As the key decision maker in your business, why is it necessary for you take a long term view? Why must you manage strategically? The internationally renown academic, Professor Kees van Heijden (1999) suggests that if a company is to succeed in the long term, it must:

1. Have a clear, precise and explicit idea of what it stands for, its values and distinctive competencies and a systemic understanding of how it will build, maintain and enhance its competitive advantage through these attributes (the 'business idea ').
2. Have tools and processes for strategic direction setting that enable you to understand the environment and to proactively develop strategies that will take advantage of opportunities.
3. Engage all members of the company in a continuous process of learning, which in turn implies a tolerance of ideas that do not 'fit' current perceptions, a shared language and context and freedom for people throughout the organisation to learn and to bring the learning back to the company .