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Beef up your business strategy

TIME pressures often prevent business owners from paying enough attention to their business strategy, with detailed business planning in particular falling by the wayside, says Jannie Rossouw, head: Sanlam business market.

Sometimes it is simply a matter of “load and shoot, and then aim”.

Most of us are inclined to spend more time "in" and not sufficient time "on" our businesses. If this holds true for you, let it be a wake-up call to different insights and actions.

Keeping the business a going concern should be reason enough to make time in your diary to create a strategy for your enterprise, and to review this continuously. If you are too busy with other responsibilities, no one else will take up the slack of figuring out your strategy.

You need various and complementary skills and experience to draw up your business plan. There are two possibilities:

1. Involve  senior staff from the functional areas of your business:

  • Finances
  • Human resources
  • Production
  • Client services
  • Marketing
  • Sales

2. Or, if you are the sole owner, you could benefit from using the expertise and experience of an external team of experts as a sounding board. They may include:

  • Your accountant/bookkeeper;
  • Your attorney;
  • Your financial planner;
  • Your personal banker;
  • Your property adviser; and
  • A good friend or acquaintance with a successful business.

You do not necessarily have to pay them for the time they put at your disposal. Give them a small token of appreciation and offer to do the same for them. 

For me, a business strategy is the creation of ideas, the development of suggestions and the description and further analysis of a personal vision.

This will direct your business so that it will profit from trends, new developments and opportunities and stay in line with your vision for the future. 

A well-composed business strategy has the following benefits:

  • It helps management take better and more informed decisions.
  • It gives your business the competitive edge by focusing on what you are good at and specialise in.

 - Fin24


 
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