Strategy is a Four - Letter Word
I have been criticized for using this process and you will be too if you take what I am telling you to heart.
Few companies have a documented strategic plan that is current (even before the pandemic). If so, this playbook of sorts must change.... (kind of like the New England Patriots).
As the leader of your business, you are going to have to make choices: which business lines to invest in, which ones to begin to trim. Do you have the thorough facts that can guide you to the RIGHT decisions? Everyone’s opinions about your business strategy are “facts” (to them) until you start collecting fact-based insights and making fact-based decisions about your business model and what is happening in your market. If you had listened to the opinions as fact, your results may not be what you had hoped... and hope is another 4-letter word.
Your job is at risk if you do not make the right decisions about your business as the world awakens from the pandemic. Scrutiny will be higher than ever. A little investment of time will make a difference.
I want to share a glimpse at not how to build a strategic plan, but rather, how to execute a strategic management process that will deliver a clear path forward that you will WANT to embrace. It is a process that my teams and I included in our management cadence to enable us to stay current with the facts in the market, with our customers, our competition, and a critical view of our internal company dynamics. It works. Using this process drove businesses to change trajectory from 0% sales growth to 10% + while improving operating profits.
Call the process what you would like. I call it FACTStrat™. It is a dynamic, real-time process to manage your business. It is not complex to learn or execute. It takes commitment, discipline, and accountability. Remember you will be criticized for asking for those three things, too.
As you execute the process, you will gain deeper alignment within your team, improve performance and you will become more nimble in the market. The process will challenge you to become extremely specific about your sustainable competitive advantage today and what it should be in the future.
When you are addressing your market with facts vs. historical views and opinions, you gain confidence in making informed decisions on potential changes to your business model. The critical voices on your Board, from your peers and team, do not have a platform when you are using fact-based research.
I led a medical device business that was the leader in the industry and yet only participated in the clinical, institutional market. As a part of our fact-based research, we found that we had products that were relevant to the consumer/retail market given its accelerating growth rates. Expanding in this space would open up much larger markets, but we did not have the capabilities to do so. Using the strategic management process known as FACTStrat™, my team and I explored several organic and/or acquisition alternative strategies. Ultimately, we recommended that we acquire one of our top manufacturing partners who not only had a complementary product portfolio, but also go-to-market capabilities in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) market that would take us years to have built and thus, likely miss this huge market opportunity.
Finally, integrating your financial history and forecasts provides clarity and confidence in the go-forward strategic process that you can believe in and execute.
The two most powerful outcomes from the work that your teams will deliver are 1) A profile of how your business is positioned (participation and competitive strategies) and 2) a Leadership Agenda that documents your Strategic, Operating, and Capability goals for the coming 1–3 years. These deliverables are extremely insightful and critical as you manage through the ongoing process of guiding your business to success.
As I said earlier, as the leader you will be criticized (get in line, right?). However, with the right team champions leading this process with you, you will have a clear, fact-based line of sight to where you can take the business. Then, it is all about execution.
There is a saying; “The best time to have planted a tree was 30 years ago. The 2nd best time is today.”
Contact Mike Orscheln at MikeO@eqgrowthsolutions.com to explore how we can help you move your business ahead faster than you could ever expect.