Framework 71 Strategic Growth
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There are 8 steps in this process
1. Assess your readiness to grow
Key stakeholders like staff, need to answer the following questions
- What will our organisation look like in 5 years time?
- What is the purpose of your organisation?
- What are the competitive advantages of your organisation?
- What are your financial objectives for the next 1, 2 & 5years?
- What markets do you operate in?
- What is our customer value proposition for each market?
- What operating systems and processes must we excel at to deliver value to customers?
- What people and resources do you need to execute our strategic plan?
- What are our top 3 strategic growth initiatives?
- What are our key milestones for growth?
- Who will be responsible for driving business growth and achieving milestone events?
2. Where do you want to fit in?
This involves assessing your personal aspirations in relationship to the organisation
- What do you want from the organisation as a stakeholder?
- Does the organisation satisfy your career goals and expectations?
- Is the organisation enabling you to balance work, family and personal life?
- How important is the organisation to your retirement plans?
- Have you developed your succession and/or exit strategy?
- Is this a family business?
3. Identify your growth stage
Every stage of an organisational growth has its own unique challenges that require different management focus (see life-cycle approach or S-curve). The stages include starting up pain, growth, maturity, reinventing or declining
4. Plan for growth (diagnose, plan, implementation & hold accountable)
This requires
a) diagnosis
- assessing current business performance
b) plan
- defining vision and values and purpose
- developing 1, 2 and 5 year strategic plan for growth
- evaluating opportunities and threats
- identifying strengths and weaknesses
- developing action plan ( identify quarterly initiatives, allocate resources, allocate responsibilities, set timeframes, agree on performance expectations, etc)
c) implementation
- implement and execute the growth plan
d) hold accountable
- monitor results & review performance
5. Develop strategies to improve financial position (increasing stakeholder value by productivity and/or revenue strategy)
Some questions
- How will the business generate financial returns?
- What are the key productivity improvements or revenue improvement initiatives?
Some revenue-generating initiatives
- develop new markets
- increase market share
- protect market share
- sell new products
- sell existing products
- increase profitability of existing customers
Some productivity improvement initiatives
- improve cost structure
- produce cash expenses
- eliminate defects
- improve yields
- continuous improvement
- quality management
6. Develop your customer value proposition (to increase revenue, the organisation must create value for customers with a combination of products, services, price, quality, relationship and brand image)
Some questions
- How does your organisation make money?
- How is your organisation viewed by your customers?
- What do customers buy from your organisation?
- What is the value proposition for your organisation?
Some examples of customer value proposition
- price leadership (mixing attractive prices with consistent quality; make it easier for customers to buy)
- product leadership (producing highly desirable, high performance products/services; use constant innovation and continuous improvement)
- complete solutions (delivering a broad range of tailored, high quality solutions; service excellence)
7. Streamline systems and processes (use continuous improvement as the key to streamlining systems and processes that will result in a competitive advantage to support growth)
Some questions
- What systems and processes do you need to excel at to deliver your customers' value proposition?
- How can you streamline your systems and processes to reduce costs?
Systems and processes include supplier and inbound logistics, production facilities, warehousing and distribution, marketing, product/service delivery
8. Execute your growth plan (your staff's ability to execute the organisation's plan)
Some questions
- Are your staff prepared and able to execute your organisation's growth plan?
- What skills, experience and values do your staff need to operate your systems and processes?
- Has the growth plan being effectively communicated to your staff?
- Do the staff understand how their jobs fit in the growth plan?
- Do the staff have the experience and skill required to perform their jobs effectively?
- Do the staff have the capacity and time to perform the task required of them?
- Do the staff have the values, attitudes and behaviours to perform their job effectively
- Do your staff know what they are accountable for and how their performance will be measured?
(source: BDO, 2016)