The brutal facts and reality around business success or failure are – businesses don’t succeed or fail on their own. They need help. Generally, this assistance comes from a solid or distracted leadership team, a strong vision or lack thereof. On the execution side, success or failure comes from a compelling strategy or corporate myopia. Business success is achieved by a group of competent minds whose synergies are committed to collectively seeing the same picture. These leaders are self-empowered by creativity, passion and who are energized by the potential for greatness. They have fun in the process, too.
Business failure or sluggish growth, on the downside of things – are born from a lack of organizational “buy-in.” People (your workforce), are often disconnected and their splintered views fragment the whole. Bottom line, some just don’t care. The question is, why don’t they care and how do you engage them to reach higher levels of commitment. Ever wonder what the panacea to business success is? How often have you heard of companies, private business owners, Governing Boards, and corporate leaders exclaim how much they care about their businesses, their customers, and – who typically express the desire to increase their revenue, stock price, market share, and profitability? While logical financial and strategic growth objectives, many well-intentioned organizations haven’t developed a proven blueprint for success to achieve these. Perhaps they may have over-intellectualized their economic models, patterns, and scorecards – but have not cracked the code to sustained business success. More often than not, they have not capitalized on the probability for multiple returns despite an “initiative of the day” focus on the latest management controls. That said, how does your organization serve its business model?
As we dive into the nuance and cornerstones to grow and sustain your business, let’s assess where you are…to strategically grow your business in any economy and compete, consider how you bench against a business-specific roadmap that might:
- Inspire organizational “buy-In” (through change, growth, integration or disruption)
- Increase efficiencies and lower costs
- Optimize market share and your “Brand”
- Enter emerging global markets (and, sustain them…)
- Ensure financial responsibility (models, systems, controls, etc.)
- Achieve systems and technological advantage
- Capitalize on talent energy, knowledge transfer, and performance
- Increase quality & customer satisfaction
- Accelerate investor returns
CREATING A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE
To improve quality, expansion, or performance – companies have many strategic and tactical options from which to select. The question is when to be either strategic vs. tactical. Most everyone likes to think of themselves as “strategic.” Some may first focus on a verticals integration strategy, growth through acquisition plan, offshoring, a business unit approach, and others on a matrix organization environment, etc. Yet, there are those whose first plan of action is to identify, develop and retain key talent, while optimizing training and sourcing pursuits – a top of mind practice that only some do well. And, to a lesser degree, still – there are those who don’t know how to tap into the stimulating and invigorating arena of “Disruptive Technologies” that only creativity and risk drive. By the same token, there are also some who simply haven’t quite kept up with the times to embrace and understand how to optimize “New Media,” or Social Media platforms. How would you answer the following…“What’s your digital footprint?”
“How effective is your brand in your market?” What’s the impact of your brand in the marketplace?
We’ll answer these questions and more in the next post. Stay tuned.
