Are You Leaving Growth On The Table?

Do you use SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) as a strategy process? If so, you are leaving growth on the table. Successful strategy is not just about reacting to the market but proactively managing key business pressures. The PTA (Pressures, Trends, Actions) Assessment provides a framework to focus your growth strategy where it matters most.

1. Competitive Pressure
   
   1. List your top competitors and their strengths and vulnerabilities. Using that, build out action steps for sales and marketing to neutralize their strengths and exploit their vulnerabilities.
   2. Evaluate your products and services against competitors. Identify and leverage your unique advantages.
   3. Conduct customer depth interviews to discover what truly influences buying decisions.
2. Vendor and Supplier Pressure
   
   1. Evaluate the abundance or scarcity of quality suppliers, assess their strength — can they drive up prices or limit supply?
   2. Strengthen partnerships where mutual advantages exist and negotiate leverage where they don’t.
   3. Evaluate alternatives to mitigate reliance on a single supplier.
3. Customer Pressure
   
   1. Analyze how easily customers can switch to competitors and build strategies to increase loyalty. Evaluate the cost for customers to switch to competitors.
   2. Develop retention programs and incentives that make your offering “stickier.”
   3. Identify untapped market segments and define steps to capture them.
4. The Pressure and Potential of New Competition or Alternatives
   
   1. Assess the likelihood and ease with which new competitors could enter your market.
   2. Increase barriers to entry by strengthening brand recognition, patents or proprietary processes.
   3. Monitor emerging technologies that could disrupt your industry and take preemptive action.
5. Employee and Talent Pressures
   
   1. Identify workforce pressures — are you facing skill shortages, retention issues or union demands?
   2. Evaluate whether your talent advantage comes from hiring top-tier candidates or from developing internal expertise.
   3. Invest in unique training and development programs to build a workforce that is a strategic asset not a liability.
6. Substitution Pressure
   
   1. Determine how easily customers would be able to replace your offering with another solution.
   2. Find ways to increase reliance on your company by becoming the most valuable or only provider of a key service.
   3. Strengthen your brand to ensure customers view you as the default choice.
7. Pressure From Technological and Resource Changes
   
   1. Identify critical technologies and data sources that are evolving in your industry.
   2. Protect or gain ownership over essential information or tech assets.
   3. Develop proprietary systems or solutions that can create a sustainable competitive advantage.
      

The PTA Strategy Process: Turning Pressure into Action

1. Analyze Past Trends
   
   1. Identify shifts over the past three to 10 years in competition, supply chain, customer behavior and technology.
   2. Have your competitive pressures intensified? Have suppliers gained leverage?
2. Assess Current Trends
   
   1. What trends are dominating today? Are competitors consolidating or expanding?
   2. Are customers demanding lower prices or higher customization?
3. Predict Future Trends
   
   1. What’s next? Is artificial intelligence (AI) about to disrupt your sector? Will new regulations reshape your supply chain?
   2. Identify potential threats and strategize proactive responses.
4. Prioritize Strategic Actions
   
   1. Develop jujitsu-like strategies to turn external pressures into internal advantages.
   2. Prioritize actions that are going to enhance profitability and market leadership.

My PTA Assessment lets you lead rather than react. Strategy means learning the forces shaping your industry and using them to create advantage. Prioritize, take action and dominate your market.

Remember, an annual strategic planning retreat is an event and an oxymoron, while self-assessment like the above is a process. As the leader, it’s best for you to begin the above privately with outside guidance and then facilitate a process. Call me, I’m glad to help.

Mark Faust
(513) 621-8000
mark@em1990.com
@markfaustsr