The difference between strategy and planning
Two sides of the same coin, but one is worth more.Ciao Ragazzi,
What’s the difference between strategy and planning? Do I really need to consider both of these disciplines? How much should I care? These are fundamental questions I get when working with clients on their brand and marketing.
Many people use them interchangeably, but they are actually 2 distinct concepts.
Let’s explore what makes them different and how you should be using them for your business.
Ciao Ragazzi,
What’s the difference between strategy and planning? Do I really need to consider both of these disciplines? How much should I care? These are fundamental questions I get when working with clients on their brand and marketing.
Many people use them interchangeably, but they are actually 2 distinct concepts.
Let’s explore what makes them different and how you should be using them for your business.
Strategy is an integrated set of choices and solutions that position you to win. As we recall from previous posts, brand strategy specifically is defined as the long-term plan to outmaneuver the competition through radical differentiation.
Planning is a set of activities that are set to be done. The results are not clear but hopefully, the steps are. Planning can take on many sub-definitions but through the lens of brand planning, it’s the process of allocating your brand's limited resources that will drive the highest return.
When thinking about strategy, we’re thinking about:
Why should we win?
How should we win?
What it is, as it must be actionable
Strategy frames:
Strategy is not comfortable. It’s often living in the future, making strong and compelling hypotheses, and driving the business forward to win.
Ultimately, we believe this (the hypothesis) will happen, but don’t actually know if it will.
→ Strategy outlines how a company will achieve its goals and win over the competition.
When thinking about planning, we’re thinking about:
What do we want to do?
What is our list of activities?
Planing Frames:
Planning is resource allocating
Planning is more comfortable because we’re taking the strategy that has been proven and allocating resources to it
It is the resource that you spend (you can control it) as opposed to the hypothetical and what if’s.
→ Planning is the list of tasks and activities that need to be done to achieve these goals
Both are important, but they are NOT the same.
Throughout my career, I’ve played both roles and have found that are co-dependent on each other. Having done brand planning for a Pharma brand running $25M in media per year meant a constant exercise in aligning message to audience to channel while taking into account vendor and partner protocols.
The strategy role is one I’m much happier to play. It’s where I get to live in the land of ‘what if’ for the brand and pull through ideas that are equally as disruptive as they are focused.
But strategy is useless if planning is getting neglected.
Does your business need help with strategy and/or planning? I got you.
CLICK HERE to contact us or find me on LinkedIn.
✌️ Steven