Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is the process of a business determining its long term goals and the process by which they might be achieved.

Ideally, the plan would be made once, and then the wheels set in motion. However, on any given day, the business may need to re-evaluate the plan, based upon external factors that may have changed the world in which the business is operating.

The Business Planning Process

We use a process of helping you:

• Indentify your personal longer-term objectives
• Transalate your personal objectives into your professional and/or business goals
• Put the steps in place to realise your strategic goals

Look for the business changes that will produce the most benefits (the highest return-on-investment…or “ROI”). Put the right business processes in place that actually streamline your costs of delivering your product or service. A Business Analyst can help you because they bring and objective view. They can be the catalyst that helps:

• Clarify your business objectives, upon which all your operational business decisions will be based.
• Identify (based on cost-benefit analysis) and scope the areas that should be addressed first
• Map the existing business processes, identify the current inefficiencies, and determine the process changes that need to be made.
• Develop and implementation plan for putting the business process changes in place.

That’s not to say you should be cynical or pessimistic. Talk to people who disagree with you.They may not be right, but they can certainly help you balance out your own biases as to how things should be. Stand outside your normal frame of how you view your business. How often have you thought:

• I waste too much time doing administration rather than making sales;
• I spend too many hours at work instead of doing the things I enjoy;
• I know my business is inefficient, but I never have a chance to sort it out;
• I’m “too close” to my business operations so I don’t know where to start fixing things; or
• I have time to make SOME changes, but which ones will give me the greatest benefit, for the least cost?

Make a list of those things you think are inefficient and a second list of the things you’d rather be doing in your business apart from day-to-day operations.

Next time you walk past a cafe, take note of whether there are empty milk crates sitting outside for collection.

Each crate is equivalent to around 100 coffees. Each coffee (sold at about $3.00 each) is profit of around $2.50.

Do the sums…one crate is profit of $250. Why, then, do cafes so often charge so much for food? Even if they only covered their costs for food, they’d certainly attract more customers, and imagine the number of coffees they could sell.

The other day, Simon went to the local hotel for a beer after work. Apparently, the pub has recently been bought by a Bavarian/Belgian (I’m not sure which) Beer Cafe group.

Simon, being Swiss, asked for a glass of Duvel Belgian beer on tap. The Publican, in a less than helpful manner, said they only sold it in the bottle and that he wasn’t aware of anyone, anywhere selling the beer on tap.

Simon bought a beer and skulked off to his table.

Later, on returning to the bar, the bartender mentioned that in fact, Duvel is brewed in the bottle – so obviously it won’t be on tap.

A little product knowledge would have gone a long way to providing that little bit of extra information that would have turned a negative (”we don’t have it on tap”) into a positive (”it’s brewed in the bottle so it’s not available on tap”).