MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

A Winning Aspiration defines the purpose of your enterprise, its guiding mission and aspiration, in strategic terms. The first choice of the strategic choice cascade is winning aspirations. Here we ask, “what is our winning aspiration.” Strategically, our winning aspiration defines our purpose. Aspirations are a view of the future. Qualified with “winning,” it is the ideal future that we strive to achieve. Unless you deliberately set out to win, it is impossible to do so. A business that only wants to participate rather than succeed will invariably fall short of making the difficult decisions and large investments necessary to succeed. Aspirations that are too modest rather than lofty are much more harmful. Most businesses fail because they have low expectations.

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Objectives

01. Share your Winning Aspirations: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Review your Strategy: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Know your Marketplace: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Define your Competitive Advantage: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Flexible Strategy Development: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Build your Growth Plan: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Build your Financial Plan: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Build your People Plan: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Execute your Strategy: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Share your Winning Aspirations: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Review your Strategy: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Know your Marketplace: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Define your Competitive Advantage: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Flexible Strategy Development: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Build your Growth Plan: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Build your Financial Plan: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Build your People Plan: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Execute your Strategy: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.

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Tasks

01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Share your Winning Aspirations.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Review your Strategy.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Identify your Growth & Contingencies.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Know your Marketplace.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Define your Competitive Advantage.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Establish your Strategic Priorities.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Flexible Strategy Development.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Build your Growth Plan.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Ensure Confidence in the Plan.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Build your Financial Plan.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Build your People Plan.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Execute your Strategy.

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Introduction

In the previous workshop, we discussed how your internal business assessment was the first stage in your acquisitive growth journey. During the business assessment stage, you highlight a set of ‘achievables’, or objectives which you will set out to achieve within your internal process before you set out on your acquisitive growth journey. In workshop 2, we will be discussing the strategies that will help you achieve these goals, or the HOW – HOW will you achieve these goals? What strategies must you put in place to make these changes happen?

In workshop 2, we will discuss the importance of strategy and how your strategic aspirations need to be felt and understood by your whole business in order for these aspirations to become reality. During this workshop, we will highlight the importance of communication, planning, flexibility, establishing priorities, and other important factors which will help you create a strategic acquisitive growth plan.

How Strategy Really Works

What is Strategy?

Strategy is really about choosing precise actions to succeed in the marketplace. A company develops a durable competitive edge over its rivals by “deliberately adopting a new set of activities to generate unique value,” according to Michael Porter, author of Competitive Strategy, arguably the most well-known book on strategy ever written. So, strategy entails making clear decisions—to do certain things and not others—and constructing a business around those decisions. Simply said, choice is a strategy. More formally, a strategy is a coordinated sequence of decisions that places a company in its industry in a special position to generate competitive advantage and greater value.

Too often CEO’s allow the urgent to cloud out the important. “When an organizational bias for action drives doing, often thinking falls by the wayside.”

Many leaders have a propensity to approach strategy in one of the inefficient ways listed below rather than developing it:

1. They define strategy as a vision;
2. They define strategy as a plan;
3. They deny that long-term strategy is possible;
4. They define strategy as the optimization of the status quo; and
5. They define strategy as following best practices.

“These ineffective approaches,” Lafley and Martin argue, “are driven by a misconception of what strategy really is and a reluctance to make truly hard choices.”

Everyone like to have as many options as possible, but in order to “win,” you must make and implement decisions. Tough decisions require you to make them, but if you let them, they can also focus your organization. Great organizations choose to win.

A corporation will invariably fall short of making the difficult decisions and substantial investments that would make winning even a remote possibility when it sets out to participate rather than win.

Particularly, the answers to these five interconnected problems are found in strategy:

1. What is your winning aspiration? The purpose of your enterprise, its motivating aspiration.
2. Where will you play? A playing field where you can achieve that aspiration.
3. How will you win? The way you will win on the chosen playing field.
4. What capabilities must be in place? The set and configuration of capabilities required to win in the chosen way.
5. What management systems are required? The systems and measures that enable the capabilities and support the choices.

As one might expect, a small firm might only have one choice cascade, whereas a large corporation might have several “levels of choices and interconnected cascades.” Nested cascades indicate that decision-making occurs at practically every organizational level.

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Winning Aspirations

Statements concerning the ideal future are known as aspirations. Later on in the process, a corporation attaches certain precise benchmarks that track progress toward those goals to those aspirations. … Over time, aspirations can be adjusted and changed. Because they exist to consistently align business actions, aspirations shouldn’t vary day to day and should be made to persist for a while.

Creating a Winning Aspiration

Question 1: What is your company’s purpose, or “winning aspiration”?

Choose your concept of success and what you want your organization to accomplish in order to respond to the first question in the cascade. What would be your company’s ideal future? A declaration of purpose may be part of your “winning aspiration,” which is the response, but it’s not the sole component. Also, it describes what “winning” or success” for your business would mean. A business can take steps to achieve its winning condition once it recognizes it.

Make your goals on helping and gratifying your customers rather than about producing a particular amount of money and appeasing your stakeholders in order to create your organization’s winning conditions. You have little prospect of success if you don’t have customers. Look at well-known company missions like Nike’s (“to inspire and innovate for every athlete in the globe”); they all speak of satisfying customers rather than stakeholders. In reality, they speak of success for their clients—becoming the finest or the industry’s pioneer in service provision.

What Winning Looks Like

You must ascertain the deeper-than-surface nature of your firm in order to determine your winning aim.

Typically, businesses would claim that their product or service is what makes them successful. For instance, a telecom corporation might claim that they manufacture and sell phones. All prosperous businesses, however, are truly in the business of satisfying consumer requirements; their product is merely the means. For instance, the telecom corporation actually makes money by satisfying its customers’ desire to communicate with one another. By selling phones, they meet this demand.

In a similar vein, focus your winning goals more on satisfying client demands than on a particular product. Assess the demands of your clients to determine how to effectively serve them. Then, customize your business to provide the best possible solution to that demand.

Defeating Competitors

There will always be rivals in any market, many of whom will also be playing for stakes. Finding the rival that poses the most threat to you—the business you believe to be the best—is one method to improve your own strategy. then inquire as to what they are doing that I am not. How do they provide a better level of service than I do? What could I do to beat them to it?

For instance, P&G underwent a reorganization in 1999–2000 in the midst of a mild recession. They changed their tactics in response to pressure from their rivals in order to outwit them. They came to the conclusion that they needed to diversify their holdings by utilizing a “best-of-breed” strategy and enlisting the aid of organizations like Hewlett-Packard for their IT. This strategy not only helped both businesses win, but it also established a partnership in which P&G could rely on Hewlett-competent Packard’s services: Hewlett-most Packard’s significant client became P&G. The alliance was strong and long-lasting.

P&G sought a solution that would help them win and outperform rivals rather than a “good answer.” As a result, they were able to identify a variety of businesses to collaborate with that they considered to be the greatest in their respective industries. P&G seized every opportunity to gain a competitive edge—something that all businesses ought to aim to accomplish.

The Importance of Playing to Win

Due to how difficult winning is, you must have a winning aspiration. Businesses that strive for success don’t always succeed. You therefore have no chance of winning if you are only trying to participate. You actually stand a good probability of losing.

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How to create and execute an acquisitive growth strategy

Any business owner will tell you that expanding a company through an acquisition or merger is challenging.

That makes excellent sense because data frequently show that running a firm successfully is difficult enough without having to scale for significant growth.

Around 20% of businesses fail before they reach year one, 50% don’t survive five years, and 66 percent don’t survive ten years, according to the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA).

What, therefore, is the secret to those business growth success tales where modest starting firm owners are propelled into the opulent millionaire lifestyle?

There isn’t a magic solution, of course, or we would all be millionaires by now.

Yet that fantasy doesn’t have to be so far off with some careful market research, a clear understanding of your potential, and a fantastic business growth plan.

The idea of acquisitive growth strategy, several growth strategy kinds, a plan for sustaining a growing business, and a few instances of successful businesses’ growth strategies will all be covered in this session.

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Why is strategic planning important?

Does your staff understand the acquisition-focused growth plan of your business? How much time do you spend each month creating that plan?

You’re not alone if your responses fall short of expectations. Research from Bridges Business Consultancy shows that 48% of leaders talk about strategy for fewer than one day each month.

So, it should come as no surprise that 48% of all firms fail to achieve at least 50% of their strategic goals. Planning is necessary to make sure a company strategy is flexible and implementable before an organization can benefit from it.

Here’s an explanation of strategic planning and how it can help your business develop through acquisitions.

What is strategic planning?

The ongoing organizational process of using the information at hand to outline a company’s desired course is known as strategic planning. By this approach, the organization’s acquisitive growth goals are aligned with shareholders’ and employees’ interests, resources are allocated efficiently, and goals are supported by facts and rationale.

It’s critical to stress that strategic planning is a continuous process, not a single meeting. Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School writes in the online course Disruptive Strategy that 93 percent of HBS graduates who launched businesses had successful strategies that changed and pivoted away from their initial strategic intentions.

“Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works,” Christensen says. “When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that’s at work 24/7 in almost every industry.”

Planning strategically takes time, effort, and ongoing evaluation. If given the right consideration, it can put your company on the right path. Three advantages of strategic planning are listed below.

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Best Buy’s winning strategy

The international electronics store Best Buy is a great illustration of how a change in company strategy may result in explosive growth. Best Buy was up against severe market rivalry in 2012 from big-box retailers like Walmart and Home Depot as well as online retailers like Amazon. The outcome was that the business lost more than a billion dollars in revenue in only one quarter.

The management of Best Buy chose to capitalize on an existing resource that was not being used to its full potential: its storefronts, as opposed to closing locations or creating new items. Best Buy began utilizing its locations as “mini warehouses,” resulting in quicker delivery, simpler client pickup, and increased product availability. Best Buy boosted its WTP as a result of making the customer’s experience more convenient.

Because it reduced WTS as a result of this endeavor, Best Buy is a prime example of a value-based company strategy. Best Buy gave its vendors a cost-effective choice by maintaining the vast network of stores and allowing vendors to construct showrooms inside of its locations. This added value reduced suppliers’ WTS, which resulted in product discounts.

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Benefits of strategic planning

1. Create One, Forward-Focused Vision

Every person is impacted by strategy, which provides a practical means of achieving your company’s aspirations for accretive growth.

The creation of a unified, future-focused vision via strategic planning can help your business and its shareholders unite, which is a huge advantage. You may instill a greater feeling of responsibility within your firm by making everyone aware of the objectives of your business, the selection process that went into selecting those objectives, and what they can do to assist in achieving them.

There may be a cascading impact from this. For instance, if a manager doesn’t understand the strategy of your company or the thinking behind it, they may decide on a team level to work against it. Everyone at your company can operate with a bigger strategy in mind if you have a single vision for everyone to rally around.

2. Draw Attention to Biases and Flaws in Reasoning

You make decisions that are biased by nature. Participating in the strategic planning process pushes you to consider each decision you make, to justify it with statistics, projections, or case studies, and to overcome any cognitive biases you may have.

A few examples of cognitive biases are:

• The recency effect: The tendency to select the option presented most recently because it’s fresh in your mind
• Occam’s razor bias: The tendency to assume the most obvious decision to be the best decision
• Inertia bias: The tendency to select options that allow you to think, feel, and act in familiar ways

Confirmation bias is one cognitive bias that could be more challenging to spot in action. It is a tendency to simply pay attention to facts that supports a given position when trying to validate it.

When creating a strategic plan for your business, if you already have a preferred approach in mind, engage the help of people who have different perspectives to find evidence that supports or refutes your theory.

The entire team must put forth effort and commitment to combat biases in strategic decision-making, which can strengthen your organization’s strategy.

3. Track Progress Based on Strategic Goals

Tracking your progress toward goals can be made possible by having a strategic strategy in place. The success of your firm can be directly impacted by each department’s and team’s progress when they are aware of the overall plan of the business, resulting in a top-down approach to tracking key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs can be established at the organizational level by designing your company’s strategy and identifying its goals. Then, these objectives can be expanded to include company divisions, departments, teams, and people. This makes sure that every level of your organization is in sync and can have a positive effect on the performance and KPIs of your company.

It’s crucial to keep in mind that your approach must stay flexible whilst being comprehensive and organized. According to Christensen in Disruptive Strategy, a company’s strategy must adapt to the possibilities and challenges it faces. Be ready to adjust your KPIs as your goals change, and let your organization know why.

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4 ways to develop your strategic thinking skills

Consider the last time you took part in a meeting for strategic planning for your company. Most likely, you were given a problem to solve or a target to reach.

Can you recall the contributions you made at that meeting? Did you make strong arguments and lay out a plan of action, or did you find it challenging to think critically and come up with a solution? Did you have a wonderful idea but find it difficult to explain it clearly? Did you actively contribute to the conversation, or was it led by others?

The most in-demand managerial abilities are those that include strategic thinking. Why? Because the direction of a firm can be greatly impacted by workers who are capable of critical, rational, and strategic thought.

The good news is that you can develop your strategic thinking abilities with the appropriate attitude and practice.

Here are four techniques to sharpen your strategy abilities so that the next time you participate in a meeting for strategic planning, your contributions will be acknowledged.

What are strategic thinking skills?

All abilities that help you apply critical thinking to solve complicated problems and make future plans are considered strategic thinking abilities. These abilities are necessary to attain professional goals, get over roadblocks, and deal with hurdles, especially if they are anticipated to take weeks, months, or even years to complete.

Skills in strategic thinking include:

• You must be able to analyze a number of inputs, from financial statements and KPIs to market circumstances, developing business trends, and internal resource allocation, in order to come up with a strategy that helps your organization achieve its goals. To develop a plan that is in line with the present situation your firm is facing, this preliminary analysis is essential.

• Communication skills: Regardless of the size of your business, developing a strategy will involve effective communication abilities. Strategic thinking is mostly based on the capacity to effectively convey complicated concepts, interact with internal and external stakeholders, forge agreement, and make sure that everyone is on the same page and pursuing the same objectives.

• Problem-solving abilities: Strategic planning is frequently used to resolve issues like missed financial targets, ineffective processes, or a new rival. You must first comprehend the issue and its potential remedies in order to put into action a plan that solves the primary obstacle you are facing. From there, you can develop a plan of action to resolve it.

• Planning and management abilities: Strategy is more than just coming up with a solution; it also requires putting that solution into action. To put everything together after data analysis, problem comprehension, and solution identification, you need to have good planning and management abilities.

How to improve your strategic thinking skills

1. Ask Strategic Questions

One of the simplest things you can do to develop your strategic thinking abilities is to ask more strategic questions. By doing this, you may practice your planning abilities, improve your ability to see opportunities, and cultivate a more strategic attitude that you can use throughout your career.

The issue, opportunity, or ambiguity you are now facing in your circumstance, whether it be personal or professional, can be related to a strategic dilemma, according to the Harvard Business School Online course Disruptive Strategy. For instance, they might have to do with launching a new company or product, outpacing a rival, or organizing your corporation for innovation.

It’s crucial that your inquiries relate to your position and duties so that you can take appropriate action.

Some examples of strategic questions you might ask include:

• How can we strategically position ourselves to enter a new market?
• What’s the direction for growth for each of our products or services?
• Where will the organization’s growth come from in the next five years, and how does it compare with where growth has historically come from?
• How should the organization respond to the threat presented by potentially disruptive competitors?

2. Observe and Reflect

You must not only pose strategic inquiries, but also skillfully respond to and address them. One of the best methods to do this is to observe and think about your current circumstance, making sure that any strategy you come up with is supported by data.

Imagine, for instance, that the company you work for has started to lose market share among its loyal clients for one of its goods. While doing so, it has expanded its customer base and increased its market share. It’s simple to speculate as to why this might be happening, but doing so could send your business down the incorrect route at a crucial juncture in its history.

Get as much knowledge as you can to use while developing your approach, rather than assuming something without doing your research. This can involve, for instance, interviewing new clients to learn about the various tasks they use your product for.

You can modify your marketing strategy and product development to better meet their demands by understanding what draws new customers to your product.

3. Consider Opposing Ideas

Once you’ve chosen a course of action that will enable your company to achieve its objectives, challenge your presumptions and put your hypothesis to a thorough test. You can make sure you’re not skipping over another option by doing this.

Playing the devil’s advocate with your ideas can help you anticipate where your case might fall short and prepare you to defend your approach when others raise concerns. Also, it can assist you in developing the logic abilities required to explain and carry out your plan.

Make it a practice to check your assumptions whenever you’re about to make a statement if you want to master this skill. Should you think about an alternative viewpoint? Is there a different possibility that you might have missed?

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Nike’s world-class strategy

Nike has established itself as one of the top global sports brands in the world as the largest manufacturer of shoes, apparel, and accessories for athletes. While Nike’s iconic items have contributed significantly to its success, the company has also outperformed its competitors thanks to smart business decisions.

Value-based pricing had a significant role in the company’s reported $44 billion in global revenue in 2021. For instance, Nike regularly raises prices within their WTP by taking advantage of consumers’ views of its products. Nike may achieve this by producing goods of the greatest caliber in order to charge a premium price.

Due to Nike’s most significant asset—its reputation—its image, many of its rivals find it difficult to adopt the same business strategy. Nike’s corporate management has long recognized that its pricing strategy is affected not only by the caliber of its goods but also by the popularity of its emblem. Nike’s unique items, like Air Jordans, have helped to raise the perception of company value by acknowledging its social and market significance. As a result, Nike’s long-term success in steadily increasing its customers’ WTP is founded on two important pillars: brand value and customer loyalty.

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Executive Summary

Chapter 1: Share Your Winning Aspirations

What is the goal of a successful company? Why must a business compete to win?

A company’s vision of success in the market (through acquisition or merger) is referred to as a winning aspiration. Businesses must always play to win because competing alone makes it very tough to succeed. Simply trying to compete puts businesses at danger of being driven out by more aggressive rivals.

Learn more about the significance of setting winning aspirations for your business.

How to Develop a Winning Aspiration

Check out the following examples:

What is the “winning aspiration” of your organization, or what is its purpose?

Determine your concept of success and the goals your organization has for its journey toward acquisitive expansion before you can respond to the first question in the cascade. What would be your company’s ideal future? A declaration of purpose may be part of your “winning aspiration,” which is the response, but it’s not the sole component. Also, it describes what “winning” or success” for your business would mean. A business can take steps to achieve its winning condition once it recognizes it.

Make your goals on helping and gratifying your customers rather than about producing a particular amount of money and appeasing your stakeholders in order to create your organization’s winning conditions. You have little prospect of success if you don’t have customers. Look at well-known company missions like Nike’s (“to inspire and innovate for every athlete in the globe”); they all speak of satisfying customers rather than stakeholders. In reality, they speak of success for their clients—becoming the finest or the industry’s pioneer in service provision.

What Winning Looks Like

You must ascertain the deeper-than-surface nature of your firm in order to determine your winning aim.

Typically, businesses would claim that their product or service is what makes them successful. For instance, a telecom corporation might claim that they manufacture and sell phones. All prosperous businesses, however, are truly in the business of satisfying consumer requirements; their product is merely the means. For instance, the telecom corporation actually makes money by satisfying its customers’ desire to communicate with one another. By selling phones, they meet this demand.

In a similar vein, focus your winning goals more on satisfying client demands than on a particular product. Assess the demands of your clients to determine how to effectively serve them. Then, customize your business to provide the best possible solution to that demand.

Important Components of Your Communication Strategy for Winning Aspirations

Use this method to decide the essential components of your communication plan: who, why, what, when, and where.

Who both refers to the communicator and the target audience. The company as a whole needs to be aware of your goals and objectives, even though your acquisitive growth journey may only be focused on a few divisions inside your organization. To properly spread the word, a communicator should be assigned to each department or group. To save time, it’s critical to limit the number of communicators.

In this equation, the why and what might be interpreted as the goal or message. Your winning goals will be the original objective of the communication strategy, which is to communicate the plan’s original purpose. Why are we acting as we are? In order to convey our winning goals with the company and win their support, we are putting the communication plan into action.

When should the message be delivered? The required frequency of communication will be determined by the needs of your target audience. It is usually best to err on the side of too much communication if you are unclear of how much is required. John Kotter writes in his article “Leading Change” that “workers’ hearts and minds are never captivated without credible communication, and a lot of it.”

Where should you communicate, and how? Good communication frequently requires a lot of work, and the message typically needs to be repeated numerous times. We advise communicating your winning ambitions to staff members numerous times to ensure that the message is understood and that they are aware of how they help with acquisitive growth.

Don’t forget to request and give feedback from others since communication is a two-way street.

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Chapter 2: Review your Strategy

Everybody has a strategy. The question … is it the right one?

Is it one that:

• is going to get you to where you want to go?
• provides a sustainable competitive advantage and superior value?
• everyone understands, believes in, and is committed to achieving?

You must take the appropriate steps to assure your success if you want to have a plan that works for acquisitive expansion. You should start by becoming familiar with the factors that are most likely to affect your sector. Then, develop a strategy for competing and, most crucially, for earning money. Your strategy must also consider your target market, how you will position yourself in the market, and how you will deliver your product or service differently from your rivals. All of this will give you the green light to adopt successful techniques and reject those that don’t work in this situation.

Organizations discuss the status of their goals and objectives during a strategy review and make the necessary changes for the future year.

On the surface, there may not seem to be a need for a strategy review, but as you embark on your journey toward acquisitive expansion, you’ll reap a variety of advantages from making the time to assess performance and pinpoint opportunities for improvement.

• The chance for employees to re-engage with the strategy is one of the most important advantages. Some people might not frequently be involved in the strategic plan depending on where they sit within the organization. Everyone’s attention is brought back to it by periodically reviewing it, hopefully inspiring a sense of purpose that has been lost.

• It strengthens the alignment of the organization. Getting everyone together to define shared objectives fosters cooperation and teamwork. Also, employees are reminded of the greater picture and how their daily actions fit into it.

• It also fosters teamwork among members, creating a culture that is supportive and high-performing. Leaders have the chance to influence culture during strategy review sessions by praising team members for activities that support organizational values and encouraging inclusivity.

• Last but not least, it gives you the possibility to spot potential prospects for financial gain related to new acquisitions. You may decide to significantly alter your strategy, such as setting a new goal or reallocating resources, as a result of assessing current market conditions and internal performance. This will increase your chances of success.

What’s in a review?

Evaluating your growth strategy is crucial, but for it to work, it must be done correctly. Your evaluation highlights developments and issues that require adjustment. Make sure you are able to apply these lessons from your procedure.

A review should compare accomplishments against a set of challenging requirements. If the conditions weren’t considered when you established your strategy, it could be a good idea to reassess it as soon as possible and include certain goals in your plan for acquisitive expansion.

These are the goals you’re seeking to achieve with your growth strategy, and this course manual will discuss what makes a successful objective later on. If you’re on course to meet them, a review ought to be able to notify you.

You should evaluate your plan periodically to assess progress on two fronts:

• Tactics – strategies are made up of individual tactics to be completed. If your business isn’t on track, why has this happened?

• Current growth – if a strategy is far from completion, this helps set a baseline for how much growth is normal. If parts have been completed, it helps you see how much it’s already helping.

