“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
Henry Ford
Building a business for profitable growth requires both practical hands-on experience and applied business knowledge to build a strategy to streamline day-to-day business functionality and boost incremental sales growth for the future.
It requires business skills to build, adjust, re-invent, and streamline a company through a robust and responsive business strategy, to scale a business profitably.
Moreover, business disruption today is being propelled by the changing needs and interests of the customer themselves, rather than just technology. Today, maintaining a solid business reputation is about the types of relationships and human interactions that take place in and for the business on a day-to-day basis.
Don’t be afraid to get help! There are advantages of using expert professional advice
Entrepreneurs have access to a wealth of advisors who can assist in unlocking the multiple opportunities presented to a growing business. Using short term, and thereby cost effective expert engagement, a business owner is supported with professional advice which puts the business owner in touch with lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, digital marketers and sales professionals who bring their qualifications and expertise in their field into personal alignment with the business’ strategic focus. This expertise delivers an objective business perspective and insight on issues current to the business’ growth agenda.
Working with Deftli Group, the business owner is assisted in developing a business strategy that expresses current realities with future expectations and is supported in maintaining direction and focus to make decisions that are financially and legally sound.
Owners themselves may consider professional advisors who are both experienced and empathetic business coaches with the ability to explore unfamiliar problems, new markets and innovative methodologies specific to the company’s bespoke business landscape. An independent advisor is best able to provide objective insight (two-party problems), business value and cultivate an internal environment to pursue competitive advantage with the required urgency in pace with today’s emerging markets and tech trends.
Choose the “Right Fit” for your Business Strategy
A successful, well-structured strategy requires the company do the necessary homework and work the textbook business procedures in reviewing their current capabilities, identifying opportunities as well as any personal expectations, and how they plan to fill any identified gaps.
David Ogilvy, known for his insightful leadership style within the advertising industry, was reputed to have once presented each of his board directors with a set of Russian dolls. When they opened the dolls, the smallest had a piece of folded paper inside on which Ogilvy had written: ”If you always hire people who are smaller than you, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you, we shall become a company of giants.”
Renown businessman Henry Ford was also said to have pronounced: “I am not the smartest, but I surround myself with competent people.”
Business strategy underpins a business in translating actual data into actionable tasks and measurable milestones supporting successful, profitable growth of the company for the future.
Business strategists understand that for a start-up to be successful, the product or services must be designed around a specific market need, perform specific tasks reliably and consistently, and have a total cost of ownership making it economically viable. The value proposition, “return on investment” and “product payment model” should be competitive and robust.
How Can a Business Strategist Help You?
Much like a large puzzle, users of advisory services usually have the greater part of the puzzle pieced together themselves, but it is those missing pieces which prevent the owners from seeing the whole puzzle; it is these critical missing pieces that can be the difference between success and failure for a business to reach its full potential in profits and reputation.
Through collaboration and emphasis on bespoke business strategies, business owners can identify the most crucial gaps in the business model and implement new actions to getting the company back on track in the shortest time possible.
The main pillars of business encompass a focus on seven areas of strategy; namely people, process, product, operations, logistics, cashflow and legal.
Let’s look at a few examples in each of these areas.
People:
Creating and maintaining a great work team requires daily management processes, team and individual incentives, and ongoing training in areas of required expertise. Human resource management can be a time-consuming activity. It requires adjustments to new business responsibilities in cultural inclusion as well as policies against sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying; where a single complaint could be costly in terms of settlements and reputation damage to the company if not proactively addressed.
Process:
Setting up a business and seeing it grow requires continuous adjustment to changing parameters. A business strategist will ensure clear value propositions are met when setting up processes such as healthcare plans, benefits packages, insurance policies, risk and liability evaluation, and tech, communications and hardware upgrades.
Product:
Marketplace competitiveness is about how a business stays in the game and monitors how the market is evolving. Future-savvy companies research and develop products to stay relevant.
Cashflow:
Sales and marketing of a product or service is closely linked to available cashflow. During times of declining revenues, instead of expanding efforts in finding new customers; it may be more effective to create new services and products for existing customers.
Need a strategy to fast forward for your business growth?