The process of strategy development begins with understanding your mission, where and how you're going to slice and dice your business in the future, what your customers want, what your own business system review competencies are and what niche you intend to serve. The business form it's strategic plan usually has a gap analysis and a timeline for implementing the strategic plan (see Business growth articles for details on the strategic plan development process).
The next step is data collection. How will you collect and analyse this information? The goal of collecting and analysing this data is to make sure the business is making business decisions in the most efficacious, focused and profitable manner. This is critical because the investments made in business system review capital to grow a business are on-going and continuous capital investment in the business will always produce a pro-active (rather than an reactive) growth, and a better long-term product and/or service offering, than a market driven (reactive) product and/or service offering.
Is the resulting strategic plan the right strategic plan for the business at this point in time and with the business' current capacity? Is it designed for the current conditions and capabilities of the business? Does it accurately describe the resources we have available to us? Is there un-use of capacity or excess inventories currently hindering the business system review company from reaching its goals and objectives? What is the level of customer satisfaction? Is there a competitive threat? Do we have customer retention issues? Are sales and profit targets set or are they elusive?
What needs to be reported and how are these going to be dealt with? How will the business measure its success? How are key metrics (sales, profitability) determined and reported? What role does the financial review play? Is strategic planning complete?
The next step in the planning process is skill-set enhancement. What are the core competencies required to execute the strategic plan effectively and efficiently and to provide the business with access to a stable and versatile source of skilled business system review individuals one function of the business, in other words a business that can quickly adapt and respond to changing market opportunities and/or customer needs
The final, and most challenging step for many businesses, is strategic planning implementation. Implementation can be a very worthwhile and valuable step in the growth of the business however it must be executed within existing business processes and systems
Here are a few of my thoughts that may be helpful to you as you go through the business system review process (regardless of your size of business).
Talk to your business team and engage them in the review process. Don't just send out a document for business system review feedback without getting your team involved. Your business will be more efficient and better able to make all the changes necessary to establish a new business process.
As long as the plan is not numerous pages long with little chance of deviation from the plan, your business is not in the business of strategic planning yet. Do not over-engineer the success plan. It cannot be too long and it is completely unnecessary to have line charts in the process. When following a strategic business system review plan it is the exercise that and the execution of the plan that provides the roadmap to the achievement of goals and objectives. The beauty of the strategic plan is that it can be fluid, flexible and changed on a dime, and it must be created for the planned time frame. This is a critical key element or component to the plan.
Failure to execute the strategic plan - what is the cost? You may not find another project that can look to the future and claim you can complete it at far less of an expense to do so, in a short time period, than to complete a strategic plan or plan. Should this be the case regarding implementation of your strategic business plan; does your business have a culture of focusing only on the completion of the plan, without this process or implementation?
All business owners want the business to grow, but however this growth will occur will it be in a systematic, process or process. Does your business use a structural approach to success or will resistance, insecurity or reactionary business system review reaction as a result of fervid, and often costly citizenship, be the result?
The success of your business depends on the implementation of the plan.