If you’re falling behind, is it because there’s a bottleneck that you need to free up first, or is it because you were too ambitious? You can change your priorities to make yourself more scalable first, or modify your objectives to be more realistic.

If you’re making good progress but not achieving much growth, was this expected? If what you had done should have already triggered some growth, ask yourself if the strategy needs to be replaced.

When and how often should you do a strategy review?

Most businesses conduct a strategy review once a year, usually at the conclusion of their fiscal year. Your review would therefore occur in January or February if you operate on a calendar year; otherwise, it would occur at the start of your fiscal year.

By carrying out this assessment every year, you may analyze the results from the previous year and focus on any aspects that might need to be altered going forward. Yet, it makes sense to hold an ad hoc session to realign your goals at that time if your corporation undergoes a significant change, such as obtaining new business.

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Chapter 3: Identify your Growth & Contingencies

Growth and emergency planning have been at the forefront of successful acquisition for many years. By addressing the what-ifs in your company, you can be proactive in ensuring both short- and long-term success:

• What if … our assumptions are incorrect?
• What if … our largest customer goes out of business?
• What if … our competitors actively pursue our accounts?
• What if … our business gets hit with another Black Swan, like COVID-19?
• What if?… What if?… What if?…

A contingency is a good or service that has already been investigated, developed, and economically justified and is ready to be used right away. It’s a crucial step in the planning process for your sales.

Remember that creating new products and services is just one aspect of contingency planning. It’s possible to accomplish some level of expansion by smart acquisitions, adding to an existing service, etc. For product and service innovation contingencies, we typically advise setting aside 15% or more of your whole sales budget.

It’s crucial to lay the foundation necessary for fast activation.

Growth through acquisition is a hard business. To achieve long-term company success, businesses must always work to find fresh chances for growth. Because of this, it is crucial for your company to build new perspectives that will eventually contribute to the creation of concepts that the competition has missed.

The identification of unmet client or consumer wants and the issues they are attempting to solve are examples of insights. You may also find that by expanding your workforce through acquisitions, you can enhance your sales by marketing your goods and services in a new region.

Concepts typically range from bold and ambitious to simple and small. As ideas are the heart of a company, they shouldn’t be ignored. Sometimes all it takes is a slight shift in perspective for a concept to materialize into a workable business plan.

Hence, investing in a strong process for the “front end of innovation” has a favorable effect on the amount and quality of ideas generated as well as on everyone’s overall engagement.

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Chapter 4: Know your Marketplace

You may better position your company to be competitive and serve your consumers by conducting a market analysis.

• A market analysis is a comprehensive evaluation of a market inside of a certain sector.
• A market study offers several advantages, including lowering business risk and improving the quality of your business decisions.

In order to conduct a market study, there are seven steps.

One of the first essential elements to business accomplishment is comprehending your customer base. Without knowing who, what, and how to best serve your clients, your company may find it difficult to develop an efficient marketing plan. When it comes to this, a market analysis is useful. Although it can take a lot of time, a market study can be completed in seven simple steps.

What is a market analysis?

An in-depth evaluation of a market within a particular industry is what is known as a market analysis. You will research the market dynamics, including volume and value, possible client segments, purchasing trends, rivalry, and other crucial elements. The following inquiries should be addressed by a thorough marketing analysis:

• Who are my likely clients?
• What purchasing patterns do my customers have?
• What is the size of my target market?
• What price range will customers accept for my product or service?
• Who are my main rivals?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of my competitors?

What are the benefits of running a marketing analysis?

A marketing analysis can help project income, detect new trends, and lower risk. A marketing analysis can be helpful at various phases of your company’s development, and it may even be wise to perform one annually to stay on top of any significant market changes.

Your strategic business plan will typically include a thorough market study because it helps you better understand your target audience and the competition. This will assist you in creating a marketing plan that is more focused.

The following are some more key advantages of completing a market analysis:

• Risk reduction: By understanding your market and the key players in your sector, as well as what it takes to succeed, you may lower the risks associated with your firm and make better business decisions. You can also perform a SWOT analysis, which highlights your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, to assist you better safeguard your enterprise.

• Targeted goods or services: Knowing exactly what your clients need from you puts you in a far better position to provide their needs. When you are aware of who your clients are, you can utilize that knowledge to customize your services to meet their needs.

• Emerging trends: Keeping on top of industry trends with a marketing analysis is a wonderful method to position yourself to benefit from this information. Staying ahead in business frequently involves being the first to recognize a new opportunity or trend.

• Revenue forecasts: A market prediction is an important part of most marketing analysis since it predicts the size, makeup, and trends of your target market in the future. As a result, you have an estimate of the profits you may anticipate and can modify your budget and business plan as necessary.

• Assessment benchmarks: Measuring your company’s success in terms other than just numbers can be challenging. Using benchmarks or key performance indicators (KPIs) from a market analysis, you can assess how well your business is performing relative to others in your industry.

• Context for past errors: Marketing analytics can shed light on industry oddities or past errors made by your company. For instance, detailed analytics can explain the factors that affected the sale of a particular product or the reasons behind the performance of a particular statistic. Because you’ll be able to examine and explain what went wrong and why, this can assist you prevent repeating those errors or encountering similar anomalies.

• Marketing optimization: Here is where a yearly marketing analysis is useful. Regular analysis may guide your continuing marketing initiatives and show you which areas of your marketing need improvement and which are functioning well in comparison to other businesses in your industry.

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Chapter 5: Define your Competitive Advantage

Sales of Apple Computers increased 68% in 2005. In Canada, Apple debuted its first shop. The 500 millionth music was sold on the iTunes store. Earnings increased by 384%. The Apple stock also increased by 177%.

Some people think that this was caused by the commercial success of Macintosh computers built on Intel. Some people think it was the popularity of their most recent desktop, Mac OS X Tiger.

Al Ries, a member of the Marketing Hall of Fame, would claim that creating a halo effect was the key to Apple’s success. Every Apple product was a work of art that generated millions of sales. Every satisfied customer anticipated only positive things from Apple. Therefore, they noticed a halo surrounding the business.

Every time Apple released a successful product, it gained a competitive edge. Some rivals were successful. Nevertheless, none had clients waiting in line for a product launch.

What is a Competitive Advantage?

A competitive advantage is anything used to grow customer lifetime value.

This includes actions which allow you to:

1. Lower your costs.
2. Command higher prices.
3. Keep customers longer.
4. Attract customers from your competitors.

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Chapter 6: Establish your Strategic Priorities

How to create meaningful strategic priorities on your acquisitive growth journey

If your strategy sounds like a chain of buzzwords, it probably is. Developing these seven qualities can guide a strategy from complex to executable.

Using crowdsourcing to authentically disrupt a curated vertical. assisting a paradigm change that goes viral. utilizing a paradigm change with SEO optimization to transparently aggregate.

What do these expressions mean? Exactly nothing! These are meaningless buzzwords that Donald Sull connected as part of the Buzzword Strategy Generator for the MIT Sloan Management Review Strategic Agility Project. Although those expressions appear smart, they are merely linguistic carnival barkers with no true meaning.

Below, we list the seven essential characteristics of a successful strategy.

Identify just a few key priorities. limit to five. Lowering the number makes it simpler for leaders to interact with employees across the company and for employees to understand. Also, a concise, distinct list of priorities helps staff focus and keeps them from feeling overloaded.

Pay attention to mid-term goals. According to the writers, mid-term goals serve as a link between long-term goals and current demands. Three to five strategic priorities in that many years is what he refers to as the “three to five in three to five” rule. Don’t abandon them after a year and replace them with fresh concepts. See them through to the conclusion. They might be seen as unreliable.

Pull toward the future. Basically, don’t rest on your laurels. Consider ways to capture value going forward rather than thinking back on the past achievements and legacy business. It is not necessary to give top priority to tasks and results that have become dependable and habitual.

Yet, innovation and change require focus. They need constant work and supervision. Make sure there is a mix and don’t prioritize business as usual over innovation.

Make the tough choices. Priorities that conflict are unavoidable. By narrowing them down, leadership teams are compelled to focus on their real goals. It’s okay if certain priorities fall by the wayside. To minimize organizational conflict, it can be tempting to favor too many objectives, yet doing so reduces their efficacy and confounds workers. But, an organized, comprehensive priority list communicates urgency.

Identify and fix serious vulnerabilities. Making tough decisions is crucial, as you are aware. What’s next? Identify and fix serious vulnerabilities. These are the areas that are most important for success, yet they are also the ones that are most prone to error. Which goals, for instance, would result in lower expenses, more clients, or new revenue sources? Which of these could falter now if we don’t pay attention for a long time owing to internal or external factors? These goals ought to come first.

Give concrete guidance. Don’t use ambiguous catchphrases like those generated by the Buzzword Generator. They are too ambiguous if you can’t determine the business from reading them, let alone the sector.

Align the top team. Last but not least, priorities shouldn’t clash or push the company in opposite directions as distinct organizational groups vie for control of the desired outcomes. Instead, priorities ought to portray the organization as a whole in a unified manner. Avoid this at your own risk: Teams may segregate and work in opposition to one another when their goals aren’t in line.

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Chapter 7: Flexible Strategy Development

The ability of the organization to change with the business environment is referred to as strategic flexibility. Uncertainties and hazards increase as the business environment shifts. So, adaptable businesses attempt to get around issues by changing their business model. The objective is to maintain a competitive edge during their path toward acquisitive growth and to make their strategic competitiveness relevant.

It is difficult to adjust to shifting corporate settings. Companies that only emphasize prior achievement frequently experience stiffness. Whether or not the old approach still makes sense in the present environment, they continue to use it. Companies as a result are rigid and sluggish to adapt.

Why is strategic flexibility necessary?

Companies with strategic flexibility may have a competitive edge. This enables them to stay within the organization when the environment shifts. The business will continue to be competitive in this way.

The corporation has no influence over the outside environment. Companies are unable to alter it and make modifications as they see fit. All they can do is adjust.

Let’s say that in the past, differentiation was a source of competitive advantage for a corporation. By branding and first-rate customer service, for instance, they provide a distinctive value proposition.

Yet, the tactic could not be effective going forward if tastes and preferences change. Claim that consumers are more budget conscious and don’t differentiate between brands all that much. So, if a business enforces a differentiation strategy, it might not satisfy customer needs. Likewise, when customers seek distinctive items, a cost leadership strategy does not add value.

One facet of change in the corporate environment is shifts in tastes and preferences. And in general, business environment factors consist of:

• Politics such as changes in policy direction, political unrest, and coups.
• Economics such as economic growth, interest rates, inflation, and exchange rate.
• Social demographics, for example, population growth, age distribution, and health awareness
• Technology, for instance, the internet
• Environmental, for example, natural disasters and climate change.
• Legal changes such as tax regulations, trade restrictions and capital controls.
• Competitive environment such as rivalry between existing companies and the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and the risk of substitution)

Changes to those factors can have an impact on the company’s strategic competitiveness. Thus, companies need to make flexibility as part of the company’s competitive strategy.

How can the company be flexible?

To be flexible, companies must develop learning capacities. Why learning?

Learning provides businesses with the most up-to-date collection of skills. They can adjust to shifting business circumstances thanks to it.

The organization’s ability for learning is influenced by its human resources. A capable and motivated management team is essential. This enables the identification of changes and the assignment of suitable resources to deal with them.

Companies must also map the scope of changes’ effects on the organization. What region is impacted? How much of an impact does it have on the business? In this manner, the business merely uses resources for minor issues and does not react very quickly.

So, the key to successful strategic flexibility depends on the company’s ability to:

• Scan the environment and identify changes in the external environment. They may be opportunities or threats
• Determine the magnitude of the effect of these changes on the company
• Rank the resources needed to adapt
• Make significant strategic changes. To do this, it requires strong leadership and operational flexibility.

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Chapter 8: Build your Growth Plan

When you manage a business, it’s simple to become mired in the present and constantly concentrate on the day in front of you. But, you must be looking ahead if you want to be truly successful. Planning is necessary for your growth. Many business owners create business development plans, which include a roadmap for the following one to two years on how revenue might improve, to aid in that process. You must comprehend what a business growth plan is, the various forms of methods to take into account, and how to project approaches for your revenue to grow in order to write one that is effective.

What is a business growth plan?

A business growth plan describes the direction a company wants to take in the upcoming one to two years. The growth strategy ought to be set up to correspond to each quarter. The business can evaluate the targets it achieved and the ones it fell short of at the conclusion of each quarter. The business growth strategy can now be updated by management to reflect the state of the market.

Why are business growth plans important?

The following are just a few of the many factors that make business growth plans crucial:

• Market share and penetration. In a world where costs are steadily rising while your market share stays the same, you’ll surely start documenting losses rather than profits. Plans for business expansion can help you avert this situation.

• Recouping early losses. At the beginning, the majority of businesses lose much more money than they make. You must expand your business to the point where it can generate enough income to pay off your debts in order to recover these losses.

• Future risk minimization. Even for established businesses, growth plans are important. These businesses might always improve the efficiency of their sales, which would increase their liquidity. This liquidity may be useful if you require cash to deal with unanticipated issues.

• Although a business growth plan is advantageous to a company as a whole, the primary goal for most companies is to write one with investors in mind. Investors desire a detailed description of your business’s strategies for increasing revenue in the upcoming months.

• Concrete revenue plans. Growth plans can be tailored to each company’s needs and are not need to adhere to a predefined format. Yet, revenue must be a major component of every plan for business expansion. How does your business intend to generate revenue each quarter should be addressed in the plan.

What to include in a business growth plan

A business development strategy primarily addresses expansion and how you intend to do it. Making an effective plan takes work, but it may pay off greatly by keeping your growth initiatives on course. The following components must to be part of your growth plan:

1. A description of expansion opportunities
2. Financial goals broken down by quarter and year
3. A marketing plan of how you will achieve growth
4. A financial plan to determine what capital is accessible during growth
5. A breakdown of your company’s staffing needs and responsibilities

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Chapter Manual 9: Ensure Confidence in the Plan

Building alignment is crucial for leadership when trying to convince others to support your views.

By ensuring that every person understands what they should be doing and why, alignment saves time and energy and gives employees a place to voice their questions and concerns.

This encourages both emotional and logical buy-in and unites individuals behind your aim for acquisitive growth.

Working to build alignment

Alignment is a dynamic, continuing process that calls for constant observation and adjustment as circumstances and demands shift. But, according to studies, more than half of leaders say they have had little to no training in the art of achieving alignment.

In fact, just 47% of respondents say they have a firm grasp of what “creating alignment” in the context of leadership even entails.

1. Communicate with clarity

According to research, leaders frequently fail to explain to followers what is simple and intuitive to them but may appear mysterious to them.

In order to provide clarity, a careful balance must be struck between addressing practical complexity and keeping things simple. Leaders that are adept at this challenging communication are skilled at outlining their thinking and arranging communications in a way that allows them to be repeated and shared with others.

In order for your team to grasp where they’re headed, why they’re going there, and what the expectations are, you must explain the thinking behind the vision. So that your coworkers can recall the two or three main points you want them to take away, keep your talking points succinct and straightforward.

2. Create dialogue

Provide a space for open communication and make sure everyone has a chance to express themselves.

Gaining buy-in and starting to generate engagement through group participation and discourse opens the way to shared ownership and accountability.

You will be able to solve problems, respond to inquiries, and offer insights if you can persuade people to speak and if you pay attention to what they have to say. But, pay attention to the mood you’re projecting during the talk. People can tell whether you’re sincere and approachable both consciously and intuitively.

3. Inspire your team

Relationships are at the heart of leadership, and attempting to align people emotionally uses many of the same emotional mechanisms.

Encouragement is necessary for people, and it must be constant. It is the responsibility of the leader to give the vision life by bringing enthusiasm to the team and your objectives so that people are emotionally invested.

A naturally expressive leader might express passion in an instant; a high-energy leader might organize an activity that inspires followers. But even a quiet leader can find a way to convey and inspire sincere emotion.

Expressiveness is not egotism; rather, it is having faith in the mission and assisting others in seeing the greater significance of their work.

Getting employees on board requires alignment, and without alignment, leaders won’t have their entire team pulling in the same direction and concentrating on the same desired results. It is important to consider how successfully you are bringing your team members together.

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Chapter 10: Build your Financial Plan

A financial plan is different from your financial statements.

You predict income and expenses for the upcoming months rather than reflecting on the past. You may prepare for cash flow lulls, identify financing requirements, and determine the ideal timing for projects with the aid of your predictions, which will serve as an early warning system.

Also, it provides you with a financial monitoring tool so you can assess your progress and rapidly spot problems. The following six steps will help you establish your financial strategy.

1. Review your strategic plan

The strategic plan for your business should come first in financial planning. When a new year begins, you should consider your goals and ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I need to expand?
• Do I need more equipment?
• Do I need to hire more staff?
• Do I need other new resources?
• How will my plan affect my cash flow?
• Will I need financing? If yes, how much?

Next, calculate the financial impact over the subsequent 12 months, taking major project spending into account.

2. Develop financial projections

By logging your projected income based on sales estimates and estimated expenses for labor, supplies, overhead, etc., you may create monthly financial projections. (Companies with extremely limited cash flow would want to create weekly predictions.) Insert the project costs that you identified in the previous stage now.

You can utilize your accounting program’s features or basic spreadsheet applications for this task. Don’t assume that sales will immediately translate into money. Only enter them as cash if, based on past practice, you anticipate being paid.

Create a predicted balance sheet as well as an income (profit and loss) statement. For your projections, it can be helpful to include a variety of scenarios—most likely both optimistic and pessimistic ones—to help you anticipate the effects of each one.

Asking your accountant for guidance when creating your financial projections could be a good idea. Go over the strategy thoroughly as you will be seeking financing and will be the one presenting it to your lender and investor, not your accountant.

3. Arrange financing

Determine your finance requirements using your financial estimates. Speak with your financial partners in advance to go over your possibilities. Bankers will feel more confident that your financial management is sound if you have well-prepared projections.

4. Plan for contingencies

What would you do if your financial situation were to abruptly worsen? Having emergency funds on hand before you require them is a good idea. A cash reserve or having enough of space on your credit line are two options.

5. Monitor

Compare your projections and actual results throughout the year to determine whether you are on track or need to make adjustments. You can identify money issues early on with the use of monitoring.

6. Get help

If you lack experience, think about hiring a professional to assist you in creating your financial strategy.

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Chapter 11: Build your People Plan

You must be able to draw elite talent to your company and nurture it if you hope to achieve your aims for acquisitive expansion. And how do you go about doing that? By approaching company strategy—also referred to as people strategy—by putting people first.

You can achieve a number of company results with the aid of the proper people strategy. This can include everything from bridging labor skill gaps to driving innovation in your sector. And how are businesses managing one of the most difficult labor markets in recent memory? More than ever, having the appropriate people strategy is crucial.

Nevertheless, what precisely is people strategy? Why is it such a valuable asset for your company? And how do you establish the human resources plan you need to draw in, keep, and develop the top talent in your sector? (And advance your company’s development in the process?)

What is a people strategy?

The plan your firm has for finding, keeping, and developing the talent you need for your business both now and in the future is called a people strategy.

A company’s people strategy is essentially its plan for luring, keeping, and developing personnel. To elaborate, it pertains to how you may best assist your employees’ needs and professional development during the course of their employment.

Several components might be part of a people strategy. For instance, it could contain strategies for implementing a recognition program to ensure that your staff members feel valued every day. It might also cover tactics for enhancing important personnel analytics figures like employee engagement. It could also include a strategy for upskilling your current staff to fill skill shortages and support your employees’ career development. (All of which can assist your business increase employee retention.)

An efficient, comprehensive people management plan is composed of a number of components. The following are the pillars you need for a fruitful people strategy:

• Leadership and culture. Have you built a people-centric company culture within your organization? And does your leadership reflect those people-first values?

• Talent and skills. Does your organization have the talent and skills necessary to succeed? And, if not, do you have a plan for attracting that talent and building those skills?

• HR. Is your HR team equipped to build, support, and grow your people strategy?

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Chapter 12: Execute your Strategy

We are all familiar with the proverbial warning that even the “best-laid plans” can go astray. This is true whether the plan was created by a mouse or a management team. But, despite how vague and frightening this may sound, the execution of the plan—rather than its scope—is what ultimately causes failure, especially in business. Even when businesses achieve their most ambitious objectives, they are repeatedly brought to their knees by their inability to do the most elementary duties. In risk management, this is referred to as execution risk.

“Meeting growth objectives requires reducing execution risk as much as possible.”

Business executives, and finance directors in particular, need to grasp what execution risk is and how it applies to their own strategies for acquiring new businesses. This calls for effective procedures for gathering, examining, and acting on the financial and operational data that is crucial for moving the business ahead.

What execution risk looks like

All business has practically infinite potential for execution risk, which varies by industry. Yet, regardless of the age or size of the business, companies frequently fall into the following groups:

• Corporate finance failure: Execution risk is impacted by inaccurate statements, unpaid taxes, improper data input, and transaction processing errors.

• Failures in plan creation or modification: It can be challenging to stick to or modify a good strategy when contracts are inaccurate or incomplete, financial models are flawed, or essential data is not properly visualized.

• External execution failures: Without robust processes in place, it is possible to overlook trivial errors made by staff members, suppliers, or vendors that don’t meet deadlines.

Meeting growth goals

Setting a business on a path to realize its expansion goals entails reducing execution risk. Business leaders’ primary obstacle in achieving this is turning their strategic vision into targeted execution. This frequently takes an unclear form, such as “I know it when I see it,” as was noted in a Wall Street Journal piece on CFO concerns. Corporate executives can’t merely expect that a strategy will gradually come to fruition; they can’t even assume that a plan will be effective after less than a year.

Business executives must have the most effective tools available to turn everyday chores and basic visibility into a given rather than an unknown in order to make plan implementation crystal apparent for everyone. Building a strong organization that can stand out from the competitors is simpler with this strong foundation.

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Curriculum

Acquisitive Growth – Workshop 2 – Strategic Aspiration

1. Share your Winning Aspirations
2. Review your Strategy
3. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
4. Know your Marketplace
5. Define your Competitive Advantage
6. Establish your Strategic Priorities
7. Flexible Strategy Development
8. Build your Growth Plan
9. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

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Distance Learning

Introduction

Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Acquisitive Growth corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.

Study environment

You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.

Study tools & rules

Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.

Successful distance-learning

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.

Self-assessment

Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.

Accepting responsibility as a student

Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.

Planning

By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.

Management

Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.

Study objectives & tasks

The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.

Study forecast

As a guide, the Appleton Greene Acquisitive Growth corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.

Performance management

It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.

With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.

With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.

Keeping in touch

You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.

Work colleagues and family

You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.

Making it relevant

The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.

Distance-learning check-list

Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.

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Tutorial Support

Programs

Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.

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Support available

You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.

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Support Process

Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.

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Time Management

It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Acquisitive Growth corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Acquisitive Growth program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.

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Distance Learning Guide

The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.

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How To Study

The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).

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Tutorial Support

Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Acquisitive Growth corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.

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Tutorial Support Tips

Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.

Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails

Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.

