Importance of Intelligent Strategic Planning

Intelligence is a potent weapon to those who possess it. Without intelligence human beings simply become at par with the animals. It is intelligence that sets human being distant from all other species. It has its special and unique purpose in each individual.

History tells us that the ancient Greeks won their battles not because of brute strength and superior weaponry but by fighting intelligently. Instead of fighting one man to one man, they fought as a team, rendering the opposing forces doomed. They used intelligent offense. The ancient Romans also won their battles by fighting intelligently. They designed segmented armor that was light, strong and flexible. They surmised that survival on the battlefield was the key to victory. They used intelligent defense.

Intelligent planning and strategy is the ability to acquire knowledge, the ability to apply that knowledge into a detailed proposal that can be used in the art of planning and directing the overall forces of business and organizations to its desired purposes. Intelligent planning is part acquisition (information gathering), part application (information analysis) and part planning and directing (intelligent planning and strategy).

Not all plans and strategies may be intelligent. Some plans may just be information, arranged in order to look like a plan. Some strategies may look like one but devoid of its artistic element, the directing and planning through the maze of uncertainties.

Plans and strategies that are intelligent are those that produce positive results in business or organization. But more than the results plans and strategies that are intelligent are those that warn business or organizations of traps and loose ends on the business highway.

Preventing Instant Surprises

An elemental strategy in military planning is the ambush. Relying on the element of surprise, small and ill-equipped personnel somehow may manage to inflict such terrible losses to whole army battalions and divisions. The same principle may happen in a similar fashion in business. Whole industries in Asia and America were literally ambushed and surprised by the sudden flood of cheap products from China; it took certain legislation to put it into check.

Intelligent planning and strategy certainly can and will prevent such nightmares. The ability of business or organization to acquire data and to analyze such data accurately and in the opportune time is what intelligent planning and strategy is all about. Textile manufacturers in Asia who acquired data and analyzed data about the emerging textile manufacturing revolution in China were quick to more out of the ambush. They had either outsourced their production to China or they had moved on to another area in the same industry. The not so quick were all dead. Hundreds textile factories across Asia closed shop due to the unimaginable surprise, very low price with acceptable quality. They simply cannot compete when their costs were way above the selling price of the China product.

Instant surprises can be prevented in an atmosphere where intelligent planning and strategy is always present. But even then, because of the complexities of the business arena, some erstwhile surprises may just get through. But the good thing is that business or organizations that have adequate information and analyses on their industries and on the playing field as a whole are able to quickly select business weaponry out of their arsenal.