Finding a taxi around Elephant and Castle in south London has often proved hard.

Until yesterday, when one came along the road as I stepped out of a meeting. Chatting to the driver, I mentioned the challenge of finding a cab there. He said he went up that road regularly every day. Having dropped a passenger in central London or the City, his strategy is to return to the King’s Road in west London via Blackfriars bridge and Lambeth. And it works. He never has any problem “making his money”. Other cabbies, he said, often sit on ranks in the City for half an hour waiting for a fare to come along.

Everyone needs a strategy. If you are a high-tech company, are you going to licence your IP, provide a service or become a product company? If you are a hospital, how are you going to continue making life better for patients in the face of funding pressures?

Without a strategy, achieving your goals is just luck. How is your strategy working?

Tags: Decision-making, innovation, organisation, strategy