Strategy 101 small biz saturday - november 2015
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Strategy 101 Matt Spry Small Business Growth Workshop Grand Pier, Weston-Super-Mare November 2015
Transcript of Strategy 101 small biz saturday - november 2015
Strategy 101Matt Spry
Small Business Growth Workshop Grand Pier, Weston-Super-Mare
November 2015
Introduction
The business plan may be dying… …but business planning has never been more important
Strategy gets you from intent to action
Three key ideas underpin strategy
1. choice
2. increasing the odds
3. combining rigour and creativity
What is strategy?
The answer to five integrated questions: - what is winning? - where will we play? - how will we win? - what must we excel at? - how do we know if we are winning?
Case study 1 - the artisan brand
Case study 2 - the service sector giant
What is winning?Sets a frame for succeeding with customers
and against the competition
Articulate success in a specific way…
…achieving the leading market share
…highest customer satisfaction rate
…NOT general aims like being the leading
brand
The winning aspiration
Playing to win
1.Start with people rather than money
- what does it mean to win with your customers?
- what do they care about?
2.Has a competitive dimension
- Who/what are you winning against?
Playing to play
1.Doesn’t consider what winning is, just focuses on serving a customer segment
- reactive
- broad, unspecific aims
2.Is focused on an internal metric
- e.g. we’ll grow revenue by 10%
What is winning?
“to get Cardigan making jeans again” - creating 400 local jobs
Becoming the UK’s largest provider of
facilities management services
Where will we play?
This can be narrow or broad:
- customers
- channels
- product or service type
- geography
…note we are also choosing where not to play
Choose the customers who matter most to you
Where will we play?
Predominantly online Carefully selected stores Creatives, entrepreneurs,
makers Those willing to pay more for quality and attracted by product
story
UK market Large private and
public sector organisations
Long-tail of smaller customers
How will we win?How we will win in our chosen playing field? How will we create value distinct from the competition?
Two sources of competitive advantage:
• low cost - lower cost structure than rivals drive higher profits or greater impact
• differentiation - price premium earned as products, services or impact perceived to be of higher value
This choice drives different behaviours
How will we win?
Differentiation strategy Use story, jean quality, lifetime repairs, history tag, #hiutradio Part of the ‘makers movement’
“Do one thing well” message reinforces focus on their core
product
Lowest-cost strategy Self-deliver services
Aggressive bid pricing National coverage
minimises the marginal
cost of new work - margin
What must we excel at?
Of all the things your company must do, what must you excel at to win in the market you have chosen?
Likely to be a complementary and reinforcing set of capabilities…
What must we excel at?
Product design Production quality Material sourcing
Content generation Community building
Cost estimation Bidding/tendering
Contract mgt Resource scheduling
Job tracking Compliance
How do we know if we are winning?
These are the rules, systems and processes
that tell you whether your strategy is
working
Link to performance measurement, KPIS etc
How do we know if we are winning?
Budgeting and cashflow management Effective CRM
Stock management Community engagement
stats
Financial reporting - PLC Pipeline and bid mgt
Job capture and tracking Compliance mgt
Performance
measurement Employee engagement
What next?
Ask yourself the five questions Cascade your strategy Measure what matters Revisit five questions regularly - agile Challenge assumptions - learn
