Strategy and Tactics

A lot of us would prefer shortcuts to things.

Those "secrets", "tips", or "techniques" that will get us what we want right now, with no or minimum fuss and efforts on our part.

And even though most of us actually know that these seldom work or exist at all, we still continue to pursue them. We are forever looking for that magic method that will instantly make life easier.

The reality though is that to achieve anything, you need a solid strategy and accompanying tactics in place. These are key components of success. People who fail to hit their targets usually do because they didn't recognise the importance of strategic and tactical planning in achieving their goals.

This goes for businesses too. Those that struggle are usually those who have overlooked actual planning which encompass strategies and tactics that will enable them achieve their mission.

Although strategy and tactics are often used synonymously, they in fact, have different meanings.

What exactly is strategy? And what are tactics?

Strategy refers to the approach that will be taken to achieve a set of goals that have been defined. It represents the route to these goals and outlines how you’re planning to achieve them. Strategy gives you the path you take towards achieving your mission or realising your vision. It is the understanding of why you take certain actions.

Tactics on the other hand are the individual steps taken, actions made or methods employed that make up the strategy. They describe the specific actions that you will take in order to achieve your goals and hence are informed by your strategy

Simply put, the strategy is the combined tactics to achieve a certain result.

As an example to distinguish between strategy and tactics, a soccer team may find themselves in a situation whereby they have to win each of their remaining 5 fixtures to be declared champions of their league.

In this case, becoming champions is the goal, winning the remaining 5 fixtures is the strategy and the methods employed to win each individual fixture are the tactics.

As mentioned earlier, strategy and tactics are very important if a business is to be successful.

Most businesses are started with the long term in mind. This includes goals, so a plan to achieve these will be needed. This plan becomes a strategy because it would constitute certain actions whose aim would be to achieve the initial goals.

Even though strategies differ from business to business, they generally are focused on gaining or exploiting a competitive advantage. If a business can be more competitive than another, it wins.

Business tactics are particular actions that make up the overall strategy. These are the actions that influence the success or failure of a business strategy.

Developing a successful strategy starts from a thorough understanding of your mission, what you intend to achieve. It is based on this that the relevant strategies can be developed. Once you know the goal, you can start piecing together the components of your overarching strategy. 

When you have a solid strategy in place, that’s when you develop and implement the tactics as the tactics are based on the strategy.

There are various strategies and tactics that can be implemented to take your business to the next level and the type you employ will depend on the kind of business you do, what you intend to achieve and perhaps the time frame you've given yourself.

A consultant may realise that though he makes a good income, he has to work an insane number of hours weekly to make this income. He acknowledges that there are other important things in life besides work and money which require his attention and may set a goal to cut down his number of work hours and yet maintain or even increase his income.

As part of his strategic planning, he analyses his operations and sees that a major reason for his lengthy work hours is that he operates in the typical charge by the time, location dependent manner. He sees that under this model, his income is directly tied to his work hours such that if he reduced his work hours, his income reduces and the only way he could increase his income was if he increased his work hours. This was unacceptable.

Further he also considered all the time spent commuting to and from clients' offices and homes. This also contributed to his lengthy work hours.

So his strategy was to revamp his operations.

As part of the tactics to achieve his new goals, he changes his charge method. Rather than charge by time as he used to, he starts charging according to the value he provides his clients. This ensures that his income is no longer tied to time and he can still maintain it even though he now worked lesser hours, or improve it by offering more value without necessarily working longer hours.

Also, he sets himself up to work remotely. Rather than having to physically be with clients each time he wanted to offer value, he employs technology to install systems and processes in place that will enable him impart his values to clients regardless of his or the clients locations. In other words, he doesn't have to spend hours stuck in traffic when commuting to clients' offices and homes like he used to in the past.

Setting himself up for remote operations also means that he can expand his marketing and services to clients all over the country, or all over the world, without having to live in the cities where those clients reside. This had notable significance and represented a huge improvement to when he only marketed to prospects in his local city and worked with clients in his local city.

This is a way in which strategy and tactics can be used to improve your operations and expedite the accomplishment of your goals.

Plan strategically and tactically and better equip yourself to easily achieve whatever targets you set your sights on.