Strategy Management

So often businesses do not reach their potential because there isn't a well thought out and documented business plan. Research shows that a well thought out business plan can otherwise improve your overall business performance considerably.

Some key areas to consider include:

• Market - size, your share, your competitors
• Route to market or channel to market
• Optimum customer mix
• Porters 5 forces principles
• Financial Planning and resourcing
• Products
• Operational Performance
• Sourcing and logistics

Without clear direction any organisation will fail to achieve its potential. Indeed, most commercial businesses will fail altogether, as competitors jostle each other in the struggle to be one step ahead of the field. And public sector organisations risk losing the confidence and financial support of their consumers. Successful organisations know that their best chance of long term survival lies in properly aligning the use of all their resources, including their people, towards a common set of goals. With the best will in the world, people cannot contribute effectively towards a common goal if they do not know what that goal is!

Strategy management is therefore essential if any commercial organisation is to prosper in the long term. It involves translating the strategic vision ("Where are we going?") into action ("What do we need to focus on? What initiatives are needed?"). Performance management is just as important, to ensure that everyone involved with the organisation is actually doing what the strategy sets out. If they are not moving in the right direction, what corrective actions need to be taken? The Balanced Scorecard is the best-known framework for combining strategy & performance management.

We have helped improve performance management systems at both ends of the spectrum: from organisations with simple performance 'dashboards' and spreadsheets to monitor progress across a set of locally-determined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), to comprehensive Balanced Scorecards at enterprise, business unit and team levels. Much of our work in this area incorporates the techniques of facilitation and change management. Overall, a performance management system can only be judged as successful if it changes behaviours. Most people within an organisation really want to know their organisation's purpose, and to be a trusted and empowered part of the delivery process. We typically make extensive use of facilitated workshops to help to develop trust at and between the different levels of the organisation.