Strategy, Strategic Planning, and other Stories

Akash Pai

Principal Product Manager Lead: Microsoft Bing Advertising

@akashpai

Strategy

What is Strategy?

Set of choices which position a firm, in an industry, to earn superior returns (financial or share) over the long run.

It is:

1. Being unique

2. Value proposition which is distinguishable from competition

3. Sustainable competitive advantage

What is NOT a Strategy

• Vision, aspiration

• Best practice

• Execution excellence

Examples:

1. Being #1 or #2 or Best.

2. To merge or outsource

Common Strategic Planning Methodology?

Traditional Strategic Planning Process is dead, long live Strategic Planning !

Vision, Strategy, Execution & Beyond

Strategic Planning

Minimal Viable

Product

Test Product Viability

Pivot ? Plans are

useless, Planning is everything

Customer Focused

Development

The MOST important Tenet

Now for some Best Practices …

Strategic Planning: Environmental Scan

Strategic Planning: Customer Types & Attributes

• Customer Types:• End-users, influencers, &

recommenders

• Early adopter, early evangelists

• Economic buyer & decision maker

• Saboteurs

• Define their attributes & pain points

Strategic Planning: Value Curve Analysis

• Identify White Space

• Key customer attributes on X-axis

• Level of performance on Y

Strategic Planning: Value Proposition & Unmet Need

Differentiate or Die ! Me-too is not a strategy

Strategic Planning: Access Feasibility

Strategic Planning: $ Pricing

• Willingness to Pay – how to measure it?

• Post the question to customer advisory board or key economic buyer• Will you install it for free?

• Will you pay $x for it?

And if all of this is Too Much ….

Testing your Hypothesis

Minimal Viable Product

Test Product Viability? • A/B testing using Cohort analysis

• Define KPIs and measure • SaaS products: acquisition, engagement, monetization, loyalty

Metrics Best Practices

Acquisition Customer Acquisition CostLTVK-factorViral cycle time

LTV > 3 CACTime to recover CAC < 1 yearViral coefficient > 1

Engagement Churn rateAvg. session timeDwell timeDAU, MAU

Identify customers at risk of churn; re-engage

Monetization ARPUMRR

Loyalty # comments, reviewsSentiment analysis

To Pivot or Not?

Repeat

Aligning Organizations behind Strategy

• Strategy Maps & Balanced Scorecard

Further Reading