What is your business strategy?.

Having helped numerous businesses, from start-ups to mature SME’s, the common question that we always come up against is; “Can you help us design and implement a business strategy?”. All businesses suffer from looking inwardly rather externally, they tend to ‘work in the business’ rather than ‘on the business’. Unless you are in the luxurious position of having a dedicated strategy team, analysing where the business is and then creating a strategy to prepare for where you want the business to be, can be very daunting and more importantly, time consuming! (This assumes that you and your senior team have the tools in place to help you set the business strategy). What we have found is that having a dedicated business mentor or adviser rapidly improves this process, giving insight, imparting knowledge and experiences to help the organisation set a strategy that fits with the goals and vision of the individual company. There is an argument that states all strategies are or should be emergent (Henry Mintzberg http://www.mintzberg.org/), for example, although unintended, adopting an emergent strategy might help a business adapt more flexibly to the practicalities of changing business environment. But in reality SME’s need to understand their landscape and put in place a clear deliberate strategy, that addresses the needs of the market, today and trying to prepare for the future, over time shifting to a more nimble and flexible strategic process. Creating and implementing some sound business principles will be the bedrock and platform to help the company grow, these principles can be developed from the outset for a Start-Up or equally for an established SME. With that being the case, utilising a simple tool such as the Business Model Canvas can start the process of understanding and defining the organisation’s vision and goals. Typically getting some clarity on these important questions:

• Why is the company in business?
• What are we great at?
• Who are our customers and should we continue to serve or start serving?
• Which products/services should we stop offering, continue to offer, or start offering?
• Why have we decided on these strategic directions?Once you have this agreed, moving forward and achieving fast growth seems more real. The team at Business Propeller are expert in helping organisations get focused, stay on track and are measured by the success of the companies they mentor and advise.