4. Effect not Equal to Cause when Planning Strategy

When reviewing a business it is essential to cut through the symptoms of problems and reach the underlying causes. Questions which can assist in revealing the real causes include the following:

• "What stopped the business from?"
• "What caused the cause of?"
• "Why didn't the business achieve a 25% return?"
  

By way of an example consider why this company may be unable to increase its market share:

• Because it cannot penetrate major customers because its product range is too narrow because the company doesn't have the capability to produce additional products because of shortcomings in R & D because of a lack of expertise and resource because R & D is not an immediate priority because of a lack of profits because of a high interest burden because the company is over-reliant on borrowings because the shareholders won't/can't raise additional permanent capital.

The moral in this case is that there are no major customers due to under-capitalization !
Also have a look at the discussion on causes of business failure in Devising Business Strategies.

resource : http://www.planware.org/strategicplan.htm#3