1. Strategic Planning: A Business Primer for Information Professionals Amy Affelt, Lexecon Lauren Meader, Covington & Burling Jan Sykes, Information Management Services, Inc. SLA – 2004

2. What is a strategic plan? Document detailing: –Where we are now –Where we want to be –How we are going to get there

3. How others describe it: –Strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique. (Michael Porter) –Process for envisioning the future; developing procedures/operations to achieve that future (Goodstein, Nolan & Pfeiffer)

4. Myths My industry is changing too fast to have a strategic plan I am too busy to take time to prepare a strategic plan Information Center is a support function and does not need a strategic plan My strategic plan is for my department only

5. What is the benefit of a strategic plan? Compass for action Measurement system for monitoring progress Resource attraction and resource allocation

6. Why do you need a strategic plan? Defines core values Communicates common understanding of goals & unified plan of action on which to base business decisions Provides framework for evaluating new ideas DRIVERintegrated into how you run your operation

7. Who should be involved in preparing a strategic plan? Information Center Manager Information Center Staff CXO level Customers

8. Disciplined approach to: Reflection on the business environment Markets/Clients served External influences (technology, competition, economy) Plans for reshaping the organization to meet objectives

9. Planning process is a time to: Brainstorm Share knowledge about events & activities that impact your business Think creatively about the future

10. New conversations give new insights New hires Exceptional employees Thought leaders Suppliers Customers Leadership team Environmental scanning Informal benchmarking

11. Key components Vision/Mission statements Situational analysis Strategic direction of organization Competition SWOT Budget Goals/Strategies Critical success factors

12. Useful resources: Drucker, Peter. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. (Harper Business, 1973, 1974) Goodstein, Leonard, Nolan, Timothy and Pfeiffer, J. William. Applied Strategic Planning: How to Develop a Plan that Really Works. (McGraw-Hill, 1993) Hamel, Gary. Leading the Revolution (Harvard Business School Press, 2000) Porter, Michael. Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (Free Press, 1980).

13. Formulation of Strategy

14. Library as a Business Unit Company ABC Library Librarian MarketingR&D

15. First, Pretend Youre the CEO

16. Then, Think Like a Librarian Remember, you are a Business Unit Manager

17. Case Study: Corporate Executive Board content firm – mix of a for-profit think tank and a consulting firm membership based, Global 3000 companies multiple product oriented business units –companies joined a BU, not firm as a whole three primary products –custom research –syndicated research –meetings, seminars, on site training

18. Firm Strategy Simply, increase membership, thereby increasing revenues. How? Promoting custom research.

19. What can the Business Unit Do? What can the library do to help increase membership and promote custom research? - Make custom research a better quality product -Librarians can help produce custom research faster More product being produced faster.

20. How to Make the Case out of the box add value empower ROI best-of-breed HiPo path to profits innovicide krudzu leveraging assets metadecision

21. Strategic Plan- Summary Hire fewer custom researchers Hire more librarians Spend less on online resources Spend less time using resources Save money on staffing Better quality product being produced faster- again, firm goal is business units goal

22. Presentation to Executive Mgmt Get Their Attention : This proposal will allow the firm to save $300,000 annually and help make custom research a better product which will result in increased membership.

24. Firm Strategy Changes, So Too Must the Business Units Strategy for doing better what we do today changed based on client feedback. Business environment, technology and industry changed resulting in syndicated research being more important to the member company.

25. How Can the Library Help New focus on syndicated research Librarians became part of research team, attended brainstorming meetings, performed almost all secondary research higher level of work, more analytical Did custom research suffer? Did custom researchers suffer?

27. Different Year, Different Business Environment.. Again, firm strategy changed based on client feedback. publicly traded, thus answering to stock holders growth/increased revenues more critical firm had approx. 12 business units cross selling key to growth more attention to adding BUs

28. Case Study- Professional Strategy doing better what I do today finding a unique way to enter a market or compete in a fundamentally different way foresight- dont fit the future to what I have today