Experts in the field of marketing often say that strategic thinking is important in every venture. And yet, not everyone engaged in business has a solid idea of what strategic thinking is. To start, strategic thinking focuses on discovering and improving unique opportunities to create value. This is possible through facilitating a challenging and ingenious dialogue among people who can influence the direction that a company takes. Strategic thinking is an input to strategic planning. It is a way of recognizing the basic drivers of a business, and a way of thoroughly challenging conservative beliefs about them.

There are several factors that must be considered when thinking strategically: competencies and skills, products and offerings, environment and industry, markets and customers, competitors and substitutes, and suppliers and buyers.

When thinking of competencies and skills, it would be helpful to ask the following questions: What are the strengths of the company? How can these strengths be utilized to bring about unique competitive advantage? If the company has strengths, it must also have weaknesses; what are these weaknesses that can make the company vulnerable?

Next are the products and offerings. A company must have a defined set of market offerings. It is also important to analyze the gaps or overlaps in what the company offers, as well as the basis or reasons for such offerings. What makes an offering unique and what associates it to other brands or lines must also be delved upon. Strategic thinking often comes into play when a company is able to establish how these offerings fit in with the company’s image.

When thinking strategically, it is also crucial to take into account the environment and industry in which the business exists. Having a solid idea of the overall economic milieu in which the business competes, the regulatory or governmental environment and how they affect the company, the structure of the industry, where the industry is moving to and where you want your business to be, the position of the business in the industry and where you want it to be, how the industry relates with others, and the effect of all these factors in the positioning of the business plays a significant role in strategy formulation.

Then, a business must consider the markets and customers, and the competitors and substitutes available. Knowing the target customers for the offerings of the business, the needs of the customers, how the business is distinctively capable of meeting such needs, nature of competition in the industry, what other businesses have offerings that can satisfy the same needs, how these businesses are similar or different to your own, how they might respond to your strategies, possibility of other businesses that might choose to enter the market, their strengths and strategies, and the market conditions that compel them to take action would give businesses an edge in understanding the dynamics of their internal and external environments.

Lastly, suppliers and buyers must not be neglected. They are the driving forces that can help in the production or marketing of a business‘ offerings. Understanding their dynamics also helps a business foresee any potential threat they might pose.