How to Write a Strategy Statement [With a Downloadable Template]

As industry trends shift, a strategy statement can keep your workforce grounded, focused, and aligned toward a common goal. Here’s your guide on how to write a strategy statement. Use our template to initiate the proper conversations and craft a winning strategy.

What Is a Strategy Statement?

Where is your organization now, and where do you want it to be in the next three to five years? A statement that answers these questions is known as a strategy statement. It’s essentially a game plan that discusses a business’ long-term goals and objectives and how its leaders intend to achieve them.

Why Is a Strategy Statement Important?

A strategy statement builds purpose. It offers guidelines and a bigger picture that unifies everyone around shared objectives. PwC reports that 79% of leaders believe purpose is crucial to business success.

Organizations lacking a strategy statement are disadvantaged. Without a purpose, workforce members may be pulled in different directions, creating confusion and misalignment. A strategy statement unifies all critical parts of an organization with a single, common, overall plan to get to a better place.

What Makes up a Strategy Statement?

A strategy statement consists of four key components:

1. Objective

An objective is a goal your organization wants to achieve in the future. The primary objective will drive your company to where it needs to be from a business or competitive-advantage standpoint.

Examples

• Enter X industry by introducing X products in that space
• Increase revenue by 10% annually
• Publish a research study on customer buying patterns and preferences

2. Scope

The scope allows businesses to explore opportunities and prioritize them based on need. Scope involves three areas:

• Target customer
• Geographic location
• Product or service

Organizations can discuss these areas and determine the best way to allocate scarce resources. A company should clearly define boundaries and communicate what it can and cannot focus on.

Examples

• Increase customer satisfaction by 10%
• Increase sales in South America by 20%
• Increase marketing budget by 5%

3. Competitive Advantage

How does your company stand out from the competition? How will you leverage these strengths to achieve the organization’s objectives?

Consider the following elements when defining competitive advantage in your strategy statement:

• Value proposition: What benefits or value does your product or service provide customers?
• Value discipline: What are some specific examples that illustrate how your company achieves the value propositions?

Examples

• Skilled and highly trained team members who have served the industry for 10+ years
• Unique product design not offered by other companies
• Access to technologies provided at a lower cost compared to competitors

4. Timeline

The timeline identifies a period in which you should accomplish the objective. Establishing realistic timeframes is essential to setting up all key players for success and achieving desired outcomes.

Examples

• We want to achieve objective X in five years.
• While we should achieve objective X in five years, we’d like to achieve objective Y in three years to ensure we build objective X on a solid foundation.

How to Write a Strategy Statement

Writing a strategy statement requires multiple internal and external discussions regarding the four areas above. These discussions allow team members to contribute ideas and create statements that everyone is aligned around.

With a strategy statement, clients and customers will fully understand the priorities of the enterprise. This transparency and communication is vital to seeing the strategy come to fruition.

Some discussion areas may include the following:

• What is your key financial target?
• What do customer/client expectations look like? How do they manifest?
• How will customer/client expectations impact your strategy?
• What internal processes are most critical to achieve success?
• What can you focus on to make team members more productive and motivated to fulfill the strategy statement?
• What are examples of milestones that can help fulfill various parts of the strategy statement?

Team members and leaders from various functions should review the strategy statement, it will also be important for you to solicit input from stakeholders so you can make any needed modifications or adjustments.

Post and share the final statement with all teams to create transparency and purpose across departments. Invite employees to develop ways they can contribute to the statement.

Take Action: Strategy Statement PDF/Template Guide

This template will help you find answers to critical questions that you can present during your upcoming strategy meeting.

Where We Are Now

Write down where your organization currently stands. Consider strengths, vulnerabilities, and current organizational initiatives, marketplace position, and wins and losses.

Where We Want to Be

Think about and document what a better place looks like and how you see your organization growing and changing amid industry and competitor shifts.

Stage 1: Objective

Based on the notes above, develop three objectives to present to your team/organization.

• Objective 1
• Objective 2
• Objective 3

Stage 2: Scope

Use the following three dimensions as a starting point for determining your strategy’s scope. Define clear boundaries for each category to explain your true priorities as well as what you do not intend to achieve. This will help you to prevent scope creep.

1. Target customer

Boundaries:

2. Geographic location

Boundaries:

3. Product

Boundaries:

Stage 3: Competitive Advantage

Value Propositions

What are the value-added benefits your product or service provides to customers? List these, along with specific examples.

Value Disciplines

What are specific examples illustrating how your company achieves those value propositions?

Stage 4: Timeline

List a specific timeframe in which you aim to achieve your key objectives. Consider your notes in the “Scope” and “Competitive Advantage” sections to help you with this. Be realistic with the timeline for your aspirations.

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