Dear BPS and Entrep list members
Is there a accepted list of orthodox (classical) or newer, novel concepts, methods frameworks or tools for opportunity recognition, strategy development and strategic thinking for startups? I've seen such lists from Bain & Company for corporate strategy tools and for foresight tools (from the Manchester Business School & UNIDO regional foresight workshops).
Would that list be different for entrepreneurs and startups (since they have different questions, needs and gasps) vs established corporations with multiple products or services portfolios ?
Bain publishes an annual list of popular corporate planning tools, ranked by popularity --strategic planning, Supply Chain Management, Benchmarking, Core Competencies, Customer Segmentation, Strategic Alliances, Offshoring, TQM, CRM, Growth Strategies, Business Process Reengineering, FRID, Scenario and Contingency Planning, Outsourcing, Six Sigma. Mission and Vision statements, Price optimization models, Balanced scorecard, Economic value analysis, change management programs, activity based management, knowledge management, open market innovation, mass customization, loyalty management etc
Some of these would/could be used by entrepreneurs and others might be too costly, time-consuming or complex.
In, Assessing the tools and techniques enterprises use for analyzing Innovation, Science and Technology (IS&T) factors: are they up to the task?, (Int. J. Technology Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2006); Craig S. Fleisher, who is at the Odette School of Business, University of Windsor looked at 35 different strategy tools (see list below) and ranked them according to his FAROUT scheme (or Future Orientation, Accuracy, Resource efficiency, Objectivity, Usefulness and Timeliness)
Fleisher covers 35 methods or tools in his paper (above): 1 Benchmarking 2 Capability and resource 3 Competitor analysis; 4 Critical success factors; 5 Customer value; 6 Disruptive technology; 7 Driving force; 8 Early warning; 9 Experience curve; 10 Forecasting ; 11 Future studies; 12 Industry analysis; 13 Knowledge cluster and mapping; 14 Literature mapping; 15 Market opportunity; 16 Macro-environment STEEP; 17 Meta-Game; 18 Network ; 19 Patent analysis; 20 Patent mapping; 21 Product life cycle; 22 Product market; 23 Roadmapping; 24 S-curve/tech. life cycle; 25 Science and tech.profiling 26 Scenarios; 27 Scientometrics; 28 Simulation;29 Spire 30 Stakeholder ; 31 Strategic relationship 32 SWOT or TOWS 33 Technology scouting ; 34 Trends; and 35 Value chain
-Has anyone seen other ways of ranking tools? Strengths and weaknesses and limitations of use?
-Has anyone ranked these methods (according to popularity) along the commercialization chain (ie evaluate idea; validate; align; maximize, launch; evaluate, growth etc)? or life cycle of the firm? i.e. When and where are these various methods used most often?
-What other tools or methods or frameworks could be added to the above list for entrepreneurs? What's missing? How about Real Options Planning? Discovery-driven Planning? Pricing frameworks?
-Are qualitative tools easier to do/apply then quantitative ones?
Please share your insights about applications. Love to hear from academics, practitioners or SME users themselves
Walter Derzko
----Walter
Our motto...."Changing the world, one idea at a time"
Walter Derzko
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