Differentiating Strategy and Planning

The key difference between strategy and planning is that strategy focuses on influencing the customer, while planning focuses on organizing internal activities. While planning is important for determining what to do in each area that a company controls, it does not necessarily compel customers to take the desired action. Strategy, on the other hand, involves configuring the controllable elements of a company in a way that compels customers to want to give their money and take the desired action. Many companies mistakenly believe they are doing strategy when they are actually just doing planning, resulting in a lack of compelling customer value and potential loss of business to competitors.