Think about the impression that you want to create

Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.

Remember that quality is preferred to quantity

Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.

Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers

Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.

Keep a record of your tutorial support emails

It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Individual training workshops or telephone support

Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.

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Tutorial Support Email Format

You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.

Subject line of your email

Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.

Main body of your email

Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)

Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.

Question 1

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 3

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 4

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Question 5

Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)

Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.

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Procedure

* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.

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How To Study

Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.

Planning your study environment

Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.

Planning your program objectives

It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.

Planning how and when to study

Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.

Planning your study tasks

You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.

Planning your time

You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.

Keeping in touch

Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.

Charting your progress

Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.

Making it work

To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.

Reading methods

Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.

Speed reading

When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.

Content reading

Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.

Making structured notes on the course manuals

When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.

Organizing structured notes separately

You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.

Question your understanding

Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.

Clarifying your understanding

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.

Question your interpretation

Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.

Clarifying your interpretation

If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.

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Qualification Requirements

The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Acquisitive Growth corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Acquisitive Growth Specialist (AAGS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.

Acquisitive Growth – Grading Contribution

Project Study – Grading Contribution

Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%

Qualification grades

A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.

When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:

Pass with merit

A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory

Pass with distinction

An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory

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Preliminary Analysis

Online Article

“Strategic Management for Competitive Advantage

Harvard Business Review

For the better part of a decade, strategy has been a business buzzword. Top executives ponder strategic objectives and missions. Managers down the line rough out product/market strategies. Functional chiefs lay out “strategies” for everything from R&D to raw-materials sourcing and distributor relations. Mere planning has lost its glamor; the planners have all turned into strategists.

All this may have blurred the concept of strategy, but it has also helped to shift the attention of managers from the technicalities of the planning process to substantive issues affecting the long-term well-being of their enterprises. Signs that a real change has been taking place in business’s planning focus have been visible for some time in the performance of some large, complex multinational corporations—General Electric, Northern Telecom, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Siemens A.G., to name four.

Instead of behaving like large unwieldy bureaucracies, they have been nimbly leapfrogging smaller competitors with technical or market innovations, in true entrepreneurial style. They have been executing what appear to be well-thought-out business strategies coherently, consistently, and often with surprising speed. Repeatedly, they have been winning market shares away from more traditionally managed competitors.

What is the source of these giant companies’ remarkable entrepreneurial vigor? Is it the result of their substantial investments in strategic planning, which appear to have produced something like a quantum jump in the sophistication of their strategic planning processes? If so, what lessons can be drawn from the steps they have taken and the experience they have gained?

To explore these questions, we embarked on a systematic examination of the relation between formal planning and strategic performance across a broad spectrum of companies (see the sidebar). We looked for common patterns in the development of planning systems over time. In particular, we examined their evolution in those giant companies where formal planning and strategic decision-making appeared to be most closely and effectively interwoven.

Our findings indicate that formal strategic planning does indeed evolve along similar lines in different companies, albeit at varying rates of progress. This progression can be segmented into four sequential phases, each marked by clear advances over its predecessor in terms of explicit formulation of issues and alternatives, quality of preparatory staff work, readiness of top management to participate in and guide the strategic decision process, and effectiveness of implementation.

The four-phase model evolution we shall be describing has already proved useful in evaluating corporate planning systems and processes and for indicating ways of improving their effectiveness.

In this article, we describe each of the four phases, with special emphasis on Phase IV, the stage we have chosen to call strategic management. In order to highlight the differences between the four stages, each will be sketched in somewhat bold strokes. Obviously, not all the companies in our sample fit the pattern precisely, but the generalizations are broadly applicable to all.

Phase I: Basic Financial Planning

Most companies trace the origins of a formal planning system to the annual budgeting process where everything is reduced to a financial problem. Procedures develop to forecast revenue, costs, and capital needs and to identify limits for expense budgets on an annual basis. Information systems report on functional performance as compared with budgetary targets.

Companies in Phase I often display powerful business strategies, but they are rarely formalized. Instead, they exist. The only concrete indication that a business strategy exists may be a projected earnings growth rate, occasionally qualified by certain debt/equity targets or other explicit financial objectives.

The quality of Phase I strategy depends largely on the CEO and the top team. Do they really know their company’s products and markets and have a good sense of what major competitors will do next? Based on their knowledge of their own cost structure, can they estimate what the impact of a product or marketing change will be on their plants, their distribution system, or their sales force? If so, and if they do not plan for the business to grow beyond traditional limits, they may not need to set up an expensive planning apparatus.

Phase II: Forecast-Based Planning

The complexities of most large enterprises, however, demand more explicit documentation of the implicitly understood strategies of Phase I. The number of products and markets served, the degree of technological sophistication required, and the complex economic systems involved far exceed the intellectual grasp of any one manager.

The shoe usually pinches first in financial planning. As treasurers struggle to estimate capital needs and trade off alternative financing plans, they and their staffs extrapolate past trends and try to foresee the future impact of political, economic, and social forces. Thus begins a second phase, forecast-based planning. Most long-range or strategic planning today is a Phase II system.

At first, this planning differs from annual budgeting only in the length of its time frame. Very soon, however, the real world frustrates planners by perversely varying from their forecasts.

In response, planners typically reach for more-advanced forecasting tools, including trend analysis and regression models and, eventually, computer simulation models. They achieve some improvement, but not enough. Sooner or later plans based on predictive models fail to signal major environmental shifts that not only appear obvious after the fact but also have a great and usually negative impact on corporate fortunes.

Nevertheless, Phase II improves the effectiveness of strategic decision-making. It forces management to confront the long-term implications of decisions and to give thought to the potential business impact of discernible current trends, well before the effects are visible in current income statements. The issues that forecast-based plans address—e.g., the impact of inflation on future capital needs or the inroads foreign manufacturers may make in domestic markets—often lead to timely business decisions that strengthen the company’s long-term competitive position.

One of the most fruitful by-products of Phase II is effective resource allocation. Under the pressure of long-term resource constraints, planners learn how to set up a circulatory flow of capital and other resources among business units. A principal tool is portfolio analysis, a device for graphically arranging a diversified company’s businesses along two dimensions: competitive strength and market attractiveness.

As practiced by Phase II companies, however, portfolio analysis tends to be static and focused on current capabilities, rather than on the search for options. Moreover, it is deterministic—i.e., the position of a business on the matrix is used to determine the appropriate strategy, according to a generalized formula. And Phase II companies typically regard portfolio positioning as the end product of strategic planning, rather than as a starting point.

Phase II systems also do a good job of analyzing long-term trends and setting objectives (for example, productivity improvement or better capital utilization). But instead of bringing key business issues to the surface, they often bury them under masses of data. Moreover, Phase II systems can motivate managers in the wrong direction; both the incentive compensation program and informal rewards and values are usually focused on short- or medium-term operating performance at the expense of long-term goals. In sum, Phase II planning all too easily becomes a mechanical routine, as managers simply copy last year’s plan, make some performance shortfall adjustments, and extend trend lines another 12 months into the future.

Phase III: Externally Oriented Planning

In an environment of rapid change, events can render market forecasts obsolete almost overnight. Having repeatedly experienced such frustrations, planners begin to lose their faith in forecasting and instead try to understand the basic marketplace phenomena driving change. The result is often a new grasp of the key determinants of business success and a new level of planning effectiveness, Phase III.

In this phase, resource allocation is both dynamic and creative. The Phase III planners now look for opportunities to “shift the dot” of a business on a portfolio matrix into a more attractive sector, either by developing new business capabilities or by redefining the market to better fit their companies’ strengths. A Japanese conglomerate with an underutilized steel-fabricating capacity in its shipyard and a faltering high-rise concrete smokestack business combined them into a successful pollution-control venture.”

To continue reading this article, please visit: www.hbr.org

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Online Article

“Don’t Confuse Strategy with Lofty Goals

By Constantinos C. Markides,
June 08, 2022,
Harvard Business Review

Most companies communicate strategy as a set of aspirations or good sounding platitudes. For example, a major European multinational had this to say in its annual report: “The key elements of our strategy are to continue our focus on delivering operational excellence, leverage the benefits of our integrated model, reinforce our technological leadership and make intelligent and disciplined investments.” In a similar vein, a U.S. global operator declared that: “Our strategy is based on four pillars: winning with our customers, leading with our culture, expanding our network and maximizing our performance.”

But these grand claims provide no guidance to employees on their company’s direction. No wonder that employees in many companies claim to have little knowledge or understanding of their organization’s strategy. One recent academic study reported that even in high-performing companies with clearly articulated strategies, only 29% of their employees knew what their company’s strategy was. Similarly, in a survey that I undertook in five European companies in 2019, only 35% of the employees claimed to know their company’s strategy and fewer than 20% said that they understood why they were following the strategy that had been communicated to them.

Strategy is not aspirations, objectives or wishful thinking. It is a set of hard-to-reverse choices and explaining what these choices are and why they were made is what strategy communication should be. A good example is provided by the new strategy adopted in response to the digital disruption of the early 2000s by DPG Media Group, the leading media company in Belgium and the Netherlands. At the time, the market for newspapers and other traditional print and broadcast media was being overwhelmed by digital giants such as Google and Facebook and customers as well as advertisers were moving to digital offerings in droves. The cover story of The Economist in August 2006, headlined “Who killed the newspaper?,” was representative of the mood at the time.

In that context, the then CEO and now Chairman of the Group, Christian Van Thillo, organized an offside with his top 10 managers and editors to develop the company’s new strategy. According to Van Thillo, the starting point of strategy is to first decide what business the company is or should be in, a point also made by Professor Derek Abel more than 40 years ago. It was essential, therefore, for DPG Media to decide whether it wanted to stay in professional journalism or exit the business altogether.

According to Van Thillo, this meant answering the question: “Is there a future for high-quality, professional journalism? Do we believe that in the digital age, people will continue to want to be informed, entertained, and inspired by professional media or is the market moving to citizen journalism, blogs, and influencers?” The team answered this question in the affirmative which immediately set DPG Media down the path of focusing and investing its resources in professional journalism and reinventing it for the digital age rather than exit it as many of its competitors were doing at the time.

According to Van Thillo, this was the most important decision the company had made in its entire history. At the time, it represented a huge gamble. Ever since, he always uses this decision as the starting point to explain why the company exists and why it’s taking the strategic decisions that employees see it taking every day.

Once the decision was made to focus on professional journalism, the question that arose was: “what do we need to do to succeed in professional journalism in these digital times?” The answer was that size will matter a lot. According to Van Thillo:

“We never talked about size before because we used to compete with local competitors. Now, all of a sudden, we had to compete with Google and Facebook. We therefore needed to be big enough so that advertisers as well as consumers would have us at the top of their mind, like they did with Google and Facebook. That implied that we had to be the local multimedia undisputed leader so that people will think of doing business with Google and Facebook and then us.”

The need for size led DPG Media to two other key choices. First, what countries to compete in. Given its limited resources, it could not be big in too many markets. And given its size, it had to avoid big markets where giants like Google would operate. They therefore decided to focus on just two geographic markets, Belgium and the Netherlands. Second, they decided to engage in acquisitions to grow to critical size quickly. This was, again, something new for the company. Traditionally they grew organically whereas now acquisitions became a necessity for them. But given their emphasis on quality journalism where consumers would be expected to pay a subscription price to access this journalism, their acquisition targets were media companies that relied more on subscription rather than advertising for their revenues. According to Van Thillo, “If the potential acquisition target depended on advertising for its revenue, I would walk away.”

The need for size and the focus on subscription revenue led the company to another choice: focus on market-leading brands (or power brands as they call them) and disinvest in or sell laggard brands. The brands that remained in the portfolio were reinvented for the digital age — newspapers and magazines were transformed into news media, television developed streaming, radio built up podcasts — and new online services that were complementary to the media business, such as platforms for jobs and cars, were built. Any time a decision had to me made on whether to offer a new product or not, the choice was made by asking whether the addition of the new product will support the company’s new mission, which was to become the local, multimedia champion in the countries it chose to compete.

The final choice to be made was how to do all this. The company opted to operate with two business models. For their premium brands, they targeted affluent customers, offering them ad-free content on a subscription model. For their mass-market brands, they opted for a freemium model that relied mostly on advertising revenue. In addition, they chose to adopt a dual transformation strategy: continue to build on their size by undertaking only acquisitions that had the potential to impact their market power in the local market while reinventing the core for the digital age and developing new digital services.

The hard-to-reverse choices that DPG Media had to make revolved around three issues: why do we exist, what do we do, and how do we do it? These may not be an exhaustive list of choices that need to be made but making these three will go a long way towards defining the organization’s strategy. The real problem that most organizations face is not whether they need to make three or four or five choices but how to get their senior managers to make any choices at all! The biggest strategic mistake that organizations make is not that they miss one or two choices in their decision-making; it is that they do not make choices at all, something that Michael Porter alluded to long time ago.

For any organization to succeed, it must first make the difficult choices that strategy requires and then communicate these choices to employees in an effective way. Unfortunately, if we go by what companies communicate in their annual reports or by what CEOs say at company conferences, the bulk of the communication is focused on the organization’s goals and aspirations rather than its choices. This mode of communication leaves employees in the dark and limits their emotional connection to their organization. A little bit more effort in improving our communication of strategy can lead to major benefits in how employees execute our strategy.”

If you would like to view the original article, please visit: www.hbr.org

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Online Article

“Ambition Vs. Aspiration: Why Leaders Need To Understand The Difference

Aug 30, 2021,
Forbes

Both ambition and aspiration refer to something we wish to attain in the future on a personal or professional level. It is all about painting a picture of a future state we wish to achieve, from getting that promotion to running a marathon.

Despite these similarities, there are also differences between these two words that we may use interchangeably. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, ambition is defined as “an ardent desire for rank, fame or power,” while aspiration is defined as “a strong desire to achieve something high or great.”

Let’s explore why leaders need to recognize the key differences to better understand their team members, and how it impacts employee engagement and retention, especially in an era when we are talking so extensively about “the great resignation” of employees.

The Outer Drive Of Ambition

Being ambitious is often associated with competition and winning. It can be about evaluating where we are in comparison to other people and letting that propel us toward new heights. Since it is often linked to power and rank, we may rely on the outer world to define our “success” or our “wins.”

The problem with this is that our self-image and self-worth are based on external factors that we do not control. When things go well, it may fuel our happiness temporarily. But when we “fail” to live up to the expectations of others, we often feel unsafe or rejected and our mental health and confidence can be impacted negatively.

I find that leaders and employees who are fueled by this outer drive of ambition are likely to be more controlling, critical or show perfectionistic tendencies as soon as their self-image is compromised. This can emerge as soon as they fear that their status, performance and intellect are being questioned. Furthermore, I’ve seen unhealthy ambitions that lead to ignored health, relationships and quality of life.

The constant quest for the next challenge can also push employees to always be on the lookout for new opportunities outside their organizations, especially when they feel the company they work for provides limited professional growth potential for them.

The Inner Drive Of Aspiration

Aspiration is usually based on our deeper desires fueled by our inner standards, values and purpose. Consequently, I find it is more likely to lead to more meaning, fulfillment and magic in our lives. It is all about leveraging our true talents and passions to reach a state of contentment that allows us to cherish and celebrate our accomplishments based on our own standards, and not based on those defined by the external world.

With a greater sense of inner calmness and serenity, our behaviors are likely to be more harmonious, balanced and creative. Our self-awareness may allow us to embrace challenges with more composure and compassion and to engage with more authenticity with our team and colleagues.

Leaders who are focused on ambition may ask their employees, “Where do you see yourself in the future?” Leaders who are focused on fuelling aspirations for employees may ask, “What inspires you and what impact do you wish to have while working with our company?”

When our actions are fueled by a deeper purpose, our aspirations allow us to reflect on the positive impact we wish to have on the world, rather than simply focus on building our own status as is often the case when we are fueled by only ambitious pursuits.

Leadership Implications To Achieve Productivity Gains

Leaders who understand the distinction between ambition and aspiration can reflect on how they are motivating their employees to ensure high retention. If we focus on engaging the “minds” of employees by fueling their ambitions, we will not be able to truly catalyze their creativity and allow them to reach their full potential. What is more likely to maximize their motivation is when we can engage their “hearts” through a deeper connection around how their individual purpose can be realized through the organization’s purpose.

According to research, a company’s productivity could increase by five times if employees have a strong sense of meaning in their work, or a high “meaning quotient.” Further, in a global survey, Accenture found that “50% of consumers say that the pandemic caused them to rethink their personal purpose and re-evaluate what’s important to them in life.”

Companies that are engaged in tackling the big challenges facing our communities and this planet, through a strong purpose, are in a better position to drive greater engagement from their employees and their customers. Although the actual topics that are top of mind may vary by country or organization, leaders need to reflect on whether or not they are fuelling employee ambitions or aspirations. When we focus on aspirations and purpose, we can focus less on the “I” and more on the collective “we” and the positive influence we wish to have on this world.

The time to act is now. For companies that have been operating solely by their mission and vision statements, with limited effort to articulate their purpose, there could be no better time than now to do so to engage the hearts of their employees and their communities. As they do this, they will begin to create organizations with employees who are more engaged and motivated, while creating a better world for future generations.”

If you would like to view the original article, please visit: www.forbes.com

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Course Manuals 1-12

Course Manual 1: Share Your Winning Aspirations

“… there is no getting around the fact that the only measure of a great team – or a great organization – is whether it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish.”

Patrick Lencioni focuses explicitly on results as a crucial component of a productive team in his informative book The Advantage. Even though it may seem obvious, a surprising number of teams lack a defined strategic aim and set of goals to work towards in order to accomplish acquisitive development. How does this particular business evaluate employee performance? Additionally, if there is no way to quantify success, how can team members attain employee satisfaction?

We frequently witness employees adding unnecessary complexity to situations. A team is considered to be good if its goals are met. If not, even if every employee may have given their best effort, the team will not work well together.

In order to make a meaningful difference in your road towards acquisitive growth, how can you make sure that employees are not just working hard but also hard on the right things?

It’s all about communication.

Shared aspirations lead to better results

One characteristic distinguishes a cohesive, expanding firm from non-cohesive enterprises when it comes to how well it operates: its ambitions are shared by the entire staff.

However, while this may seem straightforward, there may be obstacles along the way.

Secondly, rather than considering the big picture, many leadership and management teams may have a tendency to be a little bit more focused on the outcomes of their own business unit or department.

Senior leaders may also be reluctant to communicate corporate aims and objectives to the entire company. After all, there may be a sense of failure or disgrace if we share these strategic ambitions but ultimately fail to realize them.

The outcomes are outstanding when an organization promotes communicating aims and objectives through efficient communication throughout the complete team (they’ve typically established an open and honest culture for doing so).

The following four advantages of shared organizational goals:

1. Employees understand their role in helping the company achieve its aspirations and can visualize how their hard work impacts the business’ overall acquisitive growth.

2. Employees understand the bigger picture and what is essential for the business, above and beyond their immediate area/department.

3. Employees feel important, included and engaged in the business aspiration, resulting in high performance.

4. Employee recognition can then become part of the organizational culture as full visibility of performance towards these aspirations is established.

With these advantages in mind, the issue of how to successfully convey your company’s objectives for inorganic growth to all teams and employees arises. Employees then need to map out the steps they could take to have a positive influence after these ambitions have been conveyed.

To do this, many businesses share spreadsheets and word documents that they continually update. Yet, there are a number of technologies available that can assist you in automating the procedure and integrating goal-setting and success into your company’s culture, ultimately leading to high performance and ground-breaking outcomes.

Employee engagement can be more difficult to achieve than it once was in the age of remote working. In order to get everyone working together and on the same page, it is crucial now more than ever to properly communicate the overarching corporate goals.

One team, one dream

It’s essential to have a cohesive team with a single goal that everyone is connected to, regardless of the technique you use to communicate business ambitions and concentrate your team’s resources on distinct results. That is the secret to getting things done and achieving greater success in your road towards acquisitive growth.

High performance demands tremendous drive and tenacity. A defined aspiration gives one direction and attention, which will help one succeed.

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Setting your winning aspirations

What Is Your Company’s Ideal Future?

Determine your concept of success and the objectives you have for your firm before you can respond to the first question. What is your “winning aspiration,” or the ideal future for your business, as Lafley and Martin put it?

Your response should include your company’s mission statement, but it’s not just a mission statement. Also, it describes what “winning” or success” for your business would mean.

The Three Perspectives of Business

Three essential components must be addressed by a successful corporate strategy:

● The customer: Who is buying your product?
● The investor: Who is covering your costs?
● The producer: Who is making your product?

Many business strategies fail because they solely take into account the viewpoint of the producer, the business that is producing the good or offering the service. Such constrained business plans frequently wax lyrical about ground-breaking inventions and revolutionary concepts but fail to take into account the fact that they will require investors and, more crucially, customers for their products.

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Indicators of a well-crafted winning aspiration

To achieve acquisitive growth, a winning aspiration:

• Is ennobling: A good aspiration connects to a deeper understanding of what the firm exists to do by purchasing or merging with another company. It is motivating, meaningful, and compelling to your staff and to your customers. Finding the ideal phrase or the majority opinion is not important.

• Precludes the organization from certain things: Aspiration is a commitment, thus it must be clear what the organization will and will not do as well as who it will and will not not be. In Jim Collin’s book Good to Great, they discovered that good-to-great businesses equally focused on what not to do and what to cease doing in order to become outstanding. Without making this crucial trade-off, businesses run the risk of becoming generalists who can do everything and know nothing about anything well.

• Sets the organization apart and makes it distinct: A business should be able to articulate itself and explain why it matters or what sets it apart from competitors in the field. It is not a good idea to have an aspiration that can be used to describe any other company operating in that sector; instead, you should change it to something more organization-specific.

• Sets the stage for value creation and value capture: Whatever the goal of a company may be (in this case, acquisitive growth), it must have meaning for people in a way that benefits the business.

Making (difficult) decisions is the essence of a successful strategy, and it all begins with a winning mindset and a clear vision of what success looks like. A company is unlikely to commit enough resources to build a durable advantage unless winning is the ultimate goal.

Obviously, it’s not always clear if a business has a legitimate goal or whether it actually contributes to the field in which it operates. Financial success at any given time is a sign, but it can be temporary. In light of this, the following questions might assist determine whether your organization’s winning aspiration is distinctive, impressive, and focused on the needs of its customers.

Diagnostic Questions

1. Does my company’s winning aspiration take into account who its clients and consumers are? Does it prioritize the needs of the client over those of the product or service?
2. Do certain actions clearly conflict with the organization’s aspirations?
3. Does the objective motivate both internal and external stakeholders?
4. Are our goals clear and distinct in terms of how we create value?
5. How different would the world be without our business?

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How To Effectively Communicate Your Strategic Aspirations To Employees

You’ve created your goals and determined the essential components of your dreams for strategic acquisition and expansion. But can you effectively convey it to the necessary organizational departments?

One issue that many businesses frequently overlook while adopting a strategic acquisitive expansion strategy is the fact that no matter how lofty your strategic goals, they won’t matter if your employees aren’t aware of or unable to align with your plan. So, the effectiveness of your internal communication strategy will make or break your efforts.

