There is tremendous value in having a strategy for your business. Too often business leaders see development of a strategy as just taking too much time and distracting from bringing in revenue. Nothing can be further from the truth! If you are developing a strategy for your business and then just tucking it away in a drawer somewhere, you are wasting time and potentially endangering the health of your business. And, if you are not utilizing that strategy to make decisions – you risk not making the right decisions at the right time for the good of the business overall. In other words – you are faking a strategy.
A strategy enables you to provide direction for you company in deciding:
- Which customers you will serve
- The geographical region you will cover
- Which products and services you will offer to customers
- How you will market to new customers and retain current customers
- How products and services will be developed
- How you will keep costs low and increase profits and revenue for the business
- How you will do workforce planning
- How you will increase efficiencies and effectiveness in operations
Start with a strategy for the business as a whole – the “who, what, when, how and why” for the overall business. From that strategy, develop operational plans for the divisions/departments that enable the organization to achieve the overall strategy. The operational plans enable you to achieve the strategic goals. They provide the specifics of what will be done and when to achieve particular department goals that enable progress toward the overall strategy. By ensuring that a strategy is developed at the overall business level, each division/department is working toward a common goal.
It’s a perfect time of year to begin you strategic planning!
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