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Outthinker Blog

The Outthinker blog offers our take on the latest news stories, trends, and ideas in strategy. Learn real-world examples of the Outthinker strategic process along with suggestions on how to apply them to your business

Strategic thinking

The Good, the Bad, and the Exciting Future of Strategic Planning (Part 5)

Our colleague Michael Froehls shares the fifth and final piece in his strategic planning series. Read it to stay ahead of how strategic planning practices are

Entrepreneurship

How To Engage Your Star Employees When They Want To Change The World

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, “Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to

Entrepreneurship

What Bundle Organics Can Teach You About Finding Your “White Space”

Founded by two Harvard Business School grads, Bundle Organics offers a line of organic prenatal juices made specifically for pregnant and breastfeeding women. I got

Innovation

This Key To Bettering Your Business Is A No-Brainer, But You May Still Be Missing Out

It may sound boring, operational, and tactical, but your distribution plan is perhaps your greatest opportunity to magnify the potential of your business. If strategy

Strategic thinking

The Good, the Bad, and the Exciting Future of Strategic Planning (Part 4)

Putting Strategic back into Strategic Planning In the last article of this series, we started covering the shortcomings of the strategic planning process (SPP). We

Marketing and sales

3 Keys to Make Your Brand Stand Out

The FIFA World Cup is a great example of best-in-class brands who are trying to make an impression. This event is far more than a

Innovation

Tips for thinking ahead in fast-moving spaces from serial entrepreneur Bernee Strom

Serial entrepreneur Bernee Strom has built a career thinking ahead in fast-moving markets, from electronics to television. She has served or is serving on the

Innovation

How to Envision New Growth Ideas from the President of IMG Sports

Inspiration breeds innovation. Great business leaders not only disregard the status quo for higher standards, but they routinely encourage their employees and team members to

Innovation

How Love Saved Macmillan

From a bright white conference room at Macmillan, we saw clouds forming. The tween romance book segment was expanding, creating an opportunity of enormous potential

Leadership

How Skullcandy Is Turning Things Around Its Own Way

Summary: Sometimes starting at the end can be the best way to turn around a company that’s no longer thriving. Skullcandy’s CEO explains how it

Strategic thinking

The Good, the Bad, and the Exciting Future of Strategic Planning

Article written by Michael Froehls, originally published by the University of Texas Austin. In the first article of this series, we looked at the known and lesser-known

Entrepreneurship

What you Can Learn About Adaptability from Sylvan Learning

When W. Berry Fowler decided to give up his formal teaching career to open a tutoring business in 1979, he had no idea he was

Leadership

Want to keep your team happy? Talk to the people who just quit

Note: originally published on Fastcompany.com Of course you want to keep your best employees, but the truth is most of your employees–even the happy ones–are

Career

How to Solve the Jobs Dilemma: Attract and Retain More Entrepreneurs

Note: originally posted on Knowledge@Wharton Despite an unemployment rate hovering at 6.7%, American businesses still struggle to fill jobs, with executives saying there’s a lack

Entrepreneurship

Seven Lessons to Help Your Business Last

Alexandre Wentzo, CEO of Casewise, shared with us the exciting news that his firm has reached a milestone most start-ups fail to achieve. The company just

Leverage Point	“8Ps” of Strategy	Opportunity for Disruption	Recommended Leverage Points
Position	- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting. - The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.	3	- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market segments that you previously thought unreachable? - What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).
Product	- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers. - The technology you develop for producing those products.	8	- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use? - What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and production? - How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable land? - What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?
Promotion	- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries. - How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.	8	- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it? - How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?
Price	How consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.	7	- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?
Placement	- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.	9	- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire? - How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat? - How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more accessible to customers/agile supply chain? - Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?
Physical Experience	- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer. - How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.	9	- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness scale? - Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs? - What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?
Processes	- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.	8	- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste? - How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.? - What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?
People	- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.		- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision? - How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)? - How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?
--	--	--	--

Leverage
Point

“8Ps” of Strategy

Opportunity
for Disruption

Recommended Leverage Points

Position

- The farmers, individual and corporate, that you are targeting.

- The need of the agricultural industry that you seek to fill.

- What technologies do you control that can help you tap into market
segments that you previously thought unreachable?

- What are the potential business alliances you could think about with key players in the segment to serve your customers with integrated solutions? (Serving customers with more integrated solutions example: serving farmers with fertilizers, crop protection and other).

Product

- The products you offer, and the characteristics that affect their value to customers.

- The technology you develop for producing those products.

- What moves are your organization taking to implement Big Data and analytics to your operations? What IoT and blockchain applications can you use?

- What tools and technology could you utilize or develop to improve food quality, traceability, and
production?

- How can you develop a more sustainable production model to accommodate constraints on arable
land?

- What is the future business model needed to serve new differentiated products to your customers?

Promotion

- How you connect with farmers and consumers across a variety of locations and industries.
- How to make consumers, producers, and other stakeholders aware of your products and services.

- How are you connecting your product with individual and corporate farms who could utilize it?
- How could you anticipate market and customer needs to make customers interested in accessing your differentiated products?

Price

How consumers and other members of the agricultural supply chain pay for access to agricultural products.

- What elements of value comprise your pricing? How do each of those elements satisfy the varying needs of your customers?

Placement

- How food products reach consumers. How the technologies, data, and services reach stakeholders in the supply chain.

- What new paths might exist for helping consumers access the food they desire?
- How are you adapting your operations and supply chain to accommodate consumers’ desire for proximity to the food they eat?
- How could you anticipate customer expectation to make products more
accessible to customers/agile supply chain?
- Have you considered urbanization as a part of your growth strategy?

Physical
Experience

- How your food satisfies the needs and desires of your customer.
- How the services you provide to agribusiness fulfill their needs.

- Where does your food rate on a taste, appearance, and freshness
scale?
- Could the services you provide to companies and farms in the agriculture industry be expanded to meet more needs?
- What senses does your food affect besides hunger? How does your
customer extract value from your food in addition to consumption?

Processes

- Guiding your food production operations in a manner cognizant of social pressure.

- How can you manage the supply chain differently to improve traceability and reduce waste?
- How can you innovate systems in production, processing, storing, shipping, retailing, etc.?
- What are new capabilities to increase sustainability (impact on the environment, or ESG) components?

People

- The choices you make regarding hiring, organizing, and incentivizing your people and your culture.

- How are you leveraging the agricultural experience of your staff bottom-up to achieve your vision?
- How do you anticipate new organizational capabilities needed to perform your future strategy (innovation, exponential technologies needed, agile customer relationship, innovative supply chain)?
- How do you manage your talents to assure suitable development with exposure in the agrifood main challenges/allowing a more sustainable view of the opportunities/cross-sectors?