I don’t know about you, but we are actively engaged in re-shaping our company for the future – with one eye on the near- to mid-term (1 to 5 years) and the other on the long-term (10 to 30 years).  The trick, of course, is to manage the present while creating the future, and there’s some pretty good advice on how to do that.  (For instance, see the video of a presentation by Vijay Govindarajan — a leading expert on strategy and innovation — at the World Business Forum last fall).  Govindarajan outlined three strategies for creating the future: 

1. Manage the Present
2. Selectively Abandon the Past
3. Create the Future

That middle step – selectively abandoning the past – is easy to overlook.  But I think it’s vital to the process of change to let go of past constructs, processes and ways of thinking about your business.  In our case, in the business of B2B marketing, this letting go is proving to be empowering for some, challenging for others but absolutely essential.
To sum up our future-thinking in the past 10 months, we have developed:

1. A long-range vision, based on Building Your Company’s Vision by James C. (Jim) Collins and Jerry I. Porras
2. A mid-range strategic intent focused on leadership in B2B marketing solutions
3. A short-range business strategy that has four areas of focus – three centered on meeting needs and exceeding expectations of our B2B marketing clients and one emphasizing our agency’s cultural goals

In a series of occasional posts, I plan to blog more about the implementation of our strategy, what’s working and what’s not, and draw in other sources and links dealing with the evolving B2B agency.  If there’s something you’d like to know about or comment on, please let me know – I’ll try to highlight experiences that you are interested in as you evaluate your own in-house or agency resources.