Help to keep your business on-course
This sounds so easy, but really isnt. We go back to basics and follow through on:
Process, Analytics, Alignment and Results
Processes
This isn't just for the big corporates, nor is it just to try and stifle creativity and reduce customer responsiveness. Customers value being assured of the same good service and routines each time they return. Your team will find it easier to maintain their focus on key results if they know that the simple stuff just works. If you want to upgrade IT systems, you need to know what it needs to deliver, by understanding how you deliver your products and services now.
Analytics
In order to understand how your business is really going and where improvements are being made, you need to track its financial performance against something. A budget allows you and your team to set targets and work together to achieve them - in the end aiming to make your business more successful.
The budget is a great tool to help drive overall performance for the year (or longer). However day to day your teams need to know exactly how the business is likely to be changing in the short term so as they can deploy appropriate resources to meet anticipated demand profitably.
Understanding what you want your business to be like now, in 3 years, and in 10 years is a critical point to establish before finalising a strategy to deliver on those aspirations. A public company has very different demands placed upon it than a private one, you might be looking to set your business up to sell it in 2 years, or you might be wanting it to last for the next 100 years. Our consultants will discuss all of these points before we begin any engagement, to ensure that we are all pulling in the same direction once it comes time to deliver strategies and solutions.
Alignment
You may already have a great strategy, but when did you last check that it was still in alignment with current market conditions, let alone anticipated market changes over the next few years? Do all of your team understand the strategy? Do they take ownership for the parts of the strategy they are responsible for? Or are they too busy on day to day stuff to bother? We can work with you to complete a review of the strategy, making sure all aspects are well understood and relevant to current and anticipated business conditions.
Without a well planned, implemented, aligned overall strategy you will find yourself forever fire-fighting and getting stuck trying to decide which customer, or investment decision to move on to next.
Strategies do not need to be complex, in fact the simpler the better in most cases. We will work with you and your team to ensure that you are setting the right course for the business to follow over the coming years, and that all of your team is on board with that direction and everyone is working together to achieve the same goals.
Results
Once you have done all of the above, we need to ensure that the results are flowing through as expected....and so the cycle of Process, Analytics etc starts again, to ensure that the plan is working and remains relevant.