It’s hard to keep upwith the pace of change. Economic uncertainty, disruptive technologies, fast-changing consumer needs and complex digital marketing means entrepreneurs have to move fast just to stand still. While managing constant change this is easy, but dangerous to forget about strategy. A couple of pertinent questions: What are your business and marketing strategies? Who owns them? How many people in your organisation understand them? When last did you review them to see if they are appropriate now, and likely to be appropriate in the next year or two?
Every organisation, from tiny businesses, clubs, NGOs and start-ups to much larger companies would benefit by taking time out to review key strategy issues. I suggest you examine whether your target markets are the right ones, and are still buying enough to meet your sales targets. You should ask if your sales channels, pricing policies, promotional messages and the media used are right for the times.
- Do you really know what your target market needs and how those needs are changing?
- Are your products and services providing solutions to those changing needs?
- Does everyone in your organisation know what differentiates you from your competitors?
- Do you have the right people?
- Is your financial strategy still sound?
- What about purchasing or manufacturing — is it still as cost-effective as it could be?
- What are your competitors doing now?
- What are they likely to be doing in future?
Get out of your comfort zone
These are tough questions, but if you ignore them, your organisation may drift along in its comfort zone in the hope that everything will work out. A company that continues to try to sell familiar products to anyone who will buy, and does not know what its competitors are doing is taking very high risks in a changing environment.
The risk increases if your prices reflect your efficiency or otherwise at product procurement rather than the value they deliver to customers. Risk rises to danger levels if few people actually know and understand the strategy, because they will usually keep their heads down and do the same old things.
Start the journey
Strategy development is like a journey. You know the starting point, you decide on your destination (your goals) and then you map out how to get there, which is your strategy. You have to consider the time it will take, the resources you will need, especially money and skills, and how you will know you are still on track (your milestones). Start at the beginning; ‘we know where we are’.
Do not assume everyone has the same idea of where you are, especially your management team; you may be surprised at the distance between perceptions of where you are now. Then set the goals and recognise that the future may not be what you envisage. You will have to be flexible to cater for change in a different economy.
Using questions like those in this article, map out the strategy of how to get there. An outside facilitator is a good idea for a strategy session but if you choose to run it yourself be careful that your management team does not only tell you what you want to hear.
What great strategies are made of
Keys to good strategy in these turbulent times are to really understand your target market needs and provide solutions at a price that the customer regards as fair value. Two other ideals are to provide the products or services in a manner convenient to the customer rather than to you, and to inform the customer of the advantages of your solution in a manner and in media that the customer trusts. You may recognise the venerable 4Ps of marketing in a new guise; outwardly focused, concentrating on the customer.