Original article from the Flevy business blog can be found here: http://flevy.com/blog/flevy-author-spotlight-our-interview-with-strategic-planning-specialist-anthony-gable/ Anthony Gable is an expert in the field of Strategic Planning and is highly effective at both teaching and facilitating the process. He has spent 3 decades specializing in this discipline. Most recently, Mr. Gable has further refined the process through the integration and unification of both old and newer currently accepted strategic planning procedures that better fit today’s world-wide digital economy. This innovative approach is outlined in his instructional guide on Flevy, the Complete Guide to Strategic Planning . He has been involved in hundreds of planning sessions with product groups and Strategic Business Units in a variety of young, smaller companies, as well as larger, better known organizations, including 3M, Gillette, Zenith, Sunbeam, Rubbermaid, DEC, Stewart-Warner, and many others. These organizations represent myriads of different industries and products, including those in consumer, medical, electronics, and other market niches. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Gable and pick his brain on the topic of Strategic Planning. You developed a “unified” approach to strategic planning. Can you describe how it is unified? Strategic planning processes were initiated in the “modern” world back in the 1950s by university business school professors and large consulting firms. At the time, the most used concept was the matrix system used by a major consulting firm. It was used to help clarify simplistic and basic characteristics of a company, primarily where it fit in terms of its market strength and share. Since then, there have been countless attempts to embellish other “systems” with new approaches–to the point where there are now tens of tens of acronyms being employed to identify them. Examples include BCG Matrix, Five Forces, PIMS, SWOT, PEST, PESTLE, 5C, and so on. There is also a vast number of articles, books, seminars used to clarify all of them individually.