In the early 1990s, a strategic shift was born out of necessity. While working with the International Centre for Agriculture and Science, alongside Dr. Roger Moore, we coined the term Market Focused Planning—a deliberate move away from “navel-gazing” strategies and toward a discipline grounded in how the market sees you, not how you see yourself.
Traditional planning often starts inside the business: listing strengths, crafting wish lists, and setting arbitrary growth goals. But real competitive advantage begins outside—in the perceptions, needs, and decision-making processes of your target customers. Our guiding question was simple yet transformative:
“What would happen if we stopped planning from the inside out—and started planning from the outside in?”
The approach quickly moved from theory to practice. In one consulting engagement with HealthSpace, a software company struggling despite a promising product, the breakthrough wasn’t about building more features—it was about focusing on what customers truly valued: superior service, fast responsiveness, and on-time delivery. By aligning all resources around these differentiators and ignoring markets where we couldn’t win, the business found its edge.
The core philosophy is a paradox: the narrower your focus, the greater your advantage. Spreading efforts across too many markets dilutes resources, muddies messaging, and invites competition. Concentrating on markets where your strengths are valued—and competitors are weak—amplifies your impact and profitability.
The Market Focused Planning process unfolds in four phases:
- Identify the right market-product pairings.
- Select the markets where you can win.
- Understand and influence customer choice.
- Align every lever—price, service, delivery, marketing—to support your edge.
Born in institutional strategy rooms, this framework has since delivered results across industries. The principle is timeless: focus where you can create unmatched value, and long-run profitability will follow.