Given how crucial communication is to the success of strategic acquisitive expansion, you could find it useful to create a communication plan to make sure information is successfully shared at all relevant levels. Next, we’ll go over the objectives and key components of a solid strategic communication strategy and talk about how to get over some of the major obstacles that will likely stand in your way as you try to get everyone on the same page.

The Best Ways to Communicate Your Organization’s winning aspirations

The winning aim of the organization needs to be communicated by leaders in a variety of methods, and they must maintain the message. It contributes to the importance of communication for leaders.

But how do you spread the winning aspiration of your company? Try the following advice:

1. Tell a story.

By telling a compelling tale, you may bring a goal to life. A successful storyteller builds rapport, captivates audiences, and serves as a constant reminder of the goal. Plus, people find it easier to repeat a story than to talk about an aspiration.

2. Perfect your “elevator speech.”

With the time you have on a regular elevator journey, what compelling aspiration can you describe? Every leader must be able to express the aspiration succinctly and clearly. Be ready to discuss it while waiting in line at the cafeteria, in the customer service office, and even when crossing a parking lot.

3. Use multiple forms of media.

The greater the number of channels of communication you employ, the more likely it is that your corporation will comprehend the aspiration. To spread your word swiftly and efficiently, use the most recent communication technologies.

4. Have one-on-one conversations.

Activate others. Through personal relationships, leaders may share knowledge, get criticism, gather support, and energize the community around their ambition. Think carefully about the methods you employ, and experiment with various persuasion techniques to see which ones will work best.

5. Draw a crowd internally.

Within your organization, identify the essential individuals, communicators, stakeholders, and supporters who will inspire others to share the aspiration.

6. Make memories.

Find inventive methods to use metaphors, figures of speech, and slogans you create. Make up a catchy motto, for instance.

7. Guide the expedition.

Keep everyone informed of your progress towards your winning goal by using visual aids and updates. Instead of just providing maps, create an aspirational GPS. As you move forward, maintain your lead position, give directions, and identify signposts.

8. Back up what you’re talking about.

Your actions should support what you are saying. Your credibility is destroyed, and your winning aspirations are put to rest, if people perceive one thing while hearing another.

Each department leader has a responsibility to comprehend the vision and convey it in a manner that is appropriate for them and their team. Be able to respond to the following questions:

● What exactly is the company’s winning aspiration?
● How do I connect to my organization’s aspiration, and what’s my role in achieving it?
● How do I show my passion and enthusiasm for the aspiration and the organization?
● Are there any obstacles in my way to prevent me from communicating this aspiration? If so, how can I surmount those obstacles?

Be thrilled and happy to share the winning aspirations of your business. By doing this, you’re demonstrating to your coworkers what a bright future you and your company have on this path of acquisitive expansion.

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Companies hitting home runs with their internal communications

Deutsche Post DHL

Additionally, Mayyada Ansari, Senior Manager of Global Internal Communications at the global logistics company Deutsche Post DHL Group, was interviewed by Haiilo. She emphasized the advantages of using specialized apps to foster connections between individuals working in various divisions of the company.

Ansari asserted that specialized apps can effectively close the communication gap between management and front-line employees. If there are these divisions among your workforce, it could lead to a variety of issues, such as miscommunications regarding workloads and responsibilities and a lack of engagement among team members and lower-level staff.

Giving employees a voice within the firm and demonstrating the company’s interest in their opinions is done by providing an app that enables them to communicate with supervisors. By acting on employee feedback, it also enables people in higher-level positions to perform their duties more effectively.

In the present era of remote and flexible working, using these technologies to enhance communication could prove more vital than ever.

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Exercise 2.1: Blind Drawing

As made clear in this course manual, communication is key. Communicating in a clear and sincere way is the key to getting employees on board with your ideas and plans. Complete the exercise below:

Divide group into pairs, assigning one person in the pair the role of speaker and the other the role of listener. Without letting the listener see, give the speaker a picture of geometric shapes. The listener will need a pencil and sheet of paper.

Next, the speaker needs to describe the picture to the listener, who is not allowed to speak. Once the listener has finished drawing, compare the attempt to the original picture.

This activity shows what happens when communication breaks down. In particular, it shows the importance of two-way communication. It demonstrates that, in addition to transmitting and interpreting a message, communication is about creating strategies to understand one another.

Use the exercise as a starting point to discuss how leaders can use better communication skills when sharing new plans and ideas. Consider how someone may misinterpret unclear instructions — including how the activity would have had different results if the listener was able to ask questions.

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Course Manual 2: Review your Strategy

Strategy review process

A strategic review is a methodical procedure to find fresh business prospects that can provide value. An existing division’s performance might be improved, or a new market adjacency opportunity might be exploited. As part of their plan, a lot of businesses do annual strategic reviews. Your strategic assessment will identify potential new business areas where acquisition-led growth may be advantageous and speed up the expansion of your company.

As part of their strategic planning process, many businesses conduct annual strategic reviews. When faced with a particular opportunity or difficulty, other businesses will take them on a more ad hoc basis.

The necessity for a strategic assessment of the company will arise from a desire for acquisitive growth in order to identify the main opportunities and obstacles within the current portfolio.

A strategic review should be a precise, fact-based appraisal of the company opportunity or problem, regardless of where it came from. It offers a chance to stand back from daily activities and evaluate the strategic pillars upon which a firm is founded.

An objective collection of strategic suggestions and a company roadmap for the future that plots its course and enables improved and sustained performance both now and in the future should be the results of a strategic review.

Gains From A Strategy Review

A strategic review can help a corporation significantly when done effectively. The process itself can improve alignment between staff, senior management teams, and other key stakeholders, in addition to the direct financial benefits of performance improvement and focusing on new acquisitive growth opportunities. This can help to foster a high-performance culture and clarity on the future course of the company.

Scoping A Strategic Review

A strategic review’s scope should be customized to the particular opportunity or problem being looked into, in this example, chances for accretive growth.

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Delivering A Successful Strategic Review

Start With The Answer

Strategic reviews are frequently carried out under intense pressure to reach a conclusion quickly. Every day must be significant. Spending time on research or analysis that isn’t used in the end is not something you can afford.

Thus, the top strategy firms use a hypothesis-led approach to formulate strategies (such as the Decision Tree or Answer First techniques from McKinsey and Bain).

You have to have finished preliminary interviews with the necessary stakeholders by the end of day two of the project and be well-versed on the data already accessible. It is a good moment to sketch out the possible response and the logical framework that will support the remaining actions.

A good framework will be coherent, cover all pertinent supporting evidence for the recommendation, and prevent redundant analysis (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive).

After defining the logic structure, you can next determine where there are gaps in your understanding and, consequently, where more research is required to test an assertion or component of the proposal.

This then serves as the foundation for a targeted work plan for the remaining project.

Be 80/20

It is crucial to be 80/20 when conducting the new analysis when working under a severe time restriction.

Whether evaluating a market adjacency opportunity or a new acquisition of your current business, for instance, client feedback can be crucial. Four weeks is not enough time to complete a significant primary research program.

Yet, a brief, targeted online survey or many phone interviews with important consumers can still accomplish a lot in a short amount of time and help to implement the recommendations. When it comes to financial modeling, having an 80/20 approach is very crucial. In a strategy, financial models are frequently used to show the additional financial impact of a suggested course of action over a base scenario.

In contrast to the thorough budgeting and other financial assessments that are generally carried out within a business, strategic financial modeling calls for a distinct methodology.

The model should be reduced to its bare essentials in order to evaluate and contrast various strategic scenarios with the underlying base case. At this level of study, a thorough examination of working capital or tax obligations is rarely required.

Dedicate resources to the project specifically for the review.

It’s possible that the corporation has dedicated some or all of these roles to the review. Depending on the size and complexity of the review, the core team structure includes a project lead, who is often a full-time employee, as well as perhaps one or more supporting analysts or modelers. To oversee the review, a project sponsor is required.

The project sponsor ought to be a senior management team member who can offer direction and oversight throughout the project and remove any internal obstacles to the analysis. It is advantageous to designate an internal resource who is knowledgeable about the operational and financial data of the organization if the analyst or modeler is an external resource.

Additionally, advisors with knowledge in the appropriate field can contribute considerable value based on their experience in cases when the assessment concerns a new market or product potential.

Spend enough time creating a quality report.

Do not undervalue the time needed to condense intricate strategic analyses into a report with a logical organization and clear presentation. So, it is wise to begin planning well before the last week.

By the end of the first week, try to build the report’s initial draught outline. Early consideration of the final product also aids in maintaining an 80/20 focus on the essential analyses across the project team.

Build in time to think about the implementation

Without a specific call to action and game plan, a strategic review is a waste of time. It must outline how those recommendations would be carried out in addition to presenting clear, logical recommendations.

It won’t be possible to lay out a comprehensive implementation plan in just four weeks. However, a high-level overview of the implementation roadmap that outlines the major tasks to be accomplished and anticipated completion dates aids in bringing the strategy to life and can serve as the foundation for a more in-depth program plan.

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How To Revise A Strategic Plan: 4 Steps

The following four phases will help you recognize and approach strategic changes in your business in a fruitful manner so that everyone is working towards the same objective.

To guarantee that everyone in your organization is working towards the same goal, we’ve established four actions in this section of the course manual that will assist you in identifying and approaching strategic changes in a fruitful manner.

Step 1: Review The “Big Picture”

Take a step back and examine each component of your strategic plan as the first stage in the strategy review process. Is our big-picture strategy still relevant? is a question we always advise asking. This is crucial, yet, to be honest, it’s frequently ignored. The parts of your strategic plan, such as your purpose, vision, and values, all the way down to your objectives, metrics, and initiatives, will be significantly impacted if the situation in which your business finds itself has altered over the past year (or over the course of several years).

So that you can determine whether there has been a disruption, we advise you to take the time to examine your strategic landscape (as it pertains to technology, politics, the environment, etc.). For instance, you can discover that a brand-new competitor has joined your market and is altering the pricing strategy for the entire market.

Step 2: Review Details Of The Plan Itself

Your goals, metrics, and actions are included in the specifics of your strategic plan. This is how to evaluate each:

Your organization’s high-level goals are called objectives. You must inquire during the strategy review process, “Are our objectives still relevant? Do they align with our purpose, vision, and core principles? You should base your response on facts rather than intuition.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics are other names for measures. You need to create a realistic aim for each of the measurements that are connected to each of your objectives. We advise hosting a strategy retreat or half-day meeting to address any modifications that need to be made to your measures with your department heads or other leaders in a leadership role.

Initiatives are long-term or big-picture projects that your business is monitoring for strategic success; they are not one-time activities. During your strategy review process, you’re more likely to adjust existing measures or initiatives than you are to move, eliminate, or add new ones. So, before making these choices, make sure to talk about the budget, the start and end dates, and the ties to your metrics and objectives.

Step 3: Improve Your Reports

Reports are essential for expressing progress on your overall strategic plan for acquisitive growth. The strategy you’ve worked so hard to develop can end up being useless if you just ignore your reports during the process of reviewing your approach. As a result, you should inquire as follows:

● Do we convene at the proper frequency? You should make sure that every meeting you hold is beneficial. Monthly meetings and quarterly meetings have different goals.

● Are our reports properly formatted? Do your reports provide the details that are necessary for everyone to view in order to comprehend your performance, in other words? Remember that each report will highlight different data. For example, a measure report may include the owner, tracking frequency, and status of the series, whereas an initiative report may include the start and end dates, the budget, and milestones.

Step 4: Communicate Changes To Your Organization

It’s crucial to think about how you’ll inform everyone in your business about updates to or modifications to your plan as you review your strategy. Otherwise, it would be far more difficult for you to achieve strategic success because you won’t be able to garner support from the entire organization.

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A company with great internal communications: Experian – TED Approach

Nobody ever really communicated the objectives that Experian’s internal communications team hoped to achieve, therefore they never really came together. Experian brought together representatives from several markets to share their values and culture with their staff of over 17,000 in order to motivate employees and emphasize internal communication.

Experian LIVE, a TED-style event that brought together company leaders and everyone else, was born as a result of this. The introduction of Experian TV came next.

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Exercise 2.2: Create an advertisement

In this course manual, we discussed how creativity and a different way of thinking is important when you need to think of new, strategic acquisitive growth ideas. Complete the exercise below:

Divide the participants into groups of 3 or four. Each group is given some unusual product for which they must create an advertisement. Time for preparation is about five minutes. Then they come together to design a script and decide their roles. It creates a lot of fun and fosters creativity.

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Course Manual 3: Identify your Growth & Contingencies

Identifying Growth Opportunities In Your Business

As you are already aware, achieving successful acquisitive expansion necessitates having a broad skill set and being eager to make advancements in a number of crucial strategic sectors. They consist of:

● Production: How can you produce your goods or provide your services in a more expedient and economical manner? Will a merger or acquisition increase your business’s productivity?

● Finance: Is your spending plan optimized? Is there any waste you can cut out?

● Marketing: Do you have a defined procedure for getting the message out to the general public?

● Exporting: How do you get your products into the hands of customers worldwide when you export? Is this procedure effective, or will it become more effective through acquisition?

● HR: If your business expands, can you hire more people and train them rapidly, or is it more efficient to develop your workforce through acquisitions?

Your business starts off with only you and your good or service. That grows significantly bigger than that as you gain inorganic growth. Development is the process of controlling that change.

Adding real value for your customers

You must concentrate on giving your clients value if you want to keep your business growing. They’ll keep returning if you keep giving them things that improve their lives and make their days better.

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Case Study: How eBay focused their growth in the wrong area

eBay, a major online retailer, paid $2.6 billion for Skype in 2005 with the hope that its video communication features would improve interactions between buyers and sellers. However, the effects were not as anticipated because clients continued to plan and conduct daily transactions via email.

Understanding WHERE to concentrate your growth is crucial. Inaccurately anticipating where to focus growth can be disastrous for a company, as eBay regrettably discovered.

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Examples of Contingencies

A protection (financial or otherwise) that protects a commercial or non-commercial entity in the case of an unplanned or unknown occurrence is how contingency is frequently defined in business and project management. As a result, the cost incurred when that unanticipated circumstance actually materializes is now an occurrence of chance.

Regardless of the type or extent of the contingency, planning for it becomes essential. To gauge the form and extent of potential eventualities, a future-focused analysis is needed. The study should include any potential fixes or safeguards that may be put in place beforehand to stop or lessen the effects of the scenario.

The analysis is known as a contingency plan in an organization. Its only objective is to offer a safety net or insurance so that an organization may survive any potential bad impacts with the least amount of harm (or expense). Business continuity plans are another name for contingency plans in the workplace.

How It Works

Preparation is essential for unexpected events, particularly in business. Normally, contingency planning entails a corporation allocating cash or capital reserves to deal with unforeseen circumstances. It all comes down to being able to withstand financial shocks like a sustained period of weak sales and higher costs by having access to liquidity to counter sudden occurrences of unexpected events. There are three popular ways to prepare for contingencies:

1. Credit lines

In order to ensure that credit will be easily accessible in times of need, i.e. when negative events occur, tactical contingency planning will involve putting up lines of credit while the business is still thriving.

2. Insurance

A business or organization may also get insurance to protect itself from the occurrence of such unforeseen events. Losses incurred both during and after the occurrence of a bad event are covered by an insurance policy.

3. Capital raising and revenue retention

Notwithstanding the fact that the aforementioned approach is typically used by banks, other companies and organizations can also develop capital reserves through income retention and capital raising. Balance sheets will be strengthened to better withstand the damaging effects of contingencies. Because their risk-weighted assets determine the minimum capital requirements, banks often adopt these levels.

Contingency Planning vs. Crisis Management

The fact that contingency planning is more of a strategy for if and when anything might happen than crisis management means that it differs from the latter. When problems do develop, a contingency plan might assist you in handling them.

Contingency Planning vs. Risk Management

Identification, mitigation, and assessment of potential risks that can impact your business during acquisition-led expansion is known as risk management. This technique aids in determining whether particular risks are worthwhile taking and helps an organization stop losses before they happen. Risk management can include contingency planning since that procedure aids in an organization’s ability to withstand potential dangers.

It’s essential to comprehend how to develop a contingency plan if you want to make sure that your company is ready for anything.

Business Continuity Plan vs. Contingency Plan

Business continuity and contingency planning are two distinct ideas, despite the fact that their titles only differ by a few letters. Continuity refers to your company’s capacity to carry on operating after a disruption-causing incident. A contingency plan is an action plan that would be implemented in the event of an incident.

Plans for contingencies can have a big impact on whether your company can maintain continuity. Your company’s ability to respond and take action amid a crisis may determine whether it can survive and resume regular operations.

Your continuity plans are divided into five categories: program administration, governance, business effect analysis, strategies and requirements, and training and testing. The strategies and requirements section, which specifies how your organization will react to a crisis if it arises throughout your journey towards acquisitive expansion, may include contingency plans if your company uses them.

It’s essential to comprehend how to develop a contingency plan if you want to make sure that your company is ready for anything.

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Contingency planning: 4 steps to prepare for the unexpected

You hope that most days at work are routine. There are, regrettably, certain days when nothing seems to go right. These problems can occasionally be expected when managing a company. Also, they may cause serious disruptions to your work.

You must have a backup plan in place because your clients and consumers are depending on you to deliver as promised. There is no way to stop all accidents from happening, but with some careful planning, you can lessen their effects.

Companies and individuals can create a contingency plan rather than waiting for the worst-case situation to occur. This makes it feasible to maintain regular corporate operations as smoothly as possible.

In this post, you will discover what a business contingency plan is, why you need one, and how to get started.

What is contingency planning?

Risk management for a firm includes contingency planning. It’s how businesses anticipate potential business disruptions.

A plan of action put in place to help people, teams, and organizations minimize interruption is known as contingency planning. This is what we commonly refer to as “plan B.” Plans for contingencies are more about proactively improving problem-solving abilities than they are about how to mitigate adverse circumstances.

Although managers and organizations have typically focused on contingency planning, there are significant advantages for individuals as well.

Why is contingency planning important?

It’s best to adopt a broad perspective in order to comprehend contingency planning. Indeed, everyone gets a bit more sleep at night when businesses have a crisis management plan in place. It’s comforting to know that you’ll be prepared for the unexpected.

But, change is the only true constant in life and business. Change is not something to be solved for, as Tina Gupta, VP of Talent and Employee Experience at WarnerMedia, puts it. People run away from change and uncertainty because they are afraid of them, viewing any turbulence as a warning of an approaching collision.

You may overcome your fear of uncertainty once you adopt a future-focused viewpoint. Planning for emergencies turns become a proactive approach as opposed to a defensive one. It’s a practice of finding ways to succeed rather than just get by. We’ll refer to this kind of leader as future-focused. They develop an adaptable attitude as opposed to hiding from prospective hazards or acting as though everything is OK. These individuals mix optimism, practicality, and the capacity for looking ahead (or, what positive psychologists call prospection).

Conducting a risk assessment

To develop a contingency plan, you must first determine the risks that could affect your company. With the assistance of your team, this can be accomplished the finest. Organize a brainstorming session where you can discuss current events, prospective projects, and potential obstacles.

This kind of risk analysis won’t be able to save you from getting taken by surprise. Instead, consider this assessment as surfacing the things you can prepare for and unleashing everyone’s imagination to the range of potential obstacles and outcomes. Tomorrow will hold unexpected events, many of which have never happened before in your organization (month-long pandemic shutdowns anyone?). This will establish the stage for alertness, adaptability of thought, and a focus on finding solutions.

Don’t make the error of inviting only management to the meeting. Your entry-level staff members and individual contributors will be quite knowledgeable about what might occur and how to address it.

Strategic planning is usually an annual event in businesses, but you should check your backup plan more frequently. Planning for any new venture should ideally include a routine process for assessing risk.

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4 steps to develop a contingency plan

The following 4 steps will help you create a contingency plan for your team:

1. Identify the triggers

What dangers exist? Knowing the possibilities you’re planning for is the first step in contingency planning. Even if it’s hard to foresee everything, you probably know at least one (if not ten) worst-case scenarios that could go wrong and disrupt operations.

Sort these possibilities according to likelihood. Put these scenarios in order of likelihood. The most probable and important ones will form the backbone of your contingency plan.

2. Examine the situation

What method of action would be most likely in your fictitious scenario? Note that, but be sure to consider whether that is the best course of action. Discuss your new strategy with your superiors if it differs dramatically from what you’ve done in the past.

Participate in this stage of the process with your team. Planning ahead allows you to have time to come up with possible solutions, which is one of its advantages. Ask them what they did to fix the issue and what they wish they had done differently if the disruption has happened previously.

3. Determine who needs to know

Once you’ve developed a workable plan, identify the participants. Decide who has to be informed the moment plans change and who will be in charge of implementing plan B. Make sure everyone is aware if they need to approve purchases, grant access to resources, or perform any other support functions for the strategy.

Sample Process

Every project for acquisitive growth is approached in the way that will be most beneficial for your company. Here is an illustration of how consultants could approach a project with contingency planning.

Source: www.escus.org

Benefits

● Benefit of a fresh viewpoint
● Unbiased party facilitating negotiations
● Support for leadership
● Improved risk management

Potential Deliverables

● Emergency strategy
● Investigation of partnerships
● Projections & forecasts for the economy
● Plan for a merger or acquisition

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Brief Insight: The Increased Scrutiny of M&A Triggers Contingency Planning

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) are taking a stronger interest in preventing transactions that limit competition and ensuring that existing rules are adequately implemented. Prior to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act, which mandates the reporting of major transactions for antitrust investigation, acquisitions of small businesses went unnoticed.

But, a pattern of “killer acquisitions”—acquisitions made to destroy rivals before they represent a serious threat—has recently caused several analysts to express alarm. The FTC replied by issuing a thorough report, indicating a greater desire to rein in anti-competitive behavior.

Congress is considering increasing the monitoring of merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in an effort to halt or prevent the acquisition of start-ups by major tech firms. Many start-up owners have acquisition plans that incorporate industry incumbents; nevertheless, they may need other alternatives in the event that the purchase path proves more difficult than anticipated.

To ensure that their leaders are not taken by surprise by these shifts, general counsel is essential. For insights into what may go wrong and scenario preparation, many depend on Practical Law’s “How Antitrust Agencies Evaluate M&A.”

Later in the acquisitive growth program, we will go into greater detail on this subject.

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Exercise 2.3: Survival Leadership Activities

Divide the participants into two teams and present them with a survival situation: a plane crash, a shipwreck, lost in the desert. Then present them with a list of items that might be useful in that situation.

Challenge the groups to choose five items that will help them survive. After the teams finish picking their items, ask them to justify their selections and how they would use those things to overcome their given circumstance.

This leadership activity stimulates critical, creative, and strategic thinking as well as problem-solving skills that can be useful in your business.

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Course Manual 4: Know your Marketplace

Being aware of your market and industry is essential to running a successful business. Analyzing your audience or client base, the competition, and the potential for acquisitional development is necessary.

Understand your audience

Knowing your clients is one of the most crucial initial stages to understanding the market. You may begin by classifying your target market segments, who are either present or potential clients, into several groups based on characteristics they share.

