You’ve done the research and identified three key objectives to drive your company’s transformation.

Now it’s time to put on your strategy hat and dig into the creation of strategies and action plans to achieve those objectives.

Midsized companies are often inwardly focused, emphasizing operations. But to be successful in the hyper-competitive global marketplace, that operational focus needs to be balanced with a focus on your key stakeholders: investors, employees, customers, and suppliers. Understanding each group’s needs is essential when creating your strategies.

And of these stakeholders, to which group should you pay the most attention?

If it’s employees, think reciprocity. You want to increase productivity, engagement, and retention of top talent with the right combinations of salaries and benefits, while at the same time consider what expectations you have of employees and letting them know. Here’s an example:

Objective: Increase customer satisfaction by 20 points.

Strategy: Incentivize customer service employees to resolve most customer’s complaints at their level. Here there is a focus on the customer and the employee.

If your target is the customer, using focus groups, surveys, and even informal two-way communication to uncover the needs and expectations of customers. Ask: What does the target market customer want from us and what do we want from that target market groups. From that, craft strategies and action plans based on that information. Here’s an example:

Objective: Maximize market penetration of top-tier midsized companies from 20% to 50% market share.

Strategy: Build and implement a surround-sound marketing plan that resonates with top-tier midsized companies.

You can further develop objectives for your suppliers and third-party distributors if either or both of these groups are part of the overall strategic plan at this time.

I say “at this time” because stakeholder needs can change over time. You must keep your hand on the pulse of those changing needs through ongoing focus groups, etc., and modify objectives and strategies accordingly.

Strategies work better if you employ a method for their creation. One Page Business Plans make this exercise faster and easier. What you want to do is to build out strategies based on research, keeping the number to a manageable level, adequate to meet your objectives.

If you are clear about your mission and vision, can take a long view of the best business opportunities, set objectives that balance operational needs with key stakeholder needs, and build out strategies that focus on key business drivers, your chances of having the desired results are much more likely!