Running a business without a vision and business strategy is like driving a vehicle without a planned destination and instructions on how to get there. Without a plan, how will the business owners maximise the probability that their business ends up at the right place, and why would you leave the this to chance?
Our market research indicates that 82% of SME’s want help with their business strategy as the majority do not have a plan for how the vision and strategy on how the vision will be achieved. Reality is, the business is unlikely to achieve the owners underlying wishes.
In our experience, the better performing businesses are those that have a vision and a supporting strategy which enables them to implement a well-planned route with clear directions to keep them on track and avoid any delays.
Creating your vision and business strategy
We help management teams create a vision and a well-planned strategic steps for how the vision can then be achieved.
A crucial part of our role is to bring the business strategy to life and drive positive change in the business. This can only be achieved by breaking the strategic steps into specific manageable tasks, allocating responsibility of each task to individuals and creating accountability through regular review of progress. This helps improve communications between the operations, finance and sales personnel and gets them working as a team towards a common goal.
The specific manageable tasks should have success benchmarks and timeframes assigned to them to enable effective performance reviews of the individuals.
This approach creates connectivity between the vision and strategy with a high level of employee engagement as they can understand and contribute to the direction of the business.
A vision and business strategy example
“I was starting to seriously consider throwing the towel in. After nine years I was still working an 80 hour week and not seeing my family. I couldn’t afford much personally and couldn’t agree with my business partner on where to take the company because we were at different stages in life.”
The business had no vision and strategy and as we worked with the business owners it became apparent they had very different views on lifestyle and what they needed the business to achieve for them. We helped one owner retire from the business and achieve his personal lifestyle and then set to work with the remaining owner to create the vision and strategy for the business.
We helped recruit a new Sales Director, who has performed so well he is now a co-owner, and provided advisory to help implement change in many areas of the business, against the back drop of a clear vision and strategy with clearly defined key tasks and targets. We then allocated responsibility amongst the team.
The result
Over a 100% increase in sales within two years and the company achieved a net profit of over 15% for the first time ever.
This has been a life changing experience for the original owner who recently commented;
“for the first time I am really proud of my business, seeing it grow and I’m spending less time at work!”
If you need help planning the destination of your business or advice on which strategic steps to take and how to implement them, please contact Mark Perrin at mperrin@menzies.co.uk.
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