As seen in Figure 32, the preliminary work on basic assumptions is fundamental and crucial if you wish to be able to take this process to completion. At the same time, working on the common vision is key to building the future strategy for your business. Vision will highlight what you think you are, where you think you want to go and it will determine everything you endeavour in order to get there. The strategic assessment questionnaire is aimed at clarifying the vision of today’s reality that the organisation’s main decision makers have formed. It also helps assess whether this vision is shared and consistent as well as it enables one to freeze the basic assumptions, which will condition the rest of the strategic assessment process. This questionnaire consists of an approximately 40-question slideshow and is self-administered by the board members who will have been gathered around the same table.

Approximately 15 minutes will be necessary to fill in the questionnaire. Subsequently, fifteen minutes will be devoted to the realtime analysis of the results, preferably during the coffee-break. A 30-minute debrief session will ensue, whereby this analysis and thoughts will be shared with the management team. This strategic assessment questionnaire is called ‘a projective’ questionnaire, i.e. where respondents project their inner thoughts and commit them to paper. It is a very convenient trick, which can be used to reveal what managers really think and compare visions and end up with – a more or less – common vision of reality and future goals. At any rate, the projective questionnaire option enables ICT marketeers to gain a clear understanding of valid strategic assumptions and also hints on how sustainable management backup could be obtained. In actual fact, this questionnaire does not serve the usual purpose of neutrality as normal surveys do. Its aim is somewhat different. It is aimed at Board members primarily, but one could decide to use it on much wider populations.

The questionnaire has to be filled out during sessions within the given deadline. No conferring is allowed. This will help preserve spontaneity. Most of the questions have to be biased: Asking respondents to take sides for one or several strategic options may mean that they have to choose between extremes. This process will enable the reproduction of the context relative to the decision-making process. Respondents will be asked to give their opinion now and in the future and they have to fill-in the questionnaire without giving their names. Opinions expressed will have to be personal as opposed to the personal understanding of a global vision. Sometimes only one choice will be possible, even though respondents would find it more convenient to keep their options open. This will force them to make real choices, as is required when making strategic decisions in real life.

At the end of the questionnaire, a small quizz will have to be added, whereby questions will be asked about revenues, market shares or a particular product. Apart from triggering a few smiles, this quizz will be very useful when it comes to comparing views on facts and figures.  If you think that all Board members should know about these things, give it a try and I am sure you will come across a few interesting surprises.

The questionnaire has been divided into eight parts:

1. Your organisation
2. Your clients
3. Your services/products
4. Your markets
5. Your distribution channels
6. Your competitors
7. Your ROI
8. Quizz

Of course, you may have to add or subtract one or many parts from this sample questionnaire outline. It all depends on the context of your work and adaptation is mandatory. Among the deliverables of this strategic assessment phase, I would like to lay a stress on deliverable #1: Corporate Objectives. This is where the vision, objectives and corporate values will be described for the benefit of the entire organisation.

Figure 34: Sample vision statement as part of the strategic assessment process

Eventually, the strategic analysis that is carried out through the strategic assessment process will help you feed the standard strategic matrices that most of you know already. The strategic assessment questionnaire will be very helpful to you in this respect. In the following pages I have reproduced a number of these matrices although this list is by no means comprehensive. According to circumstances and depending on how much time is left after the questionnaire administration process, a discussion on pricing and margin may be introduced at the end of the strategic assessment workshop. In that particular case, preliminary desk-research is a must-have. When it comes to electronic commerce, branding issues are crucial and have to be added to the outline.