Building a Resilient SME Business with Strategic Business Goals

Building a resilient SME business with strategic business goals is the key to your success. A client said to me recently “It’s a waste of time us setting 3 – 5 year goals because everything changes so rapidly around here. There are so many external influences that we might now be here in 3 years time.“

My response went something like: “Do you still want to be in business in 3 – 5 years? If not, I agree, we are wasting our time here. If you do, what do you need to do to ensure you are still here in 3 years time? What are the strategic business goals that will provide the direction to the business to navigate those external influences in order to thrive?“

What is a resilient business?

1. One that is sustainable.
2. In spite of changes in ownership and changes in leadership and other key staff.
3. A business where the value resides in the business itself and not only within the current owners and leadership team.
4. A business where knowledge is captured in a way that it can be transferred to others.
5. This means building a business where the Founder can walk away one day and the legacy and success of the business will continue.

The risk is that when these amazing highly thought after, trusted and loyal staff eventually leave to start their grey nomad adventures, their knowledge walks out of the door with them.  A resilient business has strategies in play to mitigate against this risk.

The road map is the strategic plan

As a founder or owner of the business do you:

• feel like a proverbial hamster on a wheel?
• feel like you’re stuck on the tools?
• feel like you’ve just bought yourself a job?
• know that you want to transition out of the business one day, but succession is far from your thoughts at the moment?
• admit to being a control freak, and/or
• frustrate your management team by constantly changing direction and jumping from one thing to the next?

Making time to work ON the business

If you want to:

• feel like you’re in control of where your business is heading, but
• without having to do all the work yourself.
• be surrounded by a management team that you trust and have confidence in their leadership capabilities.

And in doing so:

• see some real progress by kicking some business goals, knowing that
• everyone is pulling in the same direction

The Resilient Business Plan

I am not into a strategic planning process that involves being locked away for a couple of days with an expensive consultant who knows nothing about your business, to produce a 20-30 page strategic planning documents that gather dust until you do this all again in 3-5 years time.

I like strategic plans that are “living”, that evolve and flex as circumstances change and are operationalised within the business. That means that there is a mechanism to maintain strong alignment between all operational decisions and the strategic business goals.  As a result:

• the vision, business purpose and values are clearly articulated, widely communicated and become embedded in the modus operandi of the business
• a thriving and healthy workplace culture perpetuates
• the systems and processes that make the business hum are documented, facilitating knowledge transfer; and
• the leadership team are empowered and trusted to make decisions.