The traits might be determined by demographics, like age or marital status, or by behavior, such whether they prefer to purchase in-person or online. By doing this, you may improve your understanding of your clients, which is crucial for expanding your company.

Your chances of increasing sales can be increased by locating and focusing on your target market segments to help you develop and roll out successful promotions. You might, for instance, target one type of advertisement at married couples with high incomes and another at married couples with low incomes.

This is another crucial factor to take into account while creating your strategic plan. When you do the assignment, keep in mind:

1. Define your audience. Even if you may be aware of the high caliber of the goods or services you provide, it’s crucial to ensure that the target market will find value in the item as well. Will they be interested in my items or services, you should consider. How much money do they have to spend on my product?

2. Target multiple audiences to help grow your business. By responding to their particular interests and requirements, you may customize your promotions, messaging, and sales efforts to each target audience. Describe how the product will satisfy their demands and enhance or improve their lives.

3. Know where you stand compared to the competition. Learn about other retailers or businesses that sell a comparable product to yours. Test out their goods, examine the packaging, go to their website, and, if they have one, look up their purpose and vision statements. What distinguishes their offerings and marketing strategy from yours? Whose product, if you were a consumer, would you choose, and why? Your product and communications can be improved by taking these factors into account.

The next stage is to choose how much time and money you can dedicate to promoting your good or service after you have determined who your target market is and what your competitors have to offer. You might wish to concentrate on printed coupons, paid marketing, or less expensive options depending on your budget and target market.

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The 7 Market Analysis Steps in Order

Although performing a marketing study is not a difficult process, it does require extensive research, so be ready to invest a lot of time in the process.

1. Decide on your goal.

You can be undertaking a market analysis for a variety of reasons, including to assess your competitors or comprehend a new industry. Whatever your motivation, it’s critical to establish it as soon as possible to maintain focus throughout the process. Decide first whether your goal is internal, such as boosting cash flow or business operations, or external, such as looking for an acquisition or merger. Your research’s scope and depth will be determined by your goal.

2. Investigate the market situation.

Create a thorough map of how your industry is doing right now. Explain the direction that the industry appears to be taking, supporting your conclusions with a wealth of facts and indicators including size, trends, and predicted growth. To determine your competitive advantage in your particular market, you can also perform a comparative market analysis.

3. Determine who your ideal client is.

It would be a waste of effort to try to interest everyone in your product because not everyone will be a buyer. Instead, determine who is most likely to want your product using a target market study, and concentrate your efforts there. You should be aware of the size of your market, your target audience, their origins, and any factors that can affect their purchasing behavior. To accomplish so, consider the following demographic elements:

● Age
● Gender
● Location
● Occupation
● Education
● Needs
● Interests

To use as a guide for your marketing efforts, you can think about developing a customer profile or persona throughout your study that represents your ideal client.

4. Recognize the competition.

You must have a thorough awareness of your rivals in order to succeed, including their market saturation, how they differ from you, and their benefits and disadvantages in the marketplace. Make a list of all of your primary rivals first, then go over that list and perform a SWOT analysis on each one. What distinguishes that company from you? Why would a customer pick that company over yours? Consider yourself the customer.

Next, order your list of competitors by threat level, and establish a schedule for performing ongoing SWOT analysis of your most dangerous rivals.

5. gather more information.

You can never have too much data while conducting marketing analysis, therefore information is your friend. Think carefully about where you receive your numbers because it’s crucial that the information you utilize is reliable and accurate. Some reliable sources of business data are as follows:

● United States Department of Labor Statistics
● American Census Bureau
● Websites for state and local commerce
● Trade publications
● Personal SWOT evaluations
● Surveys of the market or questionnaires

6. Review your data.

After you collect all the information you can and verify that it is accurate, you need to analyze the data to make it useful to you. As you see fit, divide your research into areas that address your objective, target market, and competitors.

Your study should primarily comprise the following components:

● An overview of the size and growth rate of your industry
● The anticipated market share for your company in a percentage
● A market outlook
● Consumer purchasing patterns
● Your anticipated expansion
● How much your target market is willing to spend on your goods or services

7. Use the analysis you’ve done.

It’s time to put your market analysis to use after you’ve generated it. Search internally for opportunities to apply your study and conclusions to enhance your company. Have you observed practices being used by other firms that you would like to adopt for your own business? Are there any techniques to increase the efficacy of your marketing strategies?

If you did your analysis for external objectives, compile your findings and data into a paper that is simple to read and understand in order to share it with potential acquisition targets.

Save all of your data and research for use in your subsequent analysis, and think about setting an annual calendar reminder to keep track of your market while you pursue acquisitive expansion.

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Companies Who Know Their Market: The LEGO Group

To encourage inclusivity for all kids to play with its toys, LEGO uses market research.

Over the years, LEGO has mostly produced toys for boys. LEGO didn’t want to confine itself to merely serving one gender, either. It wished for all kids to take part in enjoying its offerings.

To better understand the children’s playing behaviors, LEGO performed a research with 3,500 girls and their mothers in just four years. It was a wonderful method for estimating the extent of an opportunity when entering a new market.

LEGO created the “Friends” toy line as a consequence of the market research study to entice girls to play with LEGO toys.

LEGO chose the vivid colors of the packaging and the dimensions of the figurines based on data from market research.

The Main Point: Market research is applicable to all sectors of society, including the toy industry. LEGO used it to diversify their merchandise and appeal to a female audience.

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What is a value proposition?

A value proposition is a claim about how your good or service meets the demands of your clients. The value proposition outlines the distinctiveness of what you provide, as well as the benefits of choosing you over other businesses.

Think about the ways that your company differs from others in its industry. Understanding this could aid in defining your value offer. Good customer service, ease of use, promptness, cost, special products, and things that are “exclusives” to your business are a few examples.

Value claims are subject to evolution. Consider how you can change your products or services to retain and attract customers as you continually assess the demands and preferences of your customers as well as wider developments that may have an impact on your industry. Maybe you could experiment with a different marketing strategy, create a brand-new product, or reduce your operating expenses and provide the savings to your clients.

Using your value proposition

Your company’s value proposition can be used as a phrase or concept in your marketing once you’ve determined what it is.

You may design a sign to display in front of your business that emphasizes the value offer and invites customers inside. The value proposition could also be illustrated in visuals or a brief movie on your website, if you have one.

If you want to spend money on an advertising campaign, knowing your value proposition might also be crucial. You’ve already determined how you assist in others’ problem-solving, and you can utilize this knowledge to make advertising and select the best locations for them.

What disadvantages come with conducting a marketing analysis?

The disadvantages of conducting a market analysis are listed below, however they are more about the resources needed than the approach itself.

● Market analysis can be expensive. You could wish to outsource your market study if you’re not as comfortable with marketing terms like market volume and customer segmentation. While doing so can improve the quality of your analysis, it can also severely cut into your financial resources. To cut costs, focus your market studies on a particular group, say your present clients.

● Market analysis can be time-consuming. The time spent on things that are more directly relevant to business can be wasted on market studies. To free up your daily schedule, you can focus on one subject at a time, such as buying trends or competitors.

● Market analysis can require extra staff. You can imitate several larger organisations who employ internal market analysis personnel. But doing so entails all the normal expenses associated with hiring a new worker. Thus the question is: Do you do your own market study, outsource it, or engage internal staff? The more expensive solutions frequently provide more insightful results.

● Market analysis can be narrow. Actual client feedback, which analysts frequently obtain through customer surveys, is used in the most successful market assessments. These polls might only reach a small fraction of your whole client base, which would produce an unreliable sample size. As a result, your customers and what you need to know about them may not be completely detailed in your market analysis.

Market analysis vs. conjoint analysis vs. sentiment analysis

Conjoint analysis focuses on how clients value what you offer, as opposed to market analysis, which is extensive and general. Surveys are frequently the foundation of conjoint analysis since they allow customers to express what motivates their purchases. Conjoint analysis is frequently used in the testing of products. This approach can provide information about pricing, features, and configurations of products.

Sentiment analysis goes beyond market and conjoint analysis that is based on numerical data to determine how customers qualitatively feel about your products. It might help you learn what aspects of your products or purchasing procedure people like and dislike. You can also explore more intense emotions like rage, urgency, and intention, or you might look for evocative responses. Contrary to conjoint analysis, which is essentially a part of market analysis, it is a fantastic tool to employ in conjunction with market analysis.

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Companies Who Know Their Market: Starbucks Coffee Company

The biggest and most popular chain of coffee shops in the world is called Starbucks. Nonetheless, it is well known how they came to be the world’s top coffee company (no offence to Dunkin’).

Starbucks’ value for market research helped it grow into the world’s largest coffee shop chain.

Starbucks’s market research approach includes:

● Monitoring societal trends
● Keeping an eye on social media
● Obtaining client feedback
● Testing products in-store

Via its My Starbucks Idea platform, Starbucks has been collecting user feedback for the past 14 years in order to conduct market research.

Customers, potential customers, and staff can basically submit whatever innovative ideas they have by visiting the website and using this platform.

These suggestions can be anything from brand-new products to little adjustments to an existing product. Starbucks takes into account all client feedback when developing its business and marketing plans.

The Crucial Lesson: Starbucks is one of the most well-known companies whose brands rely on market research. To get the most recent client data, they have a convenient customer feedback platform.

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Exercise 2.4: Classroom Trivia

Compile a list of questions related to the participant’s surroundings, like “without looking, how many desks are in the classroom?”, “how many people are in your HR department?”, “What brand are the computers used in your organization?”, or “how many floors are there in your office building?” and test participant’s knowledge.

This exercise tests how observant participants are.

Ask participants to share with the group why they think it is important to be observant of your surroundings. Why it is important to be observant of your current market situation? What could happen if you don’t carry out an in depth market analysis?

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Course Manual 5: Define your Competitive Advantage

What Is a Competitive Advantage?

A company’s ability to produce goods or services faster, more efficiently, or for less money than its competitors is known as a competitive edge. These elements enable the producing unit to outperform its competitors in terms of sales or margins. Cost structure, branding, the standard of the product offers, the distribution system, intellectual property, and customer service are just a few examples of the variables that are thought to contribute to competitive advantages.

Understanding Competitive Advantage

Due to particular advantages or circumstances, a company and its stockholders can benefit more from competitive advantages. The more resilient the competitive advantage, the more challenging it is for rivals to counter it. Comparative advantage and differentiated advantage are the two primary categories of competitive advantages.

Competitive Advantage vs. Comparative Advantage

A company has a comparative advantage if it can produce a good or service more quickly than its rivals, which increases profit margins. The less expensive of any two perfect alternatives supplied will be picked by logical consumers. For instance, a car owner might choose to fill up at a station that offers petrol at a 5 cent discount over the competition. Higher margins for the lowest-cost producers may eventually result in stronger returns for imperfect replacements, such as Pepsi versus Coke.

Geographic position, effective internal systems, and economies of scale can all contribute to competitive advantage. Yet, comparative advantage may not necessarily imply a superior good or service. It merely demonstrates that the business can provide a comparable good or service for less money.

A company that manufactures a product in China, for instance, might have lower labor costs than a company that manufactures in the United States, allowing it to sell the same product for less money. Comparative advantages are determined by opportunity cost in the context of international trade economics.

An organization focused on creating and preserving a comparative advantage is Amazon (AMZN). The e-commerce platform offers a degree of scale and efficiency that retail competitors find challenging to match, allowing it to become well-known primarily via price competition.

Competitive Advantage vs. Differential Advantage

A company has a competitive advantage when customers see its goods and services as superior to those of its rivals’. Differential advantage is fueled by better employees, patent-protected goods or processes, cutting-edge technology, and strong brand recognition. Wide margins and sizable market shares are supported by these variables.

Apple is renowned for developing cutting-edge products like the iPhone and sustaining its market dominance with astute marketing strategies to create an exclusive brand. Because branded pharmaceuticals are patented, major pharmaceutical corporations can sell them for premium prices.

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How Do I Know If a Company Has a Competitive Advantage?

A business would have a competitive edge over its rivals if it could grow its market share through improved productivity or efficiency.

How Can a Company Increase Its Competitive Advantage?

Something that competitors find difficult to duplicate or copy typically have long-lasting competitive advantages. Businesses can figuratively dig moats around themselves to enclose competitive advantages, which Warren Buffet refers to as economic moats. This can involve enhancing one’s brand, erecting hurdles for potential competitors (by way of rules, for example), and protecting intellectual property.

Why Do Larger Companies Often Have Competitive Advantages?

Economies of scale-related competitive advantages frequently refer to supply-side benefits, such the buying power of a sizable restaurant or retail chain. On the demand side, however, there are also benefits of scale; these are known as network effects. This occurs when a service gains in value for all of its consumers as more people use it. As a result, the industry frequently experiences a winner-take-all dynamic.

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Competitive Advantage in the real world: Prestige pricing (Apple)

One of the more often used expressions in the English language “you get what you pay for”. “Talk about ubiquitous,” is typically used when a cheap product falls short of expectations.

Naturally, the converse implication is that costlier goods are superior goods. And the reasoning behind prestige pricing is just this (a.k.a., image or premium pricing). When a business uses a prestige pricing strategy, they sell their goods for a purposefully higher price than their competitors’ in order to attribute quality. In other words, the intention is to boldly tell customers that with our product, they are getting the finest value possible.

Apple is a good illustration. Apple routinely takes home the lion’s share of smartphone revenues despite the fact that only a relatively small percentage of individuals (at most 13% at this time) own iPhones. Why? Since an iPhone costs several times more than, say, an LG Xpression, the revenue generated by the sale of the former far outweighs that of the latter.

To be clear, there must be some sort of distinguishing feature between your product and the competition for a prestige pricing strategy to work. It’s debatable if an iPhone performs better than one of the many less expensive alternatives, yet almost everyone can agree that Apple goods are classy and lovely. And that justifies the high price tag for people who can afford Apple products. (Exclusivity is also at work here.)

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Here are 7 ways to discover how to define your competitive advantage

1. Cost Leadership Strategy.

Businesses can distinguish themselves from the competition by providing competitive prices. This tactic has helped two companies—Walmart and Amazon—rise to the top. Although this is useful for businesses, individuals rarely find reduced prices to be a desired strategy.

2. Differentiation Strategy.

The most popular strategy for differentiating one business from another is probably branding. By using this strategy, brands like Nike or Rolex automatically acquire a status that sets them apart from all other pairs of shoes or timepieces. When employing this strategy, individual executives must look for a core competency or skill that sets them apart from the competition. Then they make use of this special talent or skill by boosting their visibility and the perception of its value to the business.

3. Innovative Strategy.

By using novel and distinctive methods, businesses may surpass their rivals. Insightec has developed a method for removing diseases like brain tumors without entering the body. By minimizing pain, risk, and arduous recovery times, they indubitably gain an advantage over conventional surgeries. As they find and propose creative solutions for the business, people might obtain a competitive edge. You’ll have that crucial advantage if your suggestions continually improve the business.

4. Operational Effectiveness Strategy.

Businesses may outperform their competition by utilizing innovative and unique ways. A technique for treating disorders like brain tumors without going inside the body has been developed by Insightec. They unquestionably outperform traditional surgeries by minimizing discomfort, risk, and difficult recovery durations. People may gain a competitive edge as they identify and offer original solutions for the company. That vital advantage will be yours if your proposals help the company grow.

5. Technology Based Competitive Strategy.

With Henry Ford’s introduction of the assembly line, which transformed the auto industry, businesses have looked for ways to gain a competitive edge by utilizing new technology or utilizing technology in novel ways. Computers and software continue to provide businesses an edge over their rivals—possibly momentarily. Employees who adopt new technology and grasp it almost always improve or redefine their competitive edge over those who reject it.

6. Adaptability Competitive Advantage.

Companies who can adapt have a clear edge when markets, economies, and other factors shift in a more unstable and uncertain environment. Usually, this involves upstart or popular businesses, but even Apple has managed to ride the waves of change. By being open to change, executives can add adaptability to their area of strength. They can cross-train and contribute fresher, more up-to-date abilities. Perhaps adaptation is first and foremost a mental state.

7. The Information Advantage.

Nearly every other tactic gains from solid knowledge. The abilities required to outperform your competitors are the definition of competitive advantage. The majority of those are gained through education and information. Successful businesses look for the newest tactics, technologies, and data.

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What Are the Different Types of Competitive Advantages?

Michael Porter identified four categories of competitive advantages in 1980. Which are:

1. The capacity to sell a product for less than your rivals does is known as cost leadership. This does not necessarily imply that you lower your prices.

2. Differentiation: Customers benefit when a product is sold that is distinct from that of rival companies.

3. Cost Focus: To cut costs, you concentrate on a certain customer profile. Aim your message at a particular group of people. Then, you can lower your advertising expenses and boost conversions.

4. Focusing on a certain customer profile will help you stand out from the competition. For instance, Growth Ramp is a product marketing company for businesses in their early stages. Since I don’t currently have any running advertisements, my expenses are essentially the same. But, by concentrating on certain clients, I can enhance the services I provide for them.

Whatever you do, avoid becoming bogged down in trying to use every competitive advantage. If you make too many attempts, it’s likely that you won’t accomplish anything.

Final Thoughts

It takes time and effort to develop a competitive advantage.

Founded in 1976, Apple. Yet, other historians assert that Apple didn’t reach its turning point until at least 1997. (source). Jobs, Wozniack, and other Apple personnel continued to develop competitive advantages throughout the course of those 21 years.

We advise that you follow these five stages to determine what should be your primary competitive advantage:

1. Speak with your clients. Learn from them how you differ from the competitors.

2. Verify the advantage over the competition. Conduct market research to see whether distinctions between your clients and the larger market exist.

3. Build a solid value proposition (or better yet, a USP). Once you’ve chosen your main selling point, convert it into a brief value proposition.

4. In order to achieve product-market fit, improve your product. To meet your value proposition, improve your product or product range.

5. Build your company around your USP. To increase the value of your USP, modernize every aspect of your company.

As time goes on, you’ll develop new competitive advantages to make it more difficult for rivals to steal your consumers.

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Competitive Advantage in the real world: (Walmart)

Being prominently displayed on Walmart’s shelves is advantageous if you are a provider of, say, kids soccer balls. Every day, millions of people go there to shop. Walmart, on the other hand, can purchase a remarkable quantity of soccer balls at once due to its annual revenue of more than half a trillion dollars.

Walmart is able to command incredibly low pricing from its suppliers due to its widespread presence and capacity to purchase massive amounts of items in bulk. Even though suppliers can charge other retailers more money per unit, those other retailers are unable to purchase as many units as Walmart and cannot provide the same amount of visibility that Walmart can. As a result, the colossus with its headquarters in Arkansas is able to purchase goods at low prices and then pass those savings on to customers, keeping its stores crowded all year long and sustaining the advantages of its unrivaled scale.

To put it another way, if you’re a smaller retailer trying to compete with Walmart, you either have to sell things at very high costs, which would drive some potential consumers to Walmart, or at relatively cheap prices, which would drive you out of business.

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Exercise 2.5: Human Knot

Have two groups of people stand in a circle shoulder to shoulder. They all reach their right hand into the circle and grab someone else’s hand (WHO’S NOT STANDING NEXT TO THEM)… Then do the same with the left hand-the left hand must grab someone different than the right hand. Then the exercise is to get untangled without letting go of one another’s hands. If you pit two teams against each other and see who can do it fastest, it quickly builds in some competition. You can have the groups do it twice. The first time around, have them do the exercise without speaking. Then let them do it using words. It’s a great example of communication, team building, and leaders emerge as well. You can also see who is more strategic in their thinking and who is more tactical.

As a group, discuss the different style of tactics which were used and what gave the winning team the competitive advantage.

This exercise will prove how different, strategic ways of thinking can give an organization an advantage over rivals.

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Course Manual 6: Establish your Strategic Priorities

How To Create Strategic Priorities

Establishing strategic priorities will assist a business in developing precise long-term M&A objectives for the organization’s future. A strategic plan can help set up a step-by-step roadmap of the activities to follow to turn these objectives into demonstrable acquisitive success by incorporating clear, actionable strategic priorities. We go through what strategic priorities are and how to include them in a strategic plan in this portion of the course manual.

What are strategic priorities?

Your company’s strategic priorities are the goals it intends to accomplish over a specific time frame. These are frequently the goals or ideals that the business, out of a longer list of duties, wants to accomplish first. Although organizations in the same industry may share some strategic priorities, these priorities are often unique to each firm and its objectives. A company’s strategic priorities may alter as its internal and external circumstances evolve.

A company’s core culture, along with its purpose and philosophy, should include strategic priorities in order to assist the business succeed in the future. The objectives themselves do not include these priorities, but they frequently do include a comprehensive set of targets and activities attached to them. Instead, businesses use this list into their strategic plans.

A Booz analysis found that having too many strategic priorities led to revenue growth that was below average. Companies with just one to three strategic priorities, however, were more likely to report having seen revenue growth that was above average.

Why should you set strategic priorities in a strategic acquisitive growth plan?

Establishing strategic priorities as part of a strategic plan for acquisitive expansion will help you create group objectives and company-wide goals that will help you complete the year’s most crucial tasks. Establishing strategic priorities also enables the firm to react to the changing needs of its workforce and external forces, ensuring that the culture of the organization supports its plan. Making targets can also assist you make sure you have the resources and purchases necessary to achieve your goals.

How to create strategic priorities in a strategic plan

Learn how to establish strategic priorities and include them in a strategic plan by following these steps:

1. Gather your background information

More information than just a list of strategic objectives and their aims can be found in strategic plans. Consider gathering your company’s mission statement and a list of its key values before drafting your priorities or plan, and then perform a SWOT analysis. By going over these elements, you might be able to lay the groundwork for creating your objectives and, in turn, the rest of your strategic plan.

2. Understand objectives, resources and timing

To carry out an initiative or achieve a goal, three factors are required: objectives, resources, and timing. These factors are interdependent, and changing one of them will have an impact on the others. The other two variables are most significantly impacted by resources. The amount of time required to accomplish an objective can be calculated using the resources that are available and for how long. Furthermore, without resources, you might not have the ability to develop a workable plan to achieve your goals. You can learn how to assess your data to produce realistic strategic priorities by learning how these variables relate to one another.

3. Know your priority level

Consider assigning each of your priorities a value level based on the three criteria of objectives, resources, and timing instead of ranking them in a numerical list to establish their relevance. You could find it easier to choose which goals to include in your strategic plan if you are aware of these priority levels.

A strategic priority that you must complete in a specific amount of time is a critical priority. Important priorities use all resources at their disposal to accomplish a goal. A delivery to a customer could be an illustration of a critical priority. If you commit to a customer that you will supply 300,000 units of a product by the third week of the month, you will devote all of your resources to achieving that deadline.

A strategic priority is one that has the potential to positively and significantly affect your company’s success, but you do not tie it to a certain time frame. Critical tasks may need to be completed quickly yet with limited resources. Moving a firm website to a new format is an example of an important priority. Even though you may want to finish the project in six months, you won’t assign the entire organization to work on the migration. Instead, you put together a small to medium-sized team to do the job. You can extend the project’s completion date if necessary.

