How to creatively follow social business strategies


What strategy is

Business development is a dynamic process of building and maintaining relations between production and the consumer (external part), and relations within the institution (between the needs of financial, production, management and marketing) in market conditions. Strategy is long-term business development planning.

It defines:

  1. overall efficiency of the enterprise

  2. the unique position of the enterprise in relation to its competitors;

  3. expedient actions and beneficial features of products compared to products of competitors;  the competitive advantage of the enterprise as a result of the coherence of actions; 

  4. viability of the enterprise as a result of the efficiency of its activity.

As a rule, strategic planning has five stages:

  • Analysis of the current state of the organization and the current market.

  • Determination of the future desired state of the organization.

  • Determination of the strategy, goals, tasks, resources and possible risks of the organization to achieve the goal.

  • Implementation of the plan.

  • Assessment is current, intermediate, final



Importance of creativity in building a strategy


Creativity is an important element at every stage of strategic planning. Because only a creative approach makes it possible to effectively combine the polar elements of the system

Marketing, financial, production, personnel strategies may have common values and goals, but see different ways of achieving the goal in relation to other departments. This is a zone of tension, or a potential conflict of interests within the institution, which is important to direct in the constructive direction of development in society (outside)

When defining a development strategy, in the VUСA world it is important to have the ability to respond in a timely and effective manner to changes in the surrounding world, which is full of uncertainty. So, creativity becomes a key element as a strategy itself because changes in the world are constantly happening, and social business is just one of those forms of interaction with society, which will be one of the first to feel the impact of changes. In order to be able to continue to realize your mission, task, it is important to be able to change both the functional and even the meaningful and strategic components of strategies, responding to these changes, while preserving the core values of the business as those that will serve as a point of support for the same strategy settings.

When creating a strategy, the initial stage is the definition of the mission, business objectives, vision, and thus their core reference points. So, when changes are needed, and even during the natural development and expansion of the business, it is important to have those core elements, based on which it can be implemented without critical damage to the existence of the business, which is important to implement the mission in the future. A rigid and detailed strategy will create strict limitations for this development, and with constant changes, it will not withstand the pressure of the environment and may collapse, or the forced transformation will be mostly uncontrollable and will critically affect the functioning of the business system.



Development of adaptability and flexibility


Adaptability and flexibility are responses to changes in society and the environment, staying in touch with it, where, based on the core meanings and mission, the business goes hand in hand with the needs of the same environment and can subjectively interact, cooperate, and realize its goal based on these needs as well. It is worth noting that often these two concepts can be confused with adaptability, however, these qualities help to establish a connection, communication with society, become bridges that connect and a way of conveying ideas, business values, and their dissemination. Thus, creativity becomes important for finding exactly such forms of interaction and cooperation that will satisfy the needs of the parties as much as possible, because creativity involves the creation of something fundamentally new, which will enrich without creating a rigid framework of consensus.

Moreover, the uncertainty and instability of the environment creates even more space for creative solutions to problems and tasks, because on the one hand, the reaction to changes must be quick, although the solution itself does not have to appear immediately, because the collection of maximum information, the retention of energy in this, interest can be supplemented the phase of observing what is happening in order to monitor the process as much as possible, and even diverting to other tasks when the decision is difficult, in order to return later. Close contact with the environment, new needs that have appeared, with changes, their research is extremely important, so that this solution appears precisely between business and society, and does not become a combination of already known solutions, etc.