IMPLEMENTING YOUR BUSINESS STRATEGY

You now have a business strategy document. The development of this document means that you will be confident and articulate when talking about your business identity, your product and/ or service and your goals. The next step is to convert your strategic thinking into a set of clear actions, each designed to make reaching the target a reality.

FIVE STEPS TO TURNING A BUSINESS STRATEGY INTO REALITY:

1. Have a meeting with all your employees in order to share and discuss your business strategy, and the plans for the year.
2. Break down your plan and decide what can be accomplished immediately (over the next year), and what to accomplish over the following 1 to 3 years.
3. Plan each goal for the year, and then each task required in order to meet each goal.
4. Map out each step on your calendar.
5. Later, we will build Key Performance Indicator worksheets to track your goals, and to work to create all the processes that your business needs to fully realize
your vision.

REMEMBER TO CREATE KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

How will you know if you are getting the execution of your strategy right? Don’t leave this to chance. If you wait for that magic sign to land in your lap, you might end up waiting forever. Every strategy must have key indicators that you need to measure along the way
in order to determine whether you are on track or not. If you are not on track, i.e. you are not reaching your indicators you will need to adjust your tactics – the way you are setting about achieving the goals of your strategy.

You need to develop a set of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for your company. These should be measured consistently, on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. You don’t want to wake up in three years’ time and realize that you have drifted away from your target because you didn’t track your progress. Your KPIs will help you to review progress on a regular basis and make adjustments according to a similar timeframe. The simplest way to put measures in place is to use your financial projections as your KPAs and KPIs.