A strategic objective that is desired is one that has a chance to improve a company’s performance but is not as important as other priorities. Desired priorities might be extra goals that you set after achieving previous objectives. Rearranging the workplace file system or the cloud’s filing system is an example of a desirable priority. If there is already a functioning system in place, optimizing your organization may reduce the amount of time that employees spend looking for information. Nevertheless, this goal can wait until you have finished other, more crucial ones.

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4. Look forward

Choose targets that will aid the organization in innovating and advancing its long-term acquisition objectives. It may be preferable to set significant or desired priorities rather than critical ones for procedures and tasks that are already dependable and function well within your routine. Instead of growing comfortable, try increasing priorities that push the firm to higher value standards.

5. Address key components

Employ the SWOT analysis to uncover areas that are most critical to company success to select which priorities are of more value than others. It may be easier to decide where to devote the most resources if you know which components of your business—such as production, client contentment, or employee satisfaction—are the foundations of its structure.

6. Limit the number of priorities

Think about keeping the number of strategic priorities in your strategic plan to one to five feasible goals. Setting more specific priorities makes it easier for CEOs to explain the optimal course of action and for employees to comprehend the organization’s overall aims. Keeping the number of priorities low also encourages employees to be at ease and believe they have the resources to complete the tasks at hand. Even if there may be a lot of priorities vying for the most important status, choosing those that are most consistent with the company’s values or long-term objectives may assist keep the attention on the future.

7. Provide real guidance

You can develop step-by-step instructions to accomplish your tactical strategy priorities by developing a strategic plan. Making plans enables you to move your priorities from simply wanting to accomplish something to actually completing it. For instance, your strategic plan can include actions like “recruit four new employees by March” or “buy workflow software that analyzes employee production in the first quarter” if one of your major strategic targets for the year is to raise output by 30%.

8. Align your goals

Setting consistent priorities for the entire organization helps smaller departments and individual employees find their focus to work toward the broader goals. This may promote sectoral unity and cooperation and lead to more realistic objectives.

9. Make your plan

You may structure your strategy plan once you have gathered your data and determined your strategic priorities. To arrange the data, you can either compose a narrative outline or make a spreadsheet. Choose an outline that you can simply edit, communicate, and that executives and staff can read and comprehend.

10. Track your progress

Keep track of statistical information that can show you whether your present goals are being met. A data repository can help you better match future strategic priorities with corporate needs and culture while also assisting in the monitoring of present strategic priorities.

11. Get the team’s reaction

Obtain opinions and suggestions from staff members and executives to add any actions or details you may have missed to the strategic plan. In addition to assisting in the creation of the most comprehensive plan, this also enables the adjustment of present and future objectives in light of execution-related experience.

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Steve Jobs: Here’s what most people get wrong about focus

Even the best ideas can kill productivity, according to Steve Jobs.

“Focusing is about saying ‘no,‘” the late co-founder explained at Apple’s 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Willpower wasn’t the point of concentration for Jobs. It was about having the guts to drop 1,000 brilliant ideas in order to achieve one overarching aim, even if doing so incensed others.

Apple faced severe turbulence in 1997. The company underwent a significant restructure after its 1996 holiday sales fell significantly short of expectations. To decide which initiatives would receive continued funding, Apple executives created “hit lists” and “hot lists.” One-third of Apple’s personnel was let go that year. By the 1997 conference, Jobs had come back to the business he co-founded to help revamp the production and design processes. Jobs addressed the main issue the company had: although its engineers were performing interesting work, that work was sending the company in “18 different directions.”

“I know some of you spent a lot of time working on stuff that we put a bullet in the head of,” he explained at the conference. “I apologize, I feel your pain, but Apple suffered for several years from lousy engineering management.”

“We had to decide,” he said, “what made sense and what didn’t.”

He would explain later that year that Apple’s ability to execute was really high, but that it was “executing wonderfully on many of the wrong things.”

When there’s this sort of distraction, said Jobs, “the total is less than the sum of its parts.”

This advice is especially important in the workplace, where it sometimes seems like every project is of the highest significance. Many employees claim that because they know their real work will be put on hold if they don’t answer right away to every email or Slack chat, for example. Saying “no” can help anyone reassess their priorities, go through the details of a project, and recommit to broader objectives.

Over ten years after the WWDC in 1997, Jobs emphasized to Nike CEO Mark Parker the value of letting good ideas go. According to Parker, Jobs advised him that the key to success was learning to decline the brilliant, exciting job that would otherwise divert people’s attention from their most crucial goals. “Focus,” Jobs told Parker, “means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.”

Jobs added, “I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things. You have to pick carefully.”

Billionaire Warren Buffett shares this mindset. He reportedly once said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”

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According to Suzy Welch, a contributor to CNBC, while answering “yes” can make you feel like a team member, it can also result in distraction and burnout over time. She advises keeping a list of “no” statements at the ready to assist you refuse employment or negotiate deadlines.

“The truth is it’s really hard to say no,” says Welch. Instead, “Save your ‘yes!’ replies “for asks that really count.”

The Focus to Say No

What you avoid makes the difference between mediocre results and exceptional ones. It’s simple to decline lousy opportunities. It’s challenging to turn down good possibilities.
The amount of hours in a week is the same for everyone. People differ based on how they use them.

You can accomplish anything, but not everything.

The Hidden Cost of Yes

When you say yes, you commit. You agree to something when you say “yes.” The things we agree upon frequently expand.

The future ought to be made easier, not harder, by saying yes.

Right now, it feels fantastic to say “yes” to a request. Thus we consent to actions that we are aware will not advance us. Because we don’t want to offend anyone, we always say yes. To be courteous, we answer “yes.” We agree out of a sense of duty. We agree because we feel we “should.”

We get into difficulty when we equate movement with outcomes. Saying yes should, at the end of the day, produce results when interacting with anyone other than friends and family.

Saying yes has a price, which is frequently paid in the days, weeks, or even years that follow.

What begins as a single meeting develops into a weekly gathering. A minor endeavor grows into a big one. A one-time gathering with coworkers develops into a weekly meeting.

What you avoid makes the difference between mediocre results and exceptional ones.

Saying no quickly and yes slowly both applies. Having to say yes takes time. Time is created by refusing.

Never consent immediately. Give yourself some room at all times. Put it into law. Tell everyone. Daniel Kahneman carries out such actions. He declares, ‘my rule is I never say yes on the phone. I’ll email you later after I think about it more.’ I’ll email you later once I give it some more thought. And when questioned about how frequently he later answers yes, he said, “Rarely.”

Never agree just because you should. If you decide to accept, give yourself a good explanation. your explanation Try completing this phrase each time you say yes to observe how frequently you say yes for the incorrect reasons: The first few times you honestly respond to this, you’ll become aware of how frequently you say yes for the incorrect reasons.

The threshold for acceptance ought to be high and rising. You might initially say “yes” to everything in order to gain experience. Later on, though, you’ll have to exercise greater caution. The majority of people end up accepting average opportunities.

Anybody has the ability to reject bad opportunities. Only a master will turn down excellent chances. You won’t ever have the time to seek great possibilities if you don’t learn to say “no” to decent opportunities.

Saying “yes” is like spending your money, whereas “no” is like saving it in the bank. A majority of us have overdrafts. Make sure it’s required before you say yes.

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Exercise 2.6: Impact and Effort Matrix

The hallmark of a good decision making process is transparency. Leaders should know why a decision is made and should be able to clearly explain their thinking to others. As such, the best decision making activities make the process open and easy to understand.

In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

Given a goal, a group may have a number of ideas for how to achieve it. To open the exercise, frame the goal in terms of a “What to do” or “What we need” question. This may sound as simple as “What do we need to reach our goal?”

Ask the group to generate ideas individually on sticky notes.

Then, using Post-Up, ask them to present their ideas back to the group by placing them within a 2×2 matrix that is organized by impact and effort:

• Impact: The potential payoff of the action
• Effort: The cost of taking the action

Good leadership means bringing your own knowledge to the table while also listening to the opinions of the team. When running this activity, be sure to combine these aspects to ensure items are placed in the appropriate place on the matrix.

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Course Manual 7: Flexible Strategy Development

Successful companies undoubtedly provide the goods or services that consumers want, but they also possess another quality: the capacity to adjust to a business environment that is constantly changing as well as consumer preferences. Any highly effective business plan must include the ability to quickly adapt operations to these changes.

A robust, flexible strategic plan is what executives must present in order to drive their organization’s path and promote its success. Having a few ideas on how to respond to change is not sufficient.

A Common Misconception

Many people who are in charge of enterprise-level strategic planning appear to believe that once a strategy is in place, that’s it—everything is fixed in stone, and nothing can be adjusted or changed. This way of thinking is wholly untrue and may even be detrimental to the company’s interests.

Plans for the future must be adaptable, dynamic, and founded on systems that can adapt as your company and its clients’ demands change. Strategic adaptability is frequently and effectively a key differentiator for businesses. Businesses with adaptable strategies can quickly shift with the business environment and stay on par with or even ahead of their rivals.

Changes in the Business Environment

Several variables contribute to changes in the corporate environment, including:

1. alterations in preferences and tastes
2. Politics (changes in policy direction, political upheaval, coups) (changes in policy direction, political unrest, coups)
3. society’s demographics (age distribution, population growth, health awareness)
4. Economics (growth, interest rates, inflation, exchange rates) (growth, interest rates, inflation, exchange rates)
5. Environmental (natural disasters, climate change) (natural disasters, climate change)
6. Internet, augmented reality/virtual reality, and remote work
7. Legal alterations (trade restrictions, tax regulations, capital controls)
8. The aggressive market environment (rivalries between existing companies, the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, substitution risk)

Your company cannot control changes in the external environment, so you must modify your operations to account for these changes.

Flexible Business Strategy

What are some approaches to design and develop a flexible plan if firms require their strategies to be flexible to assist them adjust to changing needs? Here are a few concepts:

1. Learning continuously

Learning the most recent skill set is a crucial component of supporting an agile corporate strategy if an organization wishes to stay current and adapt to a changing environment. Although a company’s human resources team plays a major role in its ability to learn, it also needs to have an enthusiastic, helpful, and capable management team. It becomes nearly impossible to detect changes and/or assign the right individuals to handle such changes without this kind of buy-in, which restricts the firm’s ability to adapt.

2. Getting the right people involved

If only a few people are involved, your strategic plan won’t be flexible at all. All the individuals from your organization who are necessary to make the necessary changes to drive the strategy ahead must be included in your planning.

3. Having contingency plans

“Expecting the unexpected” applies to both daily life and business. Organizations are rarely able to control every internal activity, let alone any external elements that can have an effect on your firm, as was previously discussed. Even the most adaptable strategy plans include fallback options in case something unexpected changes. In fact, having a few might be preferable.

4. Closely monitoring internal and external factors

You made a plan and put it into action; now you need to monitor it to make sure it’s effective. Use whatever techniques work best for you to keep an eye on both internal processes and the external market and industry.

In order to adapt to the rapidly shifting business environment of today, you need a flexible company plan. Create a strategy that will perform effectively for your company and be flexible over time by using the advice given above.

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A flexible strategy execution framework for today’s business

Do you have a framework for executing your strategy that is flexible enough to deliver on strategy despite disruption, ambiguity, and changes to programs and initiatives? Companies can either change their strategy or fall behind in their efforts to stay competitive when supply chain, market, competitor, or other unforeseen events occur. How frequently do businesses create their annual plans only to discover that they are no longer feasible when faced with disruptions?

Likewise, it will become more challenging for firms to stay ahead of the competition and market if they do not constantly evolve and expand their operations. According to Gartner, 80% of strategists claim that business model transformation-driven efforts are now more complicated, organization-wide than they were three years ago. Uncertainty has never been greater because disruptions are occurring more frequently and the market is changing at an incredibly fast rate. Organizations may handle change with deftness when Dynamic Planning is at the center of a framework for strategy execution.

Companies must make immediate decisions that could have a long-term impact on their ability to succeed in business, as we see in headlines every day. It’s crucial to strike a balance between the work that must be done right now and what your business needs to continue to succeed.

Businesses who actively try to better comprehend the immediate and long-term effects of decisions and adjust as circumstances change ultimately outperform the competition by a considerable margin. It’s time to reconnect strategy to delivery so that strategic choices can be made based on evidence rather than gut feelings or educated assumptions. Portfolio management combined with a flexible framework for strategy execution sets the path for firms to successfully navigate the difficulties that transformation and ongoing change entail.

A flexible strategic execution framework positions organization to make the best business decisions now and emerge competitive on the other side.

The reality is that most organizations already have difficulty executing their strategies, making dealing with pivots even more difficult because the C-Suite, Executives, Finance, and Enterprise Portfolio Management Offices (EPMOs) lack the coordination or visibility to reallocate funding, reprioritize, and realign teams—not to mention the agility—to do these things quickly.

Planning can no longer be an annual activity because changes are occurring at a breakneck pace. Dynamic planning entails embracing change and preparing your company for future opportunities. When competitors are unable to make a swift pivot, uncertainty serves as a stimulant for success in the market.

The key is to have adaptive portfolio management capabilities in place that facilitate Dynamic Planning and rapid reprioritization.

With the help of Dynamic Planning, EPMOs can continuously translate strategy into execution despite shifting priorities, budgets, and resource availability. They can develop what-if scenarios, reevaluate current and prospective investments and projects, and weigh the trade-offs of various options.

Finance can develop more adaptable funding models in response to change by working with EPMOs. In order to ensure a prompt response to reprioritization, EPMOs and Finance can engage with the company to shift funds and resources as leaders make strategic decisions based on these insights.

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For the C-Suite and Executives

What prevents quick adaptability in advantageous or disruptive circumstances? There is now no clear, continuous connection between planning and delivery, and there is no quick access to information. As a result, businesses struggle to quickly realign their organizational structure.

Businesses run the risk of declining and missing out on prospects for innovation and growth if they can’t get out of their stagnation. Executives prioritize reorganizing their plans and setting new priorities. They are looking for information on:

• How are we making investments to set up our business for both the modern world and future expansion?
• How can we be sure that making short-term cost savings won’t put our long-term prosperity at risk?
• What do we invest in, and what do we get in return? How are we controlling this budget?
• How will the organization be realigned to carry out the new priorities?
• Our planning procedures must be able to adapt to change and disruption.

Global businesses must prepare for change, create organizational focus on the important results, and enable delivery of on-strategy initiatives. When a crisis arises, leaders forge ahead and rethink avenues for revenue generation while maintaining focus on workable growth plans, procedural upgrades, and long-term strategies.

The ability to analyze current strategies, the effects of change, funding of investments, and reprioritizing the new work will support your business and enable transformation without the risk of deviating from the course when disruption occurs. Incorporate dynamic planning capabilities into your strategy execution framework and rewire strategy to delivery.

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For Finance Leaders

Dynamic planning gives you the tools to assess the financial impact of changes in your strategic direction on your investment portfolio.

Finance, FP&A, and capital planning executives may have inquiries like these:

• We have a lot of modifications to do and things to consider. How can we maintain our course?
• We take so long gathering and assembling data that by the time we forecast, it is no longer accurate. How can we take action sooner?

Understanding how much you are now paying on each strategic project can help you calculate how much more you need to be spending in light of the new course of action. To model the reallocation of capital across portfolios and evaluate possibilities, finance leaders can collaborate with EPMOs and portfolio managers.

Finance can reprioritize with updated investments in the context of the entire portfolio and collaborate with EPMOs to create strategic roadmaps. You can assess the trade-offs of accelerating, descoping, delaying, rejecting, or canceling each investment by modeling various priorities and weighing options.

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For EPMOs

A number of factors can have an impact on the annual plan, including changes in the market and competition, technological advancements, competing priorities, or the intake of new demand. Spreadsheets are unable to adapt to change. Your strategy execution framework needs to adjust as rapidly as possible since strategy quickly becomes old and separated from delivery.

Does your EPMO have the capability to:

• add unanticipated, new key projects to the portfolio?
• Respond quickly enough to financing changes that are rapid (and unexpected)?
• decide which initiatives to continue funding or defer when times are tough?
• determine the effects of choices like, for instance, putting a halt on contractor spending or defunding an investment?
• Collaborate with the PMO leadership to make sure that your remote team is carrying out the strategy?

If not, the time has come to adopt a more flexible portfolio management strategy (if you have one, can you make full use of the features already there in your software solution to accomplish this?). Both the short and long term should be taken into account in your advice. As we get through the current crisis, EPMOs should investigate ways in which the organization may become more innovative and competitive.

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Maximize The Benefits of Dynamic Planning

With Dynamic Planning, you have a strategy execution framework that can:

Drive better decisions for short-term and long-term

• Decide what to delay, expedite, or cancel based on the strategic and budgetary consequences.
• Modeling scenarios with the appropriate data and analytics will help you evaluate trade-offs.
• Sequencing should be adjusted to account for capacity restrictions.

Rapidly reprioritize and pivot quickly

• Use adaptable funding strategies for simple reallocation
• Implement the new strategy to reorganize teams and deliver
• Make scenarios and forecasts in hours rather than weeks.

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Adapt or die: 3 businesses that transformed their business models to survive

The list of brick and mortar businesses failing to compete against more nimble online competition continues to increase, including Toys R Us, Austin Reed, and HMV. What about the companies that changed, though? Here are the top eight companies that embraced innovation, foresaw trends, and managed to stay relevant.

1. Netflix

Do you recall when DVDs were rented? Reed Hastings, the company’s CEO, founded Netflix in 1997 with the intention of distributing DVDs to subscribers. It’s difficult to imagine without viewing video on demand now that there are over 109 million customers globally. Hastings had the idea in 2001 to transmit movies to our home televisions directly over the internet. He experimented for ten years to get people used to streaming rather than watching actual DVDs.

Hastings always had a huge picture in mind, but he began small, failed quickly, and grew swiftly. Netflix has mastered the art of the disruptive innovator since it now produces and writes its own original blockbuster successes in addition to offering series created by others. Netflix has transformed the way we consume entertainment and is now recognized as one of the leading technological innovators of our time, ranking with Facebook, Amazon, and Google. Has access to traditional TV networks been blocked off? What about the continued existence of the movie theater?

2. Yellow Pages

Who didn’t keep a Yellow Pages directory by their phone? The venerable magazine used to be a crucial lifeline for families all throughout the Country. For more than 50 years, the telephone directory gave its users access to the names, numbers, and locations of businesses. Given the explosive expansion of digital and social media, company CEO Richard Hanscott declared in 2017 that the company would discontinue printing in 2019 and transition to a fully digital operation.

By offering clients the same service since the Yellow Pages’ first publication in 1966, Hanscott has changed the business model while maintaining the integrity of the Yellow Pages. Although not having a physical copy may feel a little different, Yell.com offers the same service more quickly and effectively.

3. The Walt Disney Company

One of the biggest worldwide media corporations today, Disney is the epitome of a success story with modest beginnings. Disney has been capturing children’s and families’ imaginations since 1923. Yet keeping a captive audience is no simple task. The real magic has been in Disney continually reinventing itself as the popularity of cult icons like Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse started to wane. Consider the recent flurry of live-action movies bringing new life to classics like Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, and the eagerly awaited Aladdin.

Disney’s success is largely attributable to its capacity to adapt quickly to changing circumstances while maintaining a commitment to its heritage as the maker of enduringly popular characters. In order to stay competitive, Disney has also gone to the market, buying companies like Pixar Studios (in 2006 for $7.4 billion), Marvel (in 2009 for $6 billion), Star Wars (Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4 billion), and at the end of 2017 nearly the entire 21st Century Fox for $52 billion in stock.

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Exercise 2.7: A Shrinking Vessel

Helps with: Adaptability

Why adaptability is important for problem-solving: Adaptability is highly associated with cognitive diversity, which helps teams solve problems faster, according to the Harvard Business Review. Innovation and disruption are happening faster than ever before. People, teams, and organizations that can adapt will come out on top.

What you’ll need:

• A rope or string

Instructions:

1. Using the rope, make a shape on the floor everyone can fit into.

2. Slowly shrink the space over 10-15 minutes.

3. Work together to figure out how to keep everyone within the shrinking boundaries.

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Course Manual 8: Build your Growth Plan

“I want to increase sales this quarter. I want to acquire a new business this year. I want to hire new employees this month. I want to improve the quality of my product by the end of this year. I want to hit a new market target.”

These statements, or ones identical to them, have undoubtedly been made a thousand times by business owners. After all, every company has a list of objectives that they hope to accomplish by a specific date.

In an ideal world, we would set objectives and easily accomplish them. Regrettably, we must do many tasks in the actual world after defining goals, such as developing a growth strategy.

A growth plan includes both the techniques you would employ to ensure that your vision is realized as well as the objectives and future of your company.

Considering that 66% of firms fail during the first ten years and 50% of enterprises fail within the first five, developing a strong growth strategy is vital for acquisition-driven growth.

So, we’re going to cover growth plans in great detail in this course manual and show you how to make one that really works.

Growth Plan: What Exactly Is It?

A growth plan outlines the strategic steps that will be taken by your company to achieve its objectives. You’ll know precisely what to do, how to accomplish it, and when once you have a growth plan in place.

Despite the fact that a growth plan may sound like the marketing strategies you’d use to expand your organization, it is much more than that. It includes a comprehensive summary of everything you would be doing to expand your company.

Let’s use an illustration to better comprehend the idea of a growth plan.

Let’s say you manage a company that sells gaming laptops. For the next five years, you want to raise sales by 60%. You could need to complete a variety of activities, including:

• hiring fresh, more qualified sales representatives.

• the product being upgraded following market research.

• locating investors who would be willing to finance the new laptop model.

• employing a social media marketer to manage the social media accounts for your company.

• making a television commercial that is effective.

Now, you would include all of these elements in your growth plan, along with additional information like a timeframe, budget, the names of the persons in charge of completing a specific task, and more.

Want to know some other justifications for developing a growth plan? Let’s investigate!

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3 Reasons Why You Should Create a Growth Plan

1. Maintains Focus

When you manage a firm, you often want to spread your wings in many directions.

Yet when some regions don’t provide the outcomes you were hoping for, you become frustrated and realize how much time and energy you squandered that you could have used in other areas.

A growth strategy, though, can help you prevent that annoyance. You would know precisely which areas you should be working on and which ones you don’t need to pay attention to if you had a growth plan.

The outcome? You won’t be wasting time or effort on things that won’t benefit you.

2. Supports You When Things go Sideways

We don’t want to alarm you, but the market landscape is evolving quickly.

That implies that anything can go wrong in your company at any time. Nevertheless, if you have a solid growth strategy in place, you shouldn’t need to worry about that at all.

In a growth strategy, as we mentioned above, you list all the strategies that will help you achieve acquisitive growth. Choose one of the tactics, adapt it to the situation, and you’re good to go when things don’t go as planned.

3. Provides a Direction

Your company is not a journey. You can’t just veer off the beaten path and see where it leads. You require a direction and a road map. and a growth strategy gives you precisely that.

The path to reaching your objectives is indicated by a growth plan. It outlines the path you should take to get where you want to go. Without it, you risk making a mistake and ending up at a dead end.

