Strategy

An interactive strategy exercise

As a small business leader, are you wondering about your organization’s profitability? You have a well documented strategic plan for growth. But you have missed your growth targets for the last three quarters. Do you think Sales and Marketing are not doing their job? Or do you think your resources are spread thin amongst the various projects you have on the go? Before you go further, I would like to invite you to answer the following questions:

1. Define strategy
2. Describe your organization’s strategy in your own words; in coherent simple terms. (I am not looking for the statement in your strategy binder)
3. How do you develop your annual budgets? How do you decide what projects get funded? How do you determine resource allocation?
4. How do you compensate your employees? What behaviour are you encouraging in your present compensation structure?
5. If I were to ask your sales person (or any other front line employee) on your company’s strategy, what answer will I get?
6. I am sure you have identified your competitors. What is the basis of your competition with them?
7. How do you measure if your strategy has been successful? What metrics do you use?

I’d love to hear back from you on these questions. You can write to me directly at consulting@iqi-sm.comÂ

One final point: Your organization’s success does not depend on external factors - it solely rests on your shoulders as a leader. An organization fails because of errors in implementing strategy. It is easy to formulate strategy, but very difficult to implement one.