Fundamental basis for the formation of a new strategizing culture

The drastic changes taking place in the global economy are largely not accidental. They are dictated by the manifestation of many strategic factors that form certain trends of different duration, level and scale. A variety of global trends are translated to regional and national levels, creating new challenges for society and the economy, the consequences of which are becoming more and more unpredictable. The appearance of destabilizing factors in conditions when the resource base is simultaneously exhausted and the required time for searching, justifying and making long-term strategic decisions is reduced, leads to the fact that the price of an erroneous choice becomes the highest price already at the early stages of formulating long-term guidelines. This emphasizes the urgent need to choose a proven methodology for the development and implementation of strategies that can not only determine long-term guidelines for the development of the strategized object, but also absorb and take into account a whole range of strategic factors, build on their basis a system of interrelated elements that will ensure consistent and effective implementation of the intended doctrine. The surge in demand in strategy at the end of the XX century, and due to the low level of the culture of strategizing, including the use of a whole set of methodologically incorrect and unjustified strategizing tools, led to the confusion of such concepts as “strategy†, “forecast†, “tactics†, “plan†, “program†, “project†, which spontaneously gave rise to a lot of strategic documents basing on the methodology, which is based on structural errors. The article considers one of them, which is still evident at the zero stage of strategizing, but already leads to a critical failure, and which is the choice of an approach to scanning the external and internal environment. It is shown that SWOT analysis, which is often used to develop strategic documents, is untenable, and documents based on its results are not strategic. In turn, OTSW analysis is justified as a method of scanning the external and internal environment, corresponding to strategic thinking and leading to the construction of practical and effective strategies for innovative development. The conclusion is made about the formation of a new strategizing culture, due to the transition to a proven methodological approach to the development and implementation of qualitative strategies based on the results of OTSW analysis.