross error is the lack of tactics. The strategy should be tied to life, to employees and not be divorced from reality. If employees don’t understand how their tasks are related to the strategy, that is, they don’t know the tactics, this will negate all strategic work.



Tactics should not and cannot describe what to do in one scenario, because there are always different options. Strategy and tactics are a kind of map by which we move towards our goal. When moving towards a goal, we see a fork in the map that shows how you can change your movement. The choice at any given moment within the framework of an already chosen strategy is certain values ​​and attitudes within the company that are shared by all employees. Values ​​help you choose your direction of travel. Remember that company values ​​are always a priority.

Life hack from Alexander Lyskovsky: “Make a habit of thinking about the question“ What could be done a year ago for the development of the company ””

After we have decided on the key concepts of strategy and tactics, we turn to general concepts that will help to develop the basic principles of working on a strategy.

Strategy Strategy

Let's talk about the goal first. It must be clearly stated, labeled and measurable. An example of the erroneous goal “We want to make all people happy.” It will never be achieved as well as measured.

The following principle: do not be afraid of the new and do not wait for the results immediately .

An example from the life of Alawar Entertainment. It was decided to make games for Android. The first game saw the light exactly one year after the decision. Therefore, the strategy must always lay the time to make a decision and directly the time to achieve the goal.

Never Absolute Expert Opinion! Listen to their opinions, but draw your own conclusions. The story is full of examples of how experienced experts make mistakes. Take for example the Beatles band’s story.



Another key principle - don't be afraid to make mistakes. Often the one who creates the strategy makes mistakes in interpreting the market or misunderstanding the situation at the moment. This is not a big deal or unique. History knows a huge number of examples of mistakes in writing a company’s strategy. Remember Bill Gates: in 1981, he believed that a PC user would always have enough 640 kilobytes of RAM. Therefore, when listening to experts, do not trust them 100% and do not be afraid to make mistakes again and again. A strategy can be compiled from completely erroneous judgments, and there is nothing wrong or irreparable. Wrong? Create a new strategy!

Learn new things- This is another aspect of strategy strategies. Any strategy implies that you come to a certain point and start doing something new there. And the new always involves learning. One of the things that is worth and needs to be learned is strategic learning. You can study in different ways: read books, attend conferences, trainings, courses, communicate with company leaders. The last paragraph provides a lot of valuable information. Communicating with colleagues, ask them, ask questions about how they see the goals of their enterprise, development paths.

And finally, a few terms on strategic planning to systematize the knowledge gained, so to speak.

Strategic Planning Glossary

Mission is the meaning of the existence of the organization, the value that the company gives the world in the long term and which the consumer is ready to acquire.

Values - a series of systematic emotional phenomena, principles and norms that correspond to the organizational model and culture of the company, which allow manifesting themselves in the thinking and behavior of employees in such a way that allows to realize the strategic vision of the company.

Vision (goal described in detail) is the target picture of the enterprise; a perspective look at the direction of the organization’s development, a basic concept of what the organization is trying to do and what to achieve.

Strategic goals- the measurable results that are expected to be achieved in order to realize the strategic vision.

Functional strategies - decomposition of growth strategies and competition strategies into company functions and focused tasks for the development of functional areas. Alawar has a technological, HR-, PR-, investment strategy, as well as a strategy for working with developers. Functional strategies should inherit the principles of the main strategy, they are written after writing the main.

An anti-risk strategy is part of a company’s strategy that answers employees' questions:

• What events may happen that will not allow us to achieve the mission and the realization of the vision?
• How will we prevent, minimize risk?
• How will we act in case of risk?

And the last piece of advice: come up with non-financial goals for your company.

By the way, you will soon be able to discuss these and other issues in person with Alexander Lyskovsky and other IT business gurus. ISDEF Conference - Already in September!

Video of the report is here .