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Vol. 4 — No. 8 Escape
Velocity: Defying Business Gravity With a Well-Designed Plan for Growth Escape Velocity:
The minimum velocity an object must
have in order to escape the gravitational field of the earth Business Gravity:
The factors that hold your business
back from accelerated growth Development: The creation of the strategic framework
that guides business decisions and aligns company activities In this newsletter, we are
entering the “let’s make it real” phase of your growth plan, designing the
specific initiatives necessary to achieve it. Ahhhh!
When you reach this stage, you have reached the “easy” part. “Easy?” you say.
“How is that possible?” At this point, you have already completed much of the
“heavy lifting.” You have diagnosed the market and its opportunities,
developed the strategic direction and established your competitive advantage.
You have the information and framework you need to identify specific
initiatives and set priorities. What is interesting is so many plans start at
this stage of establishing priority initiatives and then the leaders don’t
understand why it is so difficult. They haven’t done the “heavy lifting”
first. Let’s talk about why this is the
“easy” part. So far, you have defined how the market is changing, and if you
are a Reynolds Consulting client you have a competitive map that demonstrates
your plans to change with it. You have captured your strategic positioning
statement which sets a precise course for growth, you have completed your
value proposition which tells you what benefits you will deliver to your
customers and finally you understand how your distribution mix will change
over time. Now, all you have to do is identify what the organization needs to
put in place to accomplish what you have set out to do. For many, it is helpful to start
with a gap analysis. What are you currently doing that is consistent with the
direction you have set and what do you need to put in place that you
currently don’t have? Consider the following:
•
What
skill sets will you need to achieve your future? Which ones do you already
have?
•
What
technology, equipment or space will you need that you don’t currently have? •
What
new products or services do you need to offer? •
How
do your operating practices and policies need to change? •
How
will your message be different? How must marketing change to deliver the
message to your identified target customer most effectively? •
Are
there alliances you need to create or acquisitions you should consider to get
where you need to be more efficiently or effectively? If you are like most companies,
you now have a fairly long list—longer than you can fund in the near term
with resources available. So let’s prioritize. Which of these will have the
most impact and are thus most important? Which have to be done before others
can be truly effective? Which are the most urgent? You may need to hire a new
customer service manager before you change customer service operating
policies or install a new CRM system. After completing this assessment, rank
your priorities in order, assign champions and ask them to further
investigate the initiative. Just because we think we need it, we don’t yet
know enough about it to act on it. Some of the questions the
champion needs to address include: •
What
are the benefits of doing this and what are the drawbacks? •
How
will we measure its success? •
Who
needs to be involved in making this happen and what resources are required?
Where will the resources come from?
•
What
are the key steps to complete this activity and what are the milestone dates
and measures? •
Do
you recommend we proceed? Once the team reviews the details
of each initiative, re-rank the priorities. Understand how many initiatives
the company can support at a given time and tackle those first.
Now you are ready to complete a
preliminary financial projection. The question to be answered is whether
these initiatives, and the accompanying resource shifts, will generate the
desired growth and return. See, wasn’t that easy? Well maybe
not easy, but certainly if the previous steps were well executed, the needs
were much more clear than if you started with a blank sheet of paper labeled
“this year’s priorities.” There are a
number of tools available to help you through this process, including gap
analysis, priority setting, resource allocation and financial forecasting. If
you are interested to learn more, please contact Reynolds Consulting, LLC by
emailing |
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