It’s important to have a strategy when you’re running a business. It’s easy to overlook the long term view when you’re making the short term, urgent decisions that keep your business going from day to day, but the truth is, there are no wholly short term decisions. Every move you make affects the future of your business, from the sort of customers you attract, to the suppliers you do business with to the culture you’re building in the office. A strategy allows you to consciously shape these things, instead of allowing them to form passively, potentially in ways that are in conflict with each other and with the idea of the business you want to be building.
If, for example your ideal for your business, is to bring a proof of concept tech product to the market and build up some buzz with the aim of being bought out by a bigger player, you need to work to a strategy that keeps you visible at the cutting edge, focussed on development and exciting technology. Allowing yourself to get distracted from that mission, even if there are short term gains to be had (by adding features that don’t play into the key purpose of the tech, for example) just mires you down and distances you from your goal.
Having made the case for writing a business strategy, do you need help from one of the consulting boutiques London has incubated and that provide tailored help to smaller firms to create yours?
Creating an effective business strategy that serves your needs in the long term is a complex affair. It requires lots of different kinds of insight in different areas: looking into the future of your industry specifically and identifying the trends you’ll likely need to follow to chase success; predicting the financial conditions affecting the next year, five years or ten years; and of course how your customers and rivals are likely to behave under these conditions.
It’s a stretch for any one person, especially for you when you have the day to day running of your business to keep in mind. Consultants supply exactly this specialist expertise and insight – it is the precise advantage of hiring consultants that they allow precision injections of skill sets it makes no sense for you to hire full time. But more than that, it’s possible to be too close to a problem. As the founder and owner, your business is an extension of your personality and self worth and it can be very valuable to have a trusted perspective with a little more clinical distance to help you identify what to cling to and what you can let go of without truly compromising your values.