Every strategic decision an organisation makes rests on one question: does leadership actually understand the environment it is operating in? Missing that understanding is why promising strategies stall — not a lack of ambition, but a lack of rigorous analysis before the plan is written. This is precisely the gap this course addresses.

Delivered by the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy, the programme walks participants through the practical techniques used to read competitive positioning, decode industry dynamics, and translate raw environmental data into decisions leadership can actually act on. Rather than treating analysis as an academic exercise, the course ties every tool back to a real organisational outcome — sharper resource allocation, faster response to market shifts, and strategies grounded in evidence rather than assumption.

Who Should Attend?

• Executives, department heads, and organisational decision-makers.
• Strategy, planning, and business development professionals.
• Consultants and analysts supporting institutional strategy work.
• Researchers and specialists in organisational development.

By the end of the programme, participants will be able to:

• Apply PESTEL and Porter's Five Forces to map external opportunities and threats.
• Evaluate internal resources, capabilities, and value chains to identify real competitive strengths.
• Build and interpret SWOT, BCG, GE, and gap-analysis matrices with confidence.
• Translate analytical findings directly into strategic options and defensible decisions.
• Construct future scenarios and track performance indicators to keep strategy current.

Module 1: Turning Analysis Into Decisions That Stick

• Why organisations with good data still make poor strategic choices.
• Connecting analytical output to real decision points in the planning cycle.
• Positioning analysis as a continuous practice, not a one-off exercise before planning, during execution, and at review.

Module 2: Reading the Competitive and Macro Environment

• Porter's Five Forces: entry barriers, supplier and buyer power, substitution, and rivalry intensity.
• PESTEL factors and how each one reshapes the assumptions behind a strategy.
• Tracking market, customer, and industry shifts to keep external analysis current.

Module 3: Auditing What the Organisation Actually Has

• Reading financial indicators — profitability, cost, and return — as a strategic diagnostic, not just an accounting exercise.
• Mapping the value chain to isolate where strengths and weaknesses really sit.
• Assessing tangible, intangible, and core competitive capabilities.

Module 4: Matrices, Scenarios, and Keeping Strategy Alive

• SWOT, BCG, and GE matrices for evaluating business units and strategic options.
• Gap analysis to close the distance between current and desired performance.
• Scenario planning and performance indicators to review and update strategy on an ongoing basis.