Simply said, you will know exactly what you need to do to make your business successful if you have a growth plan with you.

Given the significance of a growth plan, developing one should take some time. There are specific procedures you must adhere to, and we will outline them for you.

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How to Create a Growth Plan In 5 Easy-Peasy Steps?

Step 1. Set Goals

Setting business goals is the first step in every plan, and a growth plan is no exception.

Remember, you can’t merely say “I want this,” and expect it to come to pass. You must establish your goals in order to clearly identify what you hope to accomplish.

Always make sure that your objectives are specific, measurable, and achievable. For example, “Increasing sales” is not a sound objective. Such a target would be “increasing revenue by 20% over the following six months.”

Step 2. Market research to be done

You might believe that after deciding on your objectives, you can immediately begin developing tactics. Sadly, it’s not that simple.

Researching the market is a further critical step that you must take. You won’t be able to accomplish your aims by developing plans without taking the market into account.

Analyze your competition, the state of the market, and your target audience. Consider your audience’s needs, the market’s level of saturation, and what your rivals are doing.

Step 3. Evaluate Your KPIs

After conducting your market study, it’s time to head back to your office or home and start investigating. You must ascertain what is and is not effective for your company.

The best method to determine that is to assess your KPIs. Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs for short, are used to measure performance. Those are the measures that are “essential” in figuring out how successful your company will be.

You can determine which important areas are producing the most profitable results by evaluating your KPIs. Once you have identified these areas, you can focus on them as you develop growth initiatives. This leads us to the following action:

Step 4. Create Strategies

Now that you are fully informed about the market and your business, you are prepared to develop and implement plans to help you achieve your objectives.

Your plans can be anything as long as they assist you in achieving your objectives, from recruiting new sales representatives to improving your current product.

Make sure that your strategies are in line with your current and future budget—we shouldn’t have to explain this. You don’t want to spend excessively now and then run out of cash when you implement a future plan.

Step 5. Execute Your Plan

Be ready because it’s time to start moving and carry out the plan. Start putting all of your plans into action in accordance with your established schedule.

You must keep in mind the following, though: Your plan is a living, breathing document. As you proceed, you must continue to update and modify it.

Simply remember the proverb “develop through what you go through.” A tactic isn’t producing the outcomes you were hoping for? Modify it. A tactic is too effective? extend the time frame. A strategy is out of style at the moment? Trim it.

Now look at that! You now know how to put together a strong growth plan.

You just need to understand how to make it correctly at this point. Your growth plan is, as you can see, a very important document. Your growth strategy cannot simply be typed out with all the techniques included.

Your strategy must be properly organized and structured. It needs to be simple to read and understand. Most importantly, it must be written after receiving input from all of your company’s departments.

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Examples of successful growth plans

1. Facebook

Although though Facebook is widely used today, it wasn’t the only social media network available in 2004. At the time, MySpace dominated the social media landscape. Therefore, how did Facebook seize control?

The company used a market penetration growth strategy

It began by concentrating on a small target consumer base, then progressively expanded. Here is how Facebook developed their growth strategy.

• Start small: At Mark Zuckerberg’s dormitory at Harvard, Facebook first appeared. Thus, Harvard undergraduates made up the bulk of the first clientele.

• Expand gradually: Facebook gradually spread to other institutions after it took off at Harvard. This made it possible for the business to expand using the same success paradigm as Harvard.

• Increase growth when you’re ready: Facebook became accessible to non-students after becoming popular in campuses. Facebook was able to concentrate on modifying the product to meet the needs of each new client segment because to its methodical expansion. As a result, it did not experience the growth problems that caused MySpace’s demise.

2. Google

Google is well-known for its well-known search engine, but its enormous revenue is what gave rise to the business that is now known as Alphabet. How did it go for Google?

It used a product development growth strategy

Initially, Google was a business-to-consumer (B2C) organization that provided a search engine. Yet, it required a means of funding. It created a new product called AdWords, targeted at companies who had to pay for advertising, in order to generate that revenue.

• Tailor the product for the customer: A fresh set of capabilities created for its B2B audience were necessary when a B2C product became a business-to-business (B2B) offering.

• The new product should complement existing products: Google took care to ensure that its brand-new AdWords product blended in smoothly with its B2C offering. It delivered text ads that loaded rapidly and had the same appearance as the other search engine results because it had to protect the speed of its search engine. This ensured that the user experience was not compromised by advertising, encouraging users to keep using the search engine.

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Exercise 2.8: Level of Influence

Materials

• Flipcharts or whiteboard, markers, tape

Instructions

Before

Pre-Work Required: A list of actions has been generated. These can be simple actions to complex strategies

During

Context

This session we are going to look at how much influence we as a group have directly on the actions we are proposing.

Steps

1. We will rank them from 1 to 10 in terms of influence. One is zero influence and 10 it total influence.

List the ideas on a flipchart or whiteboard.

2. Walk through each item and ask the group, “What level of influence do we have?”

3. Continue until all items are ranked.

4. List all the items from 10 to 1 on the board.

5. We want to decide which of the items on which we have influence we want to work on.

6. Ask the group, We have total influence on 10 and 0 no influence what so ever. At what levels of influence do we want to put our energies into?”

7. Select a level say, 6 or 7. Review the items in levels 10 – 6 and ask, “Are these the items we want to work on?

Closing

Move to an action planning process.

After

Follow-Up Required: Action Planning

Usual or Expected Outcomes: A list of activities that have been selected from 1 – 10 in the level of influence the participants have over the implementation of the actions.

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Course Manual 9: Ensure Confidence in the Plan

A plan for acquisitive growth is difficult to propose. even when it’s the smartest choice for your company. Exceptional leaders are aware of this and don’t try to hide it. They are aware, however, that embracing this change with the appropriate mindset—one that is open to learning and “unlearning” on-the-go—is crucial to building a culture in which change is not only something to be endured every ten years but is instead a crucial component of their organization’s DNA that should be embraced and enjoyed.

Here are ten strategies to reduce internal opposition to this shift, better take use of its opportunities, and quickly recruit more people to the “change-wagon,” whether you’re in charge of a team of two or a company with 10,000 employees.

1. Lead From “Why”

People’s lack of understanding of why they are being put through so much is one of the key reasons transformation initiatives fail. Because of this, executives need to be able to effectively express the big “why” underlying the acquisitive growth strategy they are directing in their own minds and in front of others. Any scepticism will simply grow and the underground opposition to the change will be fueled by a leader who is unable to articulate why it is necessary.

Make sure individuals comprehend the bigger picture and what is at risk if they don’t change while you convey the “why” to them. After taking into account their worries, make sure they don’t feel as though they are enduring a great deal of suffering, uncertainty, and effort for no apparent cause. Do not presume that they are aware of the wider picture. They frequently don’t Make them understand how their role and the modifications being made to it fit into the overall strategy being carried out.

2. Risk Over-Communication

You need to communicate with others. Often. more frequently than you may anticipate and what you might feel you have time for. Stroll the halls, be visible, and make sure you’re routinely updating the various channels with what’s happening. Similarly, when progressing through acquisitive expansion, create clear future plans, explicit role expectations, and never take things for granted. Although it might be evident to you, those on the front lines might not. As former NASA Deputy Director Lori Garver explained, “Sometimes I over-communicate. But people have grown to appreciate they know exactly where I stand and aren’t left wondering what’s going on.”

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A company with a great communication strategy: Thomson Reuters – #dare2disrupt

When innovation wasn’t given enough weight and it was difficult to inspire their staff to embrace it, Thomson Reuters found themselves in a bit of a rut. They started the #dare2disrupt campaign there with the intention of easing businesses into innovation.

They experimented with a variety of internal communication strategies, including inspiration sessions, startup bootcamps, innovation challenges, and frequent team lunches. The number of innovation projects requested has increased since they started this campaign, suggesting that their internal communication strategies were successful in gaining the support of their workforce of more than 50,000.

3. Make Change Fun

Organizational psychologists have discovered that every workplace has its own “group affective tone,” or collective emotion, which over time establishes common emotional standards that are propagated and reinforced by behavior, both verbal and nonverbal. Yet, it can also have a good effect.

Bill Marriott, Chairman of Marriott International, who has shepherded Marriott from it’s early days in the restaurant business to the world’s largest hotelier, shared how he has always approached change as “a lot of fun.” “If you are not changing and growing and learning, you’ll never have opportunities to celebrate ,” Marriott said. “Change is part of the DNA of our business and always will be.”

Using “emotional contagion” to your advantage, shifting the energy others will experience, and reducing concern about the future are all benefits of approaching change with a positive and enthusiastic attitude. People turn to leaders for clues on how to think and behave, particularly during uncertain times, and leaders serve as the emotional barometer. Hence, think about how you might intensify your efforts to transform yourself and behave more in ways that benefit those around you:

• More focused, less overwhelmed
• More adaptable, less rigid
• More decisive, less hesitant
• More optimistic, less concerned about “when the sky might fall”

4. Make It Safe And Protect Your People

Everyone hates making mistakes. But, people won’t take the chance of making smart decisions unless they believe they have the capacity to occasionally make mistakes.

Leaders must establish a psychological safety net so that individuals around them can have faith in them even if they stumble or don’t land on their feet the first time. As long as they have done their homework and aren’t acting recklessly, reassuring people that their risks won’t result in punishment helps to reduce their fear and promote the creativity required for innovation to thrive. As Bill Treasurer wrote in Courage Goes To Work, “By focusing solely on the consequences of failure, managers are effectively widening the holes in people’s psychological safety nets.”

5. Acknowledge Anxiety — Spoken And Silent

Excellent leaders don’t act as though the uncertainty of change is a piece of cake. They keep people’s attention on what is under their control while acknowledging worries, both stated and unspoken, and the discomfort of being in an unfamiliar environment. Well, the future is unknown, but “don’t worry, I’ve got your back, and we’ll get through this.”

6. Encourage Smart Risk Taking

Humans tend to be cautious by nature. When making decisions, we have an inbuilt propensity to exaggerate the likelihood of success, undervalue oneself (especially women!) and the cost of inaction, favoring the immediate effects of action over the longer-term hazards of delay. Losses loom larger than gains, as Nobel Laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman stated in Thinking, Fast and Slow. Playing it safe may provide one a temporary feeling of security, but the more attention people pay to all the potential problems, the less mental and emotional energy they have to turn things around.

By encouraging individuals to reevaluate the risks and reorient their attention to the opportunities that risks create, leaders can assist combat the “loss aversion bias.” A risk gone wrong won’t end your career in a society that values bravery. Failure is viewed as a great teacher since it teaches important lessons on how to do better in the future. Excellent leaders encourage people to rethink the same three questions they ask themselves on a regular basis:

• What’s the worst that could happen?
• What would I do if the worst did happen?
• What can happen if I do nothing?

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7. Nudge People Into Discomfort

You might undoubtedly recall instances from early in your career when you were really anxious but now rarely bat an eyelid. The reason is straightforward: after enough exposure to that circumstance, what was initially terrifying started to seem familiar. The “Mere Exposure Effect” explains why it’s crucial to gently (or not so gently) push some people beyond of their comfort zone. People become more accustomed to situations outside of their comfort zone the more frequently they are exposed to them. It gradually creates an emotional framework that boosts their self-assurance for more difficult tasks and responsibilities. Being “voluntold” that they will run the meeting or give the client pitch may be the nicest thing you ever do for the more reticent types of people who might never speak up or raise their hand.

8. Appoint “Change Ambassadors”

Let’s face it: Those who define strategy at the top are frequently shut off from the “pain points” of those who execute and handle change’s front-line issues farther down the organizational ladder. Involve individuals at all levels of your company to “wave the flag” and shape the perspective of those working in the field. They will be able to establish the group’s mood much more effectively than someone seated in the executive suite when times are rough.

9. Reward Brave Behavior, Not Just Results

Not every step you take when breaking new ground will lead you in the correct direction. Some might veer you off course. Others take two steps apart. The risk aversion you wish to avoid, however, can be fueled by only paying people who do it right the first time. Because of this, it’s important to recognize bravery in others, even when it doesn’t result in the desired result. Examples of bravery include speaking up at a meeting to challenge your thinking or doing a controlled experiment with a new procedure.

A handwritten note from the manager, a few words of encouragement, or recognition in front of the team at a meeting could serve as the reward instead of a trophy or a bonus. It doesn’t matter what kind of reward is given as long as the recipient finds it meaningful. Results are crucial, no doubt, but rewarding initiative instead of just success fosters a culture of risk-taking and encourages everyone to seek out more effective business practices.

10. Lead By Example — Risk Your Own Safety

The degree to which you are willing to take a risk yourself will decide the degree to which individuals around you will be daring. Leaders who are willing to put their reputation, safety, and well-being on the line for something more significant will gain influence while others may experience worry. You won’t be able to inspire others to break new ground in your company if you’re not breaking new ground in the way you lead yourself. Think about the areas where you are not taking risks because you are worried about making a mistake or not challenging the way your superiors believe.

More than any other element, your willingness to take a chance and make a decision in the face of uncertainty will have a significant impact on your team and organization. Your everyday actions speak louder than words ever could, so lead by example.

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Ensuring Confidence in your Acquisitive Growth Strategic Plan

It can be difficult to create a strategic communications plan to go along with your acquisition expansion initiative. Although it is not a universally applicable solution, it is a crucial element of your successful transition. Yet, there are a few crucial points to bear in mind:

1. Specify exactly what is changed.

How can you expect your staff to comprehend and support a change if you are unable to effectively explain it? You should be prepared to respond to questions like: Where are we going? Why is this taking place? And why should everyone participate in this? Spend some time codifying this, and try to maintain the narrative’s coherence. To communicate the full story, it’s beneficial to involve your marketing and communications team as well as an independent firm. It’s crucial that you get this right because this is strategic communication at its finest.

2. Go where the team members are.

A strategic communications plan will realize that senior management and front-line employees may have different perspectives on change. Many things will depend on what you want them to do and what will inspire them. Your words must therefore be delivered at many points and in various forms in order to be effective. Your overarching message will need to adapt to different staff members’ preferences for traditional communications vs others who may not work in an email setting.

We’ve had success identifying “champions” across several business sectors through working with our clients. These individuals act as change agents by cascading and embedding the messages for various audiences. By doing this, you can make sure that your employees are in charge of the program rather than just internal communications, which will make it seem more genuine.

3. Continue to tell the tale.

Not all of your followers comprehend what’s going on just because you and the leadership team do and can articulate it. Make a plan for continuous participation. Spread the message through various communications, initiatives, and actions. If your company needs to adapt, you might also need to adjust your culture for it to be successful.

A new set of values or guiding principles, for instance, should be more than just words on a wall. These should be ingrained in how you conduct business and should guide your hiring, performance management, and compensation practices. Of course, they ought to share your goals (as should any decision you make).

4. Recognize that not everyone will agree.

That’s fine too. When change is well-articulated, it presents an opportunity to bring in new personnel who will advance the organization while inviting those who are not on board to leave on their own will. Attrition can be beneficial since it aids in breaking through a rigid status quo.

5. Celebrate advancement.

Establish benchmarks and reward accomplishments. To demonstrate success in your transformation and show that all of the effort being done produces the required ROI, sharing progress and updates is essential. Again, until you inform your people, they won’t be aware of progress.

We frequently mistake a vision statement for communication, but the harder part is determining what that message truly means to your workforce and how it might be spread. You will be prepared for success when you act on how change can improve your business by heeding the aforementioned advice and making sure you express and carry out your vision.

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Exercise 2.9: Card Pieces

This is one of the most popular communication exercises for teams because it’s so effective. You’ll need at least six people to create a minimum of three teams. It’s even better if each team is made up of three or four people.

For each participant, take five playing cards (If you do not have playing cards, use print-outs images of playing cards instead, it will work the same!). Cut the playing card diagonally from each corner to create four triangular pieces. Mix up the pieces and give each team an envelope containing the same amount of pieces.

To start, the teams will need to sort their pieces to see what they need to create complete cards. Then, give them around eight minutes to negotiate with the other teams for the pieces they need. The winner is the team that has the most complete cards.

This activity teaches participants the importance of empathy in communication. Leaders need to use negotiation tactics to improve their chances of receiving the card pieces they want.

Discuss as a group: What strategies did you use, including what worked and what didn’t. How would you apply what you have learned to communicating your strategic plan with employees?

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Course Manual 10: Build your Financial Plan

9 key benefits of business financial planning

It’s never simple to create a financial plan for a business. It takes work, reliable information, and some creativity. And if you’ve never attempted this before, you’ll probably run across a few obstacles. Nonetheless, this course manual will explain why it is still so important.

An effective financial strategy helps you stay focused and on course as the business expands inorganically, when new difficulties appear, and when unanticipated catastrophes strike. It enables you to establish effective communication with personnel and investors and create a cutting-edge, open company.

There are also a lot of other benefits.

We’ll soon go over nine of our favorites. So, let’s first clarify exactly what we’re referring to.

What is business financial planning?

The financial portion of your business plan is essentially what your company’s financial plan is. It uses actual financial data and estimates to contextualize the remainder of your company plan.

Importantly, it is also forward-looking. It’s not just a case of copying and pasting your accounting data; rather, you use experience and existing accounting statistics (if you already have them) to construct your plan. Instead, you consider your company’s objectives and decide how much money you’re prepared to invest in each of them.

Nonetheless, this does not imply that financial strategies are merely “made up.” This component of your company strategy is, if anything, the most realistic.

As Elizabeth Wasserman writes for Inc:

“A business plan is all conceptual until you start filling in the numbers and terms. The sections about your marketing plan and strategy are interesting to read, but they don’t mean a thing if you can’t justify your business with good figures on the bottom line. The financial section of a business plan is one of the most essential components of the plan, as you will need it if you have any hope of winning over investors or obtaining a bank loan. Even if you don’t need financing, you should compile a financial forecast in order to simply be successful in steering your business.”

The importance of financial planning in business

Most of you won’t be surprised to learn that financial preparation is crucial for creating a profitable business. Depending on how far in advance you plan, your business plan will determine how you want to conduct business throughout the following month, quarter, year, or longer after starting your journey toward acquisitive expansion.

It identifies any potential risks you might encounter and involves a review of the business environment, your goals, the resources required to achieve them, team and resource budgets. Although you can’t promise that everything will go precisely as you’ve planned, this practice will help you be more prepared.

Next, we’ll examine the specific advantages for each individual, but for now, let’s just say that without a clear financial plan, all you can do is hope for the best.

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How Howard Schultz built his empire from nothing

Howard Schultz, the creator of Starbucks, may be associated with entrepreneurship success, but things weren’t always peachy. He was raised in a housing estate and came from a poor household. He used money from part-time jobs and government loans to pay for education. Also, he was the first member of his family to attend college. The Starbucks brand was introduced to Schultz for the first time while he was working for a coffee company. He went to the Seattle location of the new business. He soon became the director of marketing for the business. Schultz quit Starbucks in 1985 and made the decision to start his own coffee shop. To launch his business and open the first store, he raised the $500,000 he need. Starbucks as we know it today was created when the original management of the company chose to sell its retail operation to Schultz two years later. Schultz’s current net worth exceeds $2.9 billion; not bad for an empire he concocted over a cup of coffee in the afternoon!

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9 benefits of financial planning for business

What benefits can you expect from corporate financial planning, then? There are undoubtedly countless advantages to company planning, but these nine stand out.

1. Clear company goals

Indeed, this serves as the foundation of your entire financial strategy. What goals does the company have for the upcoming quarter, year, three years, and so on?

You should prove right away that there is a genuine need for your business and that it satisfies that need. Often referred to as “product/market fit,” this is The initial years of many startups may be spent developing a product and determining product/market fit. Hence, with smaller checkpoints along the way, this would be your main one- to two-year aim.

Importantly, if this is your primary objective, you won’t establish ambitious sales goals or significant marketing KPIs. If the product or service isn’t ready to sell, what’s the sense of spending money on sales and marketing to attract new clients?

Your firm goals will be mentioned repeatedly in this course handbook, so it’s important to understand them right away.

2. Sensible cash flow management

The money coming into and going out of the business should be clearly defined in your financial plan. Of course, at first, you’ll spend more than you earn. So, what is a reasonable amount of spending, and how will you stay on schedule?

You must also consider how you will readily measure cash flow as part of this plan. Can you swiftly and accurately keep track of where your money is going even though the team may not include any seasoned financial experts?

You can foresee difficulties with both getting and spending money by developing your plan now, and you can find strategies to do both more successfully.

3. Smart budget allocation

This certainly has a tight connection to cost-cutting and cash flow management (above) (below). You need to decide how you’ll use the money after you’ve determined how much you have to spend, whether it comes from sales revenue or investments.

The business is aware of its overall budget, or its “burn rate,” for each quarter or year. Be sure that the funds allocated to each team budget (for example, those for product development, marketing, and customer service) represent their relative importance.

Budgets offer each team their own limitations to work under. They can plan promotions, personal growth, and product development properly since they are aware of the resources that are available to them.

At the corporate level, keeping track of project or team budgets will always be simpler than keeping track of overall spending. It’s really easy to track who is spending what once you’ve broken out each budget.

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4. Necessary cost reductions

A financial plan not only outlines how much you may spend (and on what), but it also enables you to identify savings opportunities in advance. If you’ve been in business for a while, you should first assess how much money you’ve previously spent and how quickly your company is expanding before creating a financial plan.

You’ll look back on prior expenditures as you create your budget(s) for the upcoming year and spot extraneous or exorbitant costs along the way. The budget for the following year is then simply adjusted accordingly.

All of this deliberate effort is a component of spend control, the process of maintaining business spending within your expectations. A quarterly or annual assessment nearly always reveals areas where you can save money and utilize your resources more effectively, which is even better.

5. Risk mitigation

The ability to assist businesses in avoiding and navigating risk, from financial fraud to economic crises, is a critical component of the finance team’s function. While many risks are difficult to anticipate or even prevent, many others are obvious.

Your financial strategy should account for costs associated with certain business insurance policies, losses due to dangerous inefficiencies, and possibly set aside funds for unforeseen costs. You might really make numerous financial projections, especially during tumultuous times, showing several outcomes for the company: one where money is straightforward to get by, and one or two others when things are more difficult.

Again, the idea is to have backup plans in place and to try to figure out how your roadmap would alter if your growth the following quarter was just 20% rather than 30% (or 50%). There’s no need to go overboard, but you may identify dangerous areas in the organization and think through your best course of action in the event that something goes wrong.

6. Crisis management

Any corporate crisis usually starts with you reviewing and rebuilding your strategies. Naturally, this implies that you must start off with a well-defined company plan. If not, your only option in a crisis is to improvise.

The need to continuously reforecast was a recurring theme among finance leaders as the 2020 financial crisis developed. Nobody was really certain of the crisis’s duration or the effects it would have on their firm. Thus, businesses produced fresh financial plans at least once per month or quarter.

And this procedure was made simpler for individuals who had strong, well-thought-out financial strategies. They had previously determined the most important levers to pull in reaction to the most evident threats, so they weren’t constantly starting from scratch.

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7. Smooth fundraising

Now let’s completely leave risk behind. At some time, you’ll probably need money, whether you’re a fresh startup, an established business in need of a modest injection of capital, or you’re seeking for a sizeable series-level investment.

