Business strategy: how to go from now to where?

23/05/2022

Whilst your business may be surviving, it is not going to thrive without a thorough business strategy.

Having a business strategy provides focus and serves as a reminder of why you are doing things in a certain way.

If your goal is to nurture a business that is known as one of the best in its industry for providing a great service, how will you achieve this without a plan?

Even if you already have a business strategy, you should revisit this to make sure your actions are directed towards your goal.

To get to your desired level, you need to familiarise yourself with a handy strategic tool commonly referred to as ‘now, where, how?’.

As the name suggests, this simplifies outlining a strategy by helping you recognise where the business currently stands and what the future of the business could look like and then plotting how are you are going to get there, as demonstrated below.

What’s your position now?

As with any goal you may have, professional or personal, it is important to recognise where you currently stand, to isolate any areas that will hinder your success.

At this stage, tools such as SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis are useful to recognise which areas of the business could be improved.

This should be applied across all aspects of the business to drill down on where it is lagging and what opportunities can be harnessed to address this.

For example, if your business has a high staff turnover, this could threaten the long-term goal of providing a great service, as there is a lack of familiarity between staff and clients.

Additionally, hiring and training new recruits is expensive and time-consuming, so getting this right will reduce the number of wasted resources.

Where do you want to be?

This is your opportunity to set out your vision for where you want the company to be in three or five years.

Whilst you are encouraged to dream big, you should be realistic and set goals that are attainable.

Where you see the business in five years should link back to the strengths and opportunities recognised in your SWOT analysis. These opportunities, such as expanding your target market, will contribute to getting you to the top of your industry.

However, change does not happen overnight, which brings us to the final part of this tool…

How will you get there?

With big visions in mind, outlining smaller aspirations that will need to be met before achieving this will keep you on track.

Your action plans should comprise of short-term, mid-term, and long-term plans to ensure you stay focused.

Furthermore, the overall strategy can generally be broken down into five main areas: services, clients, team, systems, and finance.

For instance, in relation to the issue of staff retention, your team and systems should be key focuses for levelling up your business.

In the short term, you should focus on reviewing your recruitment processes; including ensuring that applicants have a good understanding of what the job entails prior to accepting an offer, as well as reviewing the salary and benefits you offer to attract the right candidates.

The long-term plan could be revisiting employee workload, such as automating more systems to reduce the pressure on staff and encourage staff to stay.

These key areas will be discussed in more detail in our following blogs.

Need advice with your business strategy? Contact us.