A strategy for growth
A robust strategy can help your business deliver on its full potential, but it should be guiding you in practice, not sitting on a shelf gathering dust, writes KPMG’s William Taylor
Regardless of whether your business is a start-up or running for many years, working to develop and implement a meaningful strategy is extraordinarily valuable. A solid strategy embeds resilience and gives stakeholders the comfort and confidence that you have a plan and you’re sticking to it.
RUN YOUR BUSINESS BETTER
A strategy can help you cut through all that noise, weigh up those tensions and pressures, and focus on what is material to you to help you embed resilience and material growth in your business. Developing or renewing the strategy for your business allows you to take stock, reassess your performance to date and plan for the future.
INVESTING IN GROWTH
This is incredibly useful work to do for your business. This strategic work shouldn’t be seen as a cost, but as an investment of your time and thinking. It will bring focus, structure and rigour to how you run your business. Moreover, it will build confidence in the business and its leadership internally and externally.
For example, if you’re running an SME and tell your bank you need more cash for growth, or you go looking to attract investment, you’ll get a lot further if you have already developed your three- to five-year strategy. You can show potential lenders or investors your objectives, your forecasts for capital and operating expenditure, your operational plan and so on. Showing you have thought about it and have a detailed plan for earning returns will help hugely.
If you’re thinking of selling, don’t let the buyer identify untapped value and take that off the valuation. Identify it proactively first to excite valuations.
STEPS TO DEVELOPING A ROBUST STRATEGY
Your strategy should be anchored in the mission, vision and values of your business. Your vision is what you’re trying to do, your mission is why you’re doing it, and your values are how you do it. Once your strategy is complete, everyone should be clear on the company’s ambition and on their role in fulfilling it.
Know your ambition. Set your goals and objectives, and consider how you’ll measure success.
Consult with internal stakeholders. This is vital to secure buy-in. Strategy development should be done with your people, not to them.
Consult with clients, customers, regulators, investors and lenders and carry out further research and testing, so you can iterate the plan as needed.
Develop your strategy in detail, with particular focus on value creation by driving revenue and minimising costs. Develop an operational plan, so your teams understand how to deliver on your strategy.
BUILDING RESILIENCE
At the core of strategy development is examining what you’re doing with your people, capacity, capabilities and markets you’re in. You need to understand this so you can build in resilience and not be overly dependent on any one market, product or type of customer.
While your business strategy may cover the next three to five years, it should never be set in stone. It offers guiding principles for the work you’re doing, but you need to be pragmatic, and treat it as a flexible and purposeful document.
HOW KPMG CAN HELP
KPMG has extensive experience advising private businesses on developing a meaningful strategy and helping companies achieve their full potential.
Search KPMG Private Enterprise to visit our website and learn more about our extensive services for Irish Private Enterprise.