And your company plan will be the first thing every potential investor or bank requests. Investors want to know what risks and uncertainties are involved, how you plan to expand the company, and how you’ll manage their money wisely.

Investors need to understand your financial strategy, and the better your track record of preparation has been, the more confident they will be in your forecasts. A business finance strategy is therefore a crucial tool in your toolbox, whether or not you are currently looking for funding.

8. An acquisitive growth roadmap

Last but not least, your financial strategy aids in situation analysis and future projection for the company. Likewise, your larger business plan will address this on a general level: the target markets, the anticipated workforce, and the goods and services you intend to sell.

The finance part fills in your level of investment along the road and provides information to these goals. For instance, your financial strategy will probably need to include recruiters and a dedicated budget to identify new talent if you want to increase your workforce this year.

Spend some time outlining the size of the company you want, the costs that come with a bigger business, and the revenue that will make up the difference. It is typical to expect to spend money more quickly than you bring in if you have raised venture capital to aid in your financial growth.

Yet you’ll need to reassess your position if you waste money and fall short of your ambitions for acquisitive expansion. Decide on your growth goals now, and you can evaluate them along the way.

9. Transparency with staff and investors

Investors will need to see your financial plan, as we just explained. Thus, we won’t get into them further here.

The same is true for employees though. It is now expected that business leaders will be forthright and truthful with their employees. Some startups even go so far as to make their pay public.

Modern workers at the very least seek assurances that the business is in capable hands and headed for success. Also, when CEOs can discuss the financial strategy during all-hands meetings, they add actual data to a business plan that would otherwise be lacking in specifics.

Key statistics like incoming revenue, costs, and where you stand in terms of profitability are highly valued by employees.

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What to include in a business financial plan

While we won’t go into great detail here, it’s important to provide a general overview of what should be included in a standard financial plan.

The most typical financial plan lasts three years. But regardless of the time frame, your strategy must incorporate the following:

• Sales projections: Project your expected sales growth for the near future, as well as the cost of sales. You can break these down in different pricing groups, products, and other important factors.

• Expenses & budgets: Most important here are costs – separated into fixed and variable expenses. (Lower fixed costs usually mean lower risk for the business).

• Profit & loss statement: Alternatively, you can create a cash flow statement, which achieves a similar outcome. You essentially want to project money in and money out over the next three years.

• Assets & liabilities: These will usually be separated from your P&L statement, and will certainly include startup costs and assets for new businesses.

• Break-even analysis: Ideally, you’ll be able to identify your break-even point within the coming three years.

• Hiring & team structure: This one is not essential, but it makes sense to add as part of your business plan. Who will you need – and when will you acquire them – in order to reach your goals?

There’s no time like the present to create your business financial plan

We’ve discovered nine great reasons to start working on your business’ financial plan right away. As we said, the financials are a crucial component of your entire strategy plan without which it will be difficult for you to evaluate your company’s performance.

Naturally, projection is necessary for this activity; you can’t merely rely on the data you have at hand. Yet, that is not the same as speculation. You’ll leave with a clear road map that will lead you to business success in the near future if you adhere to best practices and take into account all possible outcomes.

The next step is to put in the effort, gauge your progress, and frequently update your financial strategy.

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Do Won Chang focused his finances in the right places

Although Won Chang may not be well-known, his trendy retailer Forever 21 is. When Won Chang initially immigrated to America from South Korea, he worked as a janitor, at a gas station, and in a coffee shop before founding the retail empire in 1984. He and his wife invested their whole $11,000 savings into their first store, which was 900 square feet and located in Los Angeles. The store’s first name was Fashion 21, and the majority of its patrons were members of the Korean American community. But, the clientele soon grew, and after the company changed its name to Forever 21, business soared. Do Won Chang is now a $790-store global empire with an estimated $3.2 billion in market value.

His best advice? Never lose sight of your origins. “Forever 21 gives hope and inspiration to people who come here with almost nothing… The fact that immigrants coming to America, much like I did, can come into a Forever 21 and know that all of this was started by a simple Korean immigrant with a dream.”

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Exercise 2.10: Reverse Pyramid

As we have discussed, collaboration between departments is vital for an effective financial plan to be put together. This exercise is a great way for participants to work on their collaboration skills.

What you’ll need:

• Nothing

Instructions:

1. Have everyone stand in a pyramid shape, horizontally.

2. Ask them to flip the base and the apex of the pyramid moving only three people.

3. This quick exercise works best when smaller groups compete to see who can reverse the pyramid the fastest.

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Course Manual 11: Build your People Plan

A well-executed “people strategy” can help many businesses, big or small, expand their operations and elevate their work to new heights. People should always be at the center of any growth plan, whether you’re developing organically or not.

A People Strategy: What Is It?

Your organization’s priority people plan is known as a people strategy. the methods you devise and implement to entice, nurture, keep, and generally motivate your employees. A people strategy’s main objective is to motivate employees and develop widespread, corporate alignment on objectives pertaining to the company’s most valuable resource: its workforce.

How Should a People Strategy Be Used?

A people strategy supports and makes it possible for your business to be successful, much like any other organizational or business plan would. But more precisely, it is designed to increase employee satisfaction, output, and—most importantly—retention of your high-performing or high-potential workers.

Consider of it as a blueprint for guiding the expansion of your company based on the talent you currently have, the talent you will someday require, and the intersection of the talent you want to attract and keep.

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Spotify’s people strategy

Spotify is a strong supporter of the “people-first” strategy. The industry leader in audio subscriptions has, in fact, struck the ideal balance between giving the needs of the company and its employees top priority. This is because they are aware of how crucial each component is to the success of the others.

Spotify has developed its own personnel strategy based on the company’s values, mission, and corporate statement using this philosophy. This has made it possible for Spotify to expand into a company that puts its culture, values, and mission first and encourages both internal and external growth.

Spotify’s personnel strategy is supported by these four pillars:

• Talent attraction
• Diversity, inclusion and belonging
• Learning and development
• Growth

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What Connection Is There Between Business and People Strategies?

When it comes to their product, their target market, and the personalities they want to communicate to and engage with, businesses strategize in great depth. The similar effect is achieved internally through a personnel strategy. The absence of a people strategy can harm the overall business strategy, which is why it is so crucial.

On the other side, if your people strategy is clear and well-understood, it may support your whole business strategy and give it energy. That’s because, period, making your staff the best they can be has a direct impact on the results of your business.

Are HR strategy and people strategy interchangeable terms?

The scope of the two strategies—people strategy and HR strategy—differ. While a people strategy is a plan or document that applies to every aspect of the organization, the HR of People Team will design and operationalize it. A people strategy would therefore put a strong emphasis on broad issues like development, growth, feedback, diversity, equality, and inclusion.

A HR strategy is much more concentrated on how HR teams operate and is frequently influenced by business goals. Recruiting, onboarding, database management, and other administrative responsibilities may fall under this category. Hence, while a people strategy will still influence what happens here, there is a clearer top-down relationship between them.

How Important Is A People Strategy?

Why don’t you already have one could be a more appropriate query. A people strategy can be viewed in two different ways. First, as a development of your corporate strategy. Next, a plan that will ensure the success of your company.

That’s because it improves your team management by adding vision and clarity. This directly affects the work you generate as a result.

You’re on a razor’s edge if you don’t have a people plan. In fact, if you don’t have one in place, you could:

• Misaligned teams
• Doubling up of work
• Emphasizing the wrong priorities
• Unclear product and customer roadmaps

These kinds of internal issues eventually grow into significant external ones. Particularly hurt by this are businesses that want to expand or scale back.

Client attrition, poor performance, financial consequences, and shareholder problems might all happen next. Undoubtedly, each has negative effects on its own and may have negative effects when combined.

How Do You Create A Successful People Strategy?

So how do you start creating your people strategy and where do you start? Although it may appear scary at first, a successful people strategy is based on the following principles:

So inspiration is where it all begins. After all, motivating employees to provide their best effort is the goal of any strategy. Let’s discuss each stage and why it’s important.

1. Start with some data and a vision.

It’s vital to acquire information that can support your plan, even if you already have a “vision” in mind. You can then develop it in a clear, practical manner.

The initial step is to gather all available data. Quantitative information can provide baseline insights to assist you build up your dataset and can also help you build out your dataset in an actionable fashion, such as statistics on diversity (the ratio of male to female employees), attrition rate, sick days, and more.

Then, take into account qualitative information obtained directly from the senior level leadership team, different team leads, and users across the People Team (through structured interviews or surveys).

Maintaining the highest level of consistency across all evaluation techniques is crucial during this process. Your dataset will continue to be consistent across all user groups in this fashion.

A variety of retroactive patterns might be compiled, along with future projections, to supplement feedback. This may impact where you go as well as the new abilities you need to acquire to get there.

A vision of where you want to go that is aspirational is the first step in a successful people strategy. then be motivated by the information you have at hand.

2. Determine The Issues And Results

Finding any issues and the procedure’ anticipated results follows next once the data have been analyzed.

A people strategy must be reflexive, which means it must see issues before they arise and take aggressive action to address them.

This can be accomplished by conducting some workshops to identify some of the issues that require a People Team to tackle them.

Let’s break it down into four distinct stages:

• You are attempting to solve an issue.
• The results you aim to accomplish next
• The task(s) or actions that resolve the issue
• How can you measure the process to make sure you succeed?

Your people strategy encompasses far more than just your mission or vision. It is effective because it searches for and monitors several answers while anticipating any gaps, problems, or obstacles.

3. Get comments and excitement

People must inform a people strategy since strategic HR is frequently holistic HR. several varieties of them!

It’s important to have feedback, and it’s equally important that it come from a variety of people in different professions and fields.

In fact, getting outside perspectives on any kind of people strategy can encourage a diversity of thought. This will guarantee that your approach makes sense and can motivate others inside the company.

Even choosing sponsors or candidates to join various project groups may be part of this stage. Your people strategy will have a greater probability of success if you do this.

But it’s not just about the response. It’s about getting input and getting people involved so they can see themselves in the big picture.

It increases buy-in across the entire organization. Also, it makes your overall vision more inclusive of all members of the organization.

4. Visualize and share

It’s beneficial to start working on something visually appealing that may be used to share plans with your larger organization.

Engaging visuals do more than simply look good. They can aid in educating the larger business about how work is seen and distributed.

This may even involve outlining both current tasks and long-term objectives.

5. Track and Correct

A people strategy is obviously not a fixed, “set it and forget it” kind of approach. It should be monitored to make sure it is functioning because it is something that can alter.

In this approach, it is crucial to routinely assess the overall strategy to make sure it is effective and does not need to be modified.

Also, if changes are necessary, adjusting is crucial!

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Two Guidelines for a Successful People Strategy

You now have a better understanding of how a potent, futuristic, and results-driven people strategy may support the expansion of your company. Does the fact that you may even have a plan in mind or the beginnings of one mean that you’re done? Not even close, though!

The next two inquiries are possibly some of the most crucial ones throughout the process.

As follows:

• Does our team have what it takes to execute our strategy?
• How do we find the time to concentrate on the overall strategy?
Depending on the team or the year, this may look different. It might also entail scaling up, promotions, structural changes, hiring from outside, and other things.

But, your people strategy’s delivery team is just as crucial as the plan itself. The possibility or even the likelihood of the other is determined by the first.

The next step is finding the time. HR leaders frequently observe the conflict between the tasks at hand and the long-term goals they are attempting to achieve.

Keep Your People Strategy in Mind

A people strategy serves as a constant reminder as well as a blueprint or vision. It enables leaders to maintain clarity regarding their priorities, including what they can and cannot do.

Then, it’s all about carrying out, analyzing, charting, and changing in order to support the growth of your company based on the individuals you have confidence in to do so.

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Dell’s people strategy

Another excellent example of a company that appreciates the need of putting in place a thoughtful people strategy is Dell. The American technology corporation does this by emphasizing staff growth and learning. It selected this pillar because it recognizes that the abilities and talents of its staff are essential to the organization’s success.

Dell gives its employees the chance to pick up new skills that complement both their individual aspirations and the general business aims. The Chief Human Resources Officer of Dell, Jenn Saavedra, stated that the company wants to “enable people to achieve their career goals, to be successful, and continue to grow and learn and perform. Our people philosophy is ultimately about how to inspire people to be their best and do their best work”.

Four primary focal areas, known as A, B, C, and D, form the foundation of Dell’s people strategy philosophy.

• Achievement
• Balance
• Culture
• Diversity

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Exercise 2.11: Mime it Out

As discussed, listening to your employees and making them feel heard is vital. For an effective people strategy, you must prioritize your employees as they are the backbone of your business and will work more effectively when they feel included in your decisions.

This exercise is played as an individual activity. Each person in the group is given a topic and 5 minutes to brainstorm on their own. They must come up with the emotions and expressions that they feel are appropriate to describe the topic.

At the end of the 5 minutes, each person takes the stage and acts out the given topic as a mime. The others have to understand the expression and tell that person what topic is being described.

Objectives:

• This helps the participant develop an understanding of non-verbal cues from the speaker
• This also helps the participants to express themselves using expressions and body language
• It creates awareness about possible areas of misunderstanding while reading non-verbal cues.

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Course Manual 12: Execute your Strategy

5 Ways the Best Companies Close the Strategy-Execution Gap

CEOs claim that poor execution costs them 40% of the potential value of their strategies. Seldom do implementation issues lead to this strategy-to-performance gap; instead, faulty initial plans are to blame.

Too many businesses still approach strategy with a “Plan-then-Do” mentality. The company puts in a lot of effort to produce its most accurate predictions regarding the market and competitive environment of the future. The leadership then outlines a strategy that it thinks will position the business to succeed in this foreseen future. In today’s fast-paced environment, the “cone of uncertainty” around future market and competitive situations is too high for corporations to prescribe every piece of a multiyear strategy. This strategy may have made sense when it was initially promoted by GE and others in the 1970s. The Plan-then-Do method is ineffective and potentially hazardous.

Successful M&A firms today use a new strategy technique known as “Decide-Do/Refine-Do” to close the strategy-to-performance gap. The turbulent environment of today is more suited to this agile, test-and-learn methodology. Also, it aids in bridging the gaps between excellent strategy, execution, and performance that are present in so many businesses.

Here are five things we’ve learned from observing the top businesses in action:

Treat strategy as evergreen. The most successful businesses view strategy less as a plan and more as an agenda and direction for making decisions. A company’s strategy is essentially the culmination of all the choices it makes and successfully implements throughout time. This kind of thinking encourages leaders to make short-term choices with the end in mind rather than assuming there is just one way to get there.

Take Dell Technologies as an illustration. In the wake of the business’s go-private transaction in October 2013, Dell implemented new models for developing its strategies, allocating its resources, and managing its performance. Executives at Dell are now aligned behind a shared performance ambition—a cash flow vector consistent with increasing the company’s intrinsic value quicker than rivals—instead of creating intricate, long-term financial strategies. Following that, executives outline a multiyear outlook for each of Dell’s businesses, highlighting the trajectory of the company’s present performance in light of management’s prior choices. To close the gap between its objective and Dell’s existing trajectory, the team sets a strategy agenda that includes the challenges with the highest stakes and most urgency.

The executive leadership team at Dell is committed to methodically tackling the problems listed in the business’s strategy agenda. After addressing an issue and reaching a decision, they allot the necessary resources and move on to the following item on the agenda. At Dell, developing a strategy is now a continuous process rather than a batch operation governed by a planning calendar.

Value flexibility. When there are no obstacles on the route, maneuverability has little utility. Even though it restricts the company’s flexibility to navigate around potential obstacles, leadership is better off choosing a single course of action. But in the modern world, adaptability is important.

The emergence and fall of Webvan serves as an example of the price of a rigid approach. When the world’s first online grocery delivery service launched in 1996, internet usage was rapidly expanding. By simply clicking a button, Webvan offered to bring the highest-quality groceries at the lowest price. The plan called for a substantial capital expenditure in a network of nationwide distribution facilities equipped with robotic stock-picking machinery. Webvan made a bold prediction of future usage, order volumes, and expenses to justify the expenditure. This forecast could not have been made using any trustworthy proxies. Regardless of how well the strategy was implemented, failure was guaranteed if the management prediction was exceeded. Sadly, use was far lower than anticipated, order amounts were much smaller, and capital costs were significantly greater. Around 2001, Webvan had to stop operating.

Think of strategy as a portfolio of options, not bonds. The value of any approach is treated like a bond in the conventional plan then do paradigm. In order to determine which strategy has the highest discounted value, management projects the future coupon payments (or cash flows) connected to alternative options. Yet, when volatility is strong, tactical choices should be viewed more as call options. Leadership makes the call regarding possible earnings as to whether the little upfront investment is worthwhile. Management may invest as long as the option looks to be “in the money”; if the option turns out to be “out of the money,” management may cease investing, take a loss, and move on.

Consider Google. Google (and more recently its parent firm, Alphabet) have made numerous investments in new businesses since 2005. Others are less well recognized but have received less attention (YouTube, Nest, Google Glass, Motorola phones, Google Fiber, self-driving automobiles) (grocery delivery, photo sharing, online car insurance comparison). Many of the company’s investments have been profitable, but not all of them. In a timely manner, Larry Page and his team responded by selling these investments and doubling down on others. In the last three years, Alphabet has sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo, shut down Google Compare, halted Google Fiber, and closed the smart home business Revolv. At the same time frame, the company has boosted its investment in cloud services and numerous new projects run by the X lab division of the business. Alphabet has avoided making premature commitments to new businesses by treating strategic investments like alternatives. The organization has been able to expand on great ideas and turn them into successful new businesses because to this strategy.

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Create response mechanisms. Companies that respond swiftly and efficiently win in a world where even the best-laid plans can go awry. Both focused action planning and meticulous contingency planning are crucial. You must outline concrete actions to change course if you notice an unanticipated shift in the external environment, identify the most significant known unknowns related with your company’s strategy, and put in place procedures to regularly monitor market and competitive situations. According to reports, Caterpillar, for instance, had strong backup plans in place before the 2007 global financial crisis. The CEO of Caterpillar ordered that all division heads create contingency plans for a recession well before the catastrophe. Caterpillar and its rivals were operating at full capacity at the time, and demand was significant worldwide. Few of Caterpillar’s rivals were thinking about a recession. Caterpillar implemented its contingency plans when the recession started, protecting the business’s profitability and enabling it to support pivotal actors in the value chain.

Test and learn, then test some more. Agile planning can be viewed as a series of time-boxed sprints, often known as micro-battles, with the goal of moving forward, testing the waters, learning from the experience, and then improving the strategy in light of the findings.

Test-and-learn has been included into Caesars Entertainment’s marketing initiatives. Promotions represent a significant strategic investment for casino corporations like Caesars. Effective promotions (free hotel stays, discounted airfare, and free meals) draw in new patrons to the casino, and the revenue those patrons earn from the games they play covers the expense of the promotion. Many promotions are a failure. Either they don’t generate interest from new customers, or the expense of the campaign is too high in comparison to the incremental gains. Before releasing a campaign, Caesars tests it out in its network of more than 50 casinos. Caesars may restrict the unsuccessful promotions with this test-and-learn strategy while making sure that the most effective promos are sent to as many casinos as feasible.

The majority of businesses miss out on opportunities to experiment and gain knowledge. While a series of smaller, more successful bangs will produce greater outcomes, they opt for the big bang and run the danger of a large bust.

Excellent performance demands great strategy and superb execution, yet weak approach is frequently covered up by subpar execution. Today’s leaders require a fresh method for formulating strategies. They are no longer able to develop a plan over several years, then execute it. To be successful, you must first decide on the subsequent stages along a clearly defined strategic route, then learn from and improve them as you go. This strategy makes implementation simpler and improves the likelihood of producing excellent results.

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Successful Strategy Execution: IBM – A Shift From Products to Services

The tale of IBM, an elephant who had to dance in order to survive, is quite amazing. IBM was a titan in the industry and the most dominant technology brand in the 1980s. Yet since it couldn’t keep up with consumer computer demands, it fragmented and grew dependent on hardware sales.

For the following ten years, IBM’s supremacy waned, reaching a breaking point in 1993 with the disclosure of a second-quarter loss of $8 billion. After this defeat, the business made the odd choice of hiring Louis V. Gerstner Jr., an engineering graduate and former management consultant at McKinsey & Co., as its new CEO. Under Gerstner, IBM made the decision to change its focus from goods to services. In essence, IBM changed its business strategy from being a comprehensive, shared-services partner to being a global technology provider. In carrying out this complete strategy, IBM adopted a new approach at the time to capitalize on rivals’ advantages by working together with them whenever possible to provide outstanding results for customers. As a result, even as they continued to sell its own PCs, the business entered into deals with Dell to provide them with components.

Gerstner centralized all of IBM’s agencies and allayed the company’s antitrust concerns. This enabled the company to group all marketing and advertising initiatives under a single agency that followed uniform practices. One of the greatest business turnarounds in history was achieved by IBM thanks to its new strategy, which was successful. IBM successfully diversified its offerings and made investments in key growth sectors, demonstrating fast that the services sector was more profitable than the sales of hardware products.

The company’s earnings rose from $3 billion to $7.7 billion, its revenue rose from $64 billion to $86 billion, and its stock market valuation reached $180 billion during Gerstner’s leadership from 1993 to 2001. IBM’s plan was flawlessly carried out, and it paid off greatly. Within six years after Gerstner became office, IBM saw a 45% increase in revenue and a more than 100% increase in net profitability.

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Exercise 2.12: Move It!

Helps with: Adaptability, collaboration, strategy.

What you’ll need:

• Chalk, rope, tape, or paper (something to mark a space)

Instructions:

1. Divide your group into two teams and line them up front to back, facing each other.

2. Using the chalk, tape, rope, or paper (depending on the playing surface), mark a square space for each person to stand on. Leave one extra empty space between the two facing rows.

3. The goal is for the two facing lines of players to switch places.

4. Place these restrictions on movement:

• Only one person may move at a time.
• A person may not move around anyone facing the same direction.
• No one may not move backward.
• A person may not move around more than one person on the other team at a time.

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Project Studies

Project Study (Part 1) – Customer Service

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 2) – E-Business

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 3) – Finance

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 4) – Globalization

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 5) – Human Resources

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 6) – Information Technology

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 7) – Legal

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 8) – Management

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 9) – Marketing

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 10) – Production

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 11) – Logistics

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Project Study (Part 12) – Education

The Head of this Department is to provide a detailed report relating to the Strategic Aspiration process that has been implemented within their department, together with all key stakeholders, as a result of conducting this workshop, incorporating process: planning; development; implementation; management; and review. Your process should feature the following 12 parts:

01. Share your Winning Aspirations
02. Review your Strategy
03. Identify your Growth & Contingencies
04. Know your Marketplace
05. Define your Competitive Advantage
06. Establish your Strategic Priorities
07. Flexible Strategy Development
08. Build your Growth Plan
09. Ensure Confidence in the Plan
10. Build your Financial Plan
11. Build your People Plan
12. Execute your Strategy

Please include the results of the initial evaluation and assessment.

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Program Benefits