With the beginning of a new year just a few months way, for many business owners this puts them in the important zone for developing, or fine tuning, their company strategy for the years ahead. Unfortunately for many, strategic planning is more of a financial exercise and this is a missed opportunity for buidling your company value. In my career as a CEO, my teams realized the benefits of putting initial focus and priority on our strategic thinking, followed by effective financial planning. I recommend to owners that they implement a 4 Step Strategic Planning Campaign. Step 1 = What's Going On Inside Our Four Walls. This is our opportunity to take a holistic internal view of our company in terms of our revenue and margins by product or service and review key operating metrics all of which will help us understand our current business position and performance. Step 2 = What's Going On Outside Our Four Walls and the discussion moves to the external world. It's in this step that we think about market trends and competive dynamics. Step 3 = Where Do We Want To Take Our Business which builds on Steps 1 & 2 and gets the team planning where the business should go strategically. Step 4 = Our Pathway Forward which is the step for setting our plan to move the business toward our longer term goals. This step includes what resources we'll need, the financial plan we'll follow and how we'll monitor our progress. Building the long term value of your company is generally done more in an evolutionary manner, not revolutionary. Look at each new year with your team as an opportunity to review your strategic direction and build your confidence that you're taking the right steps to build company value!
copyright 2024 , YOSEMITE associates LLC
