You're listening to Business English Pod, the Business English podcast for professionals on the move.
Hello, and welcome back to Business English Pod.
My name's Edwin and I'll be your host for today's lesson on talking about strategic responses during a scenario planning meeting.
It's impossible to predict the future exactly, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother trying.
After all, we don't create business strategies based only on today's realities.
We need to think about what will or might happen, and how we will respond to these possible events.
So if we've done the work of laying out future scenarios, then how exactly do we plan our strategic responses?
To start, you'll need to choose an overall strategic posture.
Are you going to take the lead in your industry or will you sit back and respond to things as they happen?
Your strategic posture depends in part on the possible impacts of future events and your choice of strategies.
You need to discuss these impacts in order to choose the best course of action out of several possibilities.
So this means you'll be doing a lot of discussing alternative strategies.
In strategic planning.
We often say that you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want.
For this reason, you will have to ask your team to prioritize or decide which strategies are most important.
And to make those decisions about priorities you'll need to discuss hypothetical results of different actions.
In today's dialogue, we'll rejoin a meeting of executives at a large retail firm.
Gwen is based in the US headquarters.
She's discussing strategies with Natasha and Daniel, who head up the firm's operations in another country.
The group is discussing strategic responses to future scenarios they've already mapped out.
As you listen to the dialogue, try to answer the following questions.
1.
What strategy does Daniel suggest for their larger urban stores?
2.
What does Natasha suggest instead of making big cuts to their operations?
3.
What does Gwen say could be the ultimate result of the changes they're discussing?
Okay, so before we get into specifics, what's the overall approach here?
Daniel?
Dan?
Dan, I think you're muted.
Oh yeah, sorry.
Um, to be honest, I think we need to cover our butts in the smaller towns.
Minimize risk there.
Then we can be a bit more aggressive at the bigger urban stores.
Seems to be what the situation demands, so I'm good with that.
Natasha?
Yeah, makes sense.
But that doesn't necessarily mean closures in those smaller centres, does it?
Well, there's a bit of wait and see there.
Strong support on furlough and payroll stuff will allow everyone more leeway.
But at this point, we don't know what they'll do.
Right, but it could mean closures.
Just want to make sure that's understood.
Yeah, I get that.
Right.
Nobody wants to see that.
But in the worst-case scenario we've sketched out, we're in trouble if we don't have the stomach for big cuts somewhere.
In the medium case, though, we might consider just slimming down operations instead.
Reduced hours, trimming some support staff.
Possible, but we'd need to be pretty confident of sustaining sales.
Like I said, I get it.
Just remember, though we're obligated to give 60 days' notice to employees if we're letting them go.
So then, those decisions, I mean closure versus reductions, need to be made by month end.
Precisely.
Okay, well, what I'd like you to do is rank the stores.
Current count is 36.
We need to identify the 10 weakest for potential closure or reductions.
I've got a pretty good idea already of what those would be.
Natasha, maybe we can connect on that tomorrow?
That works.
Super.
Super.
If we do this right, and if it's not absolute worst case, we could come through the holidays nicely.
Smaller, but more sustainable.
And poised to deal with all this new debt next year.
Fingers crossed.
This thing isn't going away soon.
We might not like the new normal, but we're going to have to learn to deal with it.
Now let's go through the dialogue again and look at the language and techniques the group used in their discussion.
Gwen wants to talk about their overall approach or general way of dealing with the situation.
Okay, so before we get into specifics, what's the overall approach here?
Daniel?
Dan?
Dan, I think you're muted.
Oh yeah, sorry.
Um, to be honest, I think we need to cover our butts in the smaller towns.
Minimize risk there.
Then we can be a bit more aggressive at the bigger urban stores.
An overall approach or strategic posture often relates to how aggressive you will be.
An aggressive approach is highly competitive or active.
It's the opposite of sitting back and responding and minimizing risk.
Daniel is proposing a low-risk strategic posture in the smaller towns and a more aggressive approach in the cities.
Determining your strategic posture is key to planning an effective response.
What are some other ways we can discuss a strategic posture?
Let's run through some more examples.
I really think it would be best to just wait and see what happens.
We need to get in front of this crisis and be an industry leader.
Let's sit back a bit and respond when necessary to new developments.
This is a real opportunity if we can focus our energies and be proactive.
Do Gwen and Natasha agree with Daniel's suggested approach?
Seems to be what the situation demands, so I'm good with that.
Natasha?
Yeah, makes sense.
But that doesn't necessarily mean closures in those smaller centres, does it?
Well, there's a bit of wait and see there.
Strong support on furlough and payroll stuff will allow everyone more leeway.
But at this point, we don't know what they'll do.
Natasha sounds worried about closures or closing stores for good, but they don't really know if that will be necessary.
Yet, and we've seen in our previous lessons on scenario planning, we need to consider possibilities that are beyond our control, and this means sometimes we have to wait and see.
In this case, Gwen is talking about the impacts of government support programs.
If they give good support for payroll, then closures will be less likely.
Of course, this implies that if they don't provide good support, the impact might include closures.
When discussing impacts, we should consider the effects of other people's decisions or our own strategies, as you can hear in these examples.
With a big investment in research, we could really get ahead of the competition.
If the market doesn't get better, we might have to close some locations.
Just a small loan would have a big impact on our recovery.
Let's get back to the dialogue, as a group continues to talk about closures and other sacrifices.
Right, but it could mean closures.
Just want to make sure that's understood.
Yeah, I get that.
Right.
Nobody wants to see that.
