• searching actively for innovative ways the organization can improve on what it is already doing; • ferreting out new opportunities for the organization to pursue; • developing ways to increase the firm’s competitive strength and put it in a stronger position to cope with competitive forces; • devising ways to built and maintain a competitive advantage; • deciding how to meet threatening external developments; • encouraging individuals throughout the organization to put forth innovative proposals and championing those that have promise; • directing resources away from areas of low or diminishing results toward areas of high or increasing results; • deciding when and how to diversify; • choosing which businesses (or products) to abandon, which of the continuing ones to emphasizes, and which new ones to enter or add.