With the new financial year ahead of us, our thinking turns to updating our strategy.
In this blog, I highlight the key areas to review in your business to make this year a winning one.
Strategic Planning
It is critical to update the Strategic Plan for the year ahead.
Assess your market position in the current economy.
What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
What are your Top 5 Goals?
What are your key projects?
What are your key plans around customers, team, sales & marketing, service delivery, finance and technology?
What key markets, partnerships and opportunities are you going to target?
Where is your business in its current cycle of life and how does this impact your future?
Who (internally/externally) is going to do what and how?
At a macro level, where do you want to be in a year’s time?
The Numbers
Update your Budgets and key metrics for the year ahead?
What are your expectations for existing customer revenue and new customer revenue?
Review cashflow, financing, margins, key costs and overheads.
Are you growing, static or retracting as a business after analysing your numbers?
Do the numbers raise key challenges that require action such as market erosion, pricing pressures, margin reduction, loss of competitive edge, increased borrowing requirements, capital expenditure or overall lack of sustainability?
Qualitative & Quantitative Analysis
Compare your insights from Strategic Planning (Qualitative) with the Numbers (Quantitative)?
How do they align?
Where are your performance gaps and how can they be addressed?
Products & Services
Conduct a review of your products and services.
Where are you placed in your market and what are your opportunities and threats?
Are there current or future perceived weaknesses in your offering that need to be addressed?
Do you need to address cost inputs, price changes or margins?
What will this cost and how long will it take?
Team
Assess your entire team.
Conduct formal annual appraisals and attempt to ensure you keep parity on market remuneration, benefits and conditions.
Create Top 5 Priorities/Goals for all team members, share this with them and commit to appraising and rewarding them based on their achievement.
Review your Organizational Chart and identify potential new hires or exits.
Are there functions and activities that can be outsourced more efficiently or economically?
Ensure your key team members are included in workshopping your strategic planning and welcome their input.
Supply & Fulfilment
Assess your current product/service fulfilment model?
Is it efficient and effective?
Are there blockages or inefficiencies that need to be addressed?
Customers
Conduct an audit of your customer base.
Classify your customers into A,B,C, D & E classifications.
Does any single customer take up more than 20% of your business revenue or time?
Assess your exposure to key customers in relation to profitability, effort and impact on internal culture.
Devise a plan for you servicing these customer classifications.
Consider elevating or ceasing work with D & E customers.
Suppliers
Review your suppliers and assess your key relationships.
Are there service gaps in what you receive and how can this be remedied?
Do you have potential back-up suppliers where you are solely reliant on one key supplier?
Talk with your suppliers and gain assurance on guaranteed supply.
Needs Analysis
Conduct a holistic needs analysis of the business for the year ahead noting:
Key strategies to be implemented
Issues around the numbers that need to be addressed
What are the key performance gaps?
What changes need to be made to products/services?
What changes need to be made to the Org Chart?
What changes need to be made to supply and fulfilment?
What changes need to be made with existing and new customers?
What changes or needs exist in relation to suppliers?
Are there any other key needs unresolved?
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Email me at darren@darrenkbourke.com to schedule a meeting (at no cost or obligation) to discuss how I can help you, your business and your team this year.