Strategic planning using the current critical issues (CCI) approach to decision making in business is a fairly new adaptation to administrative and managerial decision making. As a managerial planning process, it is really catching on among 21st-century business, especially those companies that seek to compete globally. This is because business is NOT as usual in today's highly competitive rapidly growing global marketplace. Companies who delay or procrastinate in utilizing strategic planning methods that include making the on-the-fly pivotal decisions that are required to remain competitive or socially appealing in today's economy will ultimately fail. This is where strategic planning using the current critical issues (CCI) approach comes into its own as a grown-up and responsible way to plan and administrate corporate directives and marketing initiatives.
In today's economy and highly competitive market place, if company administrators and managers do not react quickly to the rapid fluctuations in market and consumer trends while continually working to decrease day-to-day operational costs, they will eventually succumb to the enterprise sharks of industry. Why? Because these market-making and consumer-grabbing companies that prevail understand and act on the rapidly changing dynamics of commerce; and, they most often use strategic planning using the current critical issues (CCI) approach to decision making in their success.
This new style of strategic planning uses the dynamic current critical issues (CCI) approach. It has come into being out of the necessity of companies needing to have a turn-on-a-dime management style over the traditional long-term, more deliberated and more highly scrutinized management directives like that of using the SWOT principle of strategic planning. The SWOT approach, for those who are a little rusty on managerial concepts for decision making, stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is a concept first developed by A. S. Humphrey back in the 1960s at the Stamford Research Institute. Originally defined as "SOFT" (Strengths, Opportunities, Flaws, and Threats), it was later modified to SWOT and became an important aspect of strategic planning for mainstream corporate management around the world. It is often used today by larger corporations who do long term strategic planning to remain viable in the long term.
This said, this new paradigm of strategic planning - the CCI approach - is giving rise to companies being able to more quickly adapt to and remain competitive in the midst of a highly competitive marketplace where fierce competition abounds. Strategic planning using the current critical issues (CCI) approach is a sensible approach in business. This is especially useful where media is used as a primary venue for promotion, and where day to day competitive positioning for market share is imperative.
Using the current critical issues (CCI) approach dramatically reduces the time to analyze situations that arise that could be critical to both short term and long term objectives. In some cases, this approach is a difficult approach for managers from the old school of strategic planning (using SWOT) which is more drawn out and contemplative, and where action to change a mode of operation sometimes takes months to initiate, and then only after careful and deliberate debate and analysis. Truth be told, the new guard of modern commerce is young, aggressive, tech-savvy, and totally on their game when it comes to knowing how to make things happen in culturally relevant and socially responsible ways. It's no longer a 'babyboomer' ball game. AH, but I digress here.
So, here is the rub between the two schools of thought for strategic planning and why many up and coming companies - especially companies who rely heavily on internet marketing and online sales - are using the CCL over that of the traditional SWOT approach to decision making. CLL provides a quickly adaptable approach to change or market conditions over that of the SWOT approach. When you have the potential of timely information or offers going viral through social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, and FaceBook, quick management decisions (the rapid changing of gears in the middle of the race) are imperative if someone wants to stay in front of the competition. Using the CLL approach is by far the best choice for administrative and management decisions since you can adapt more quickly and without hitting major speed bumps in the process.