But in the worst-case scenario we've sketched out, we're in trouble if we don't have the stomach for big cuts somewhere.
In the medium case, though, we might consider just slimming down operations instead.
Reduced hours, trimming some support staff.
Daniel and Gwen both want to be clear about the possibility of tough measures, including closures.
As Gwen points out, they will run into problems if they don't have the stomach or courage for big cuts.
But strategy is always about competing possibilities and courses of action.
Natasha responds by discussing alternatives.
She reminds them that it might not be so bad and that they could reduce operations, including trimming or cutting some staff, instead of actually closing down stores completely.
There are many ways of presenting alternatives when strategizing for an uncertain future.
So let's run through a few more examples.
Another way to approach this is to slow down production significantly.
We could also try to team up instead of competing with them.
That's one possibility.
Another would be to keep everyone on but reduce salaries.
As an alternative, could we launch a new promotional campaign?
Now let's listen as the group continues discussing this issue of closing stores versus reducing operations.
Possible, but we'd need to be pretty confident of sustaining sales.
Like I said, I get it.
Just remember, though we're obligated to give 60 days' notice to employees if we're letting them go.
So then those decisions, I mean closure versus reductions, need to be made by month end?
Precisely.
Okay, well, what I'd like you to do is rank the stores.
Current count is 36.
We need to identify the 10 weakest for potential closure or reductions.
The group isn't in a position yet to decide whether to close stores or just trim operations, but they need to be ready to make this decision in the future.
And any time we have to make difficult decisions, we have to ask people to prioritize.
Prioritizing is all about deciding what is more important, effective or worthwhile, and what is less important, effective or worthwhile.
In this particular situation, Gwen is asking the others to prioritize actual stores.
She wants Daniel and Natasha to rank the stores or put them in order based on how important they are.
More specifically, Gwen wants to know the 10 weakest stores.
Those will be targeted for cuts or closure.
Prioritizing is central to all strategy conversations, so let's practice some more ways of asking people to prioritize.
We need to rank these projects and see which we can postpone until later.
Out of all these ideas, what are the two that will get us furthest ahead?
This is a great discussion, but we need to decide on just one area to focus on.
Now let's find out what could happen if the group does a good job of strategizing.
I've got a pretty good idea already of what those would be.
Natasha, maybe we can connect on that tomorrow?
That works.
Super.
If we do this right, and if it's not absolute worst case, we could come through the holidays nicely.
Smaller, but more sustainable.
And poised to deal with all this new debt next year.
In strategy discussions, the hope is to make wise decisions that benefit the company.
Near the end of the conversation here, Gwen actually sounds quite hopeful about the future.
As she says, they might be more sustainable or have a better chance of long-term success.
She also mentions being in a good position to deal with their new debt.
These are the hypothetical results of the group's strategies.
That is, they're the possible outcomes of their actions.
It's these results, or outcomes, that should ultimately drive our decisions about future actions.
When we talk about hypothetical results, we often make conditional sentences with if.
And remember that if the result is hypothetical, then we normally use would or could.
Let's try some more examples of this kind of hypothetical statement.
If we manage to reduce costs by 20%, then we wouldn't have to lay anyone off.
With a big investment in advertising, we might even see sales go up.
In that case, online sales would end up being higher than in-store sales.
We could make an extra 10K a month if we rented out our extra space.
Let's hear how Daniel finishes the conversation.
Fingers crossed.
This thing isn't going away soon.
We might not like the new normal, but we're going to have to learn to deal with it.
Fingers crossed is something we say when we hope for good luck in the future.
Indeed, when we strategize, we do as much as we can to control our future.
But, as we've seen, we need to account for uncertainty and for the activities of other people or groups.
So a bit of luck can go a long way toward business success.
Now let's practice some of the language we learned in today's lesson.
Imagine you are a manager with a manufacturing firm.
You've mapped out some future scenarios and now you're discussing strategic responses with your team.
You'll hear a cue from a colleague.
Then I'll give you a suggestion for what you can say in response.
We'll guide you through each step in the practice and provide an example answer for each response.
Ready?
Let's give it a go.
So let's figure out our overall approach to this issue.
Start by saying it's best to spend money on new product development.
Answer well, i think it's best to spend money on new product development.
You don't think it would be better to cut costs and play it safe?
Answer.
But if we take some risks, it might pay off.
Okay, but don't you think we'll get pulled in too many directions?
Next, say that another idea is to focus on improving some existing products.
Answer Well, another idea would be to improve some of our existing products.
I like that.
It would be less expensive for sure.
But which products?
Now ask the other person to prioritize one of the three main product lines.
Answer.
Okay then, could you prioritize one of the three main product lines?
Right, so maybe it's best to focus on our health and beauty products.
Answer.
Yes, that would help improve sales from female customers.
Now let's practice some of the vocabulary we've covered in this lesson.
In a moment, you'll hear a series of sentences with a word replaced with a beep.
Repeat each sentence, including the missing word.
For example, if you hear, You can say, I think it's best to just wait and see what will happen.
After each response, we'll provide the correct answer.
Let's begin.
I think we could save 20% on costs if we slim down our operations.
Before we get into... Just give me a summary of the situation.
Answer.
Before we get into specifics, just give me a summary of the situation.
We grew by 20 last year but that kind of growth isn't.
I know it's hard, but we have to think about letting some staff.
Answer.
I know it's hard, but we have to think about letting some staff go.
We've also looked at asking people to prioritize and discussing hypothetical results.
Thanks for listening, and see you again soon.
