Discussion
I was being a bit smart alecky 
. For me, the situation is not too bad - although matters may get worse over the next year or so. Accountants usually feel the pinch a few years AFTER other businesses.
For many businesses, I would suggest that "survival" is their main concern at the moment.
. For me, the situation is not too bad - although matters may get worse over the next year or so. Accountants usually feel the pinch a few years AFTER other businesses.For many businesses, I would suggest that "survival" is their main concern at the moment.
This topic would benefit from a little more detail.
e.g.
Are you a sole trade in an area trying to start up and keep your head above water?
Or have you been trading a while and are looking to increase volume?Net Rev? Profit?
Are you aiming to be the best service provider in the long term or make quick money
Happy to try and help but I work for a large CPG company so might not have expertise in this area
T-J-K
e.g.
Are you a sole trade in an area trying to start up and keep your head above water?
Or have you been trading a while and are looking to increase volume?Net Rev? Profit?
Are you aiming to be the best service provider in the long term or make quick money
Happy to try and help but I work for a large CPG company so might not have expertise in this area
T-J-K
Many SME's have no real mission/objectives in place, and tend to just react to circumstances on a day to day basis.
It's normally a wise business practice to identify your objectives from the get go, and use a strategy for achievement.
Strategy and planning is quite a big topic and should consider the macro and micro elements of the business, STEEP factors, your competition etc, and should allow contingencies for when (not if!) things go wobbly.
Safe to say that without an effective strategy the chances of success are limited.
Good luck
It's normally a wise business practice to identify your objectives from the get go, and use a strategy for achievement.
Strategy and planning is quite a big topic and should consider the macro and micro elements of the business, STEEP factors, your competition etc, and should allow contingencies for when (not if!) things go wobbly.
Safe to say that without an effective strategy the chances of success are limited.
Good luck
The jiffle king said:
This topic would benefit from a little more detail.
e.g.
Are you a sole trade in an area trying to start up and keep your head above water?
Or have you been trading a while and are looking to increase volume?Net Rev? Profit?
Are you aiming to be the best service provider in the long term or make quick money
Happy to try and help but I work for a large CPG company so might not have expertise in this area
T-J-K
I left it vague to try and have it as a general discussion, rather than a Q&A help session.e.g.
Are you a sole trade in an area trying to start up and keep your head above water?
Or have you been trading a while and are looking to increase volume?Net Rev? Profit?
Are you aiming to be the best service provider in the long term or make quick money
Happy to try and help but I work for a large CPG company so might not have expertise in this area
T-J-K
TDIPLC said:
Many SME's have no real mission/objectives in place, and tend to just react to circumstances on a day to day basis.
This is essentially my issue (although not my problem). I'm an employee in an SME which has no real mission or objective (and the objectives that are documented are either vague or undermined by Director's actions). The majority of the management team are great at the functional and management aspects of their jobs but are not 'strategically minded' either.Stevenj214 said:
TDIPLC said:
Many SME's have no real mission/objectives in place, and tend to just react to circumstances on a day to day basis.
This is essentially my issue (although not my problem). I'm an employee in an SME which has no real mission or objective (and the objectives that are documented are either vague or undermined by Director's actions). The majority of the management team are great at the functional and management aspects of their jobs but are not 'strategically minded' either.Stevenj214 said:
For business owners/those responsible for strategy within your business/department:
Does your business have a defined strategy? What is it in general terms? What changes have been made to achieve the strategy? Have they been successful?
I have worked as a consultant in the SME area, and the number of companies I have met without a strategy is monumentally huge! In the last place I doubled their profits within an year of introducing a new strategy with long term growth, the company now has focus and is doing rather well! Changes to achieve strategy vary from the business model to existing management philosophy. I normally study the company thoroughly, see how the tactical management works and then look at a lot of other factors before planning out a strategic management plan. Really hard work! If you want to hire my services you will get a PH discount Does your business have a defined strategy? What is it in general terms? What changes have been made to achieve the strategy? Have they been successful?
he he Apart from these you will need top level management commitment for the plan to work 
We have some sort of stategy worked out. Bassicly at the moment we are the cheapest out there as most other companies (we work in IT recycling) will not take computers if they are not working, and certainly will not pay for them, even if they are working...citing the fact that a school or hospital would have to pay to have these scraped (we specialise in bulk pick-ups from places like these)
We manage to pick up everything electrical, working or not, for free, and will even PAY for computers that work (albeit only a small fee, but better than the £0 that other companies offer) We do all this whilst still managing to give away all out CRT monitors to charitys such as Computers for Africa. (in the UK CRT monitors are worth about £2-£3 in the condition we get them, they are invaluable however to these charitys)
Our strategy is to keep looking for different ways of doing things to make sure we are the ones that everyone recomends, we are a new start-up (last year) yet are already making a modest profit. We came in as the new guys yet already by looking at the way our competition did business and working out the niggles that stopped them picking up broken computers without requiring payment, was what made us stand out. The only problem we face now is convicing new clients that we ARE for real and are not just "Here today, Gone tommorow" men with a van.
We tend to just analyse everything, break it all down to work out why the competitor did not do it, then come up with an innovative way of breaking down that problem and eliminating it.
Whilst I would love to go into more detail about how...that would obviously be giving away too much information
We manage to pick up everything electrical, working or not, for free, and will even PAY for computers that work (albeit only a small fee, but better than the £0 that other companies offer) We do all this whilst still managing to give away all out CRT monitors to charitys such as Computers for Africa. (in the UK CRT monitors are worth about £2-£3 in the condition we get them, they are invaluable however to these charitys)
Our strategy is to keep looking for different ways of doing things to make sure we are the ones that everyone recomends, we are a new start-up (last year) yet are already making a modest profit. We came in as the new guys yet already by looking at the way our competition did business and working out the niggles that stopped them picking up broken computers without requiring payment, was what made us stand out. The only problem we face now is convicing new clients that we ARE for real and are not just "Here today, Gone tommorow" men with a van.
We tend to just analyse everything, break it all down to work out why the competitor did not do it, then come up with an innovative way of breaking down that problem and eliminating it.
Whilst I would love to go into more detail about how...that would obviously be giving away too much information
I have worked for organisations where we have had to have strategies in place to meet audit requirements.
These have been "extensive" documents to meet audit requirements......
I have also seen strategies that have been two pages long with goals and actions plans. These are quite succinct, but fail because there is no project plan for each action plan an no one in the management team overseeing the projects.
My area of expertise is in mapping business objectives to IT directions (strategies and plans) and bluntly if you don't map your business strategy out you will lurch from one issue to the next. Whatever you spend on your overheads (whether it be IT or office space) may not be effectively used and wasted.
So a strategy is irrelevant when you don’t manage the action plan and if you don’t review at key times the strategy is still relevant to your business ( i.e. the credit crunch event)
Hth
Dean
These have been "extensive" documents to meet audit requirements......
I have also seen strategies that have been two pages long with goals and actions plans. These are quite succinct, but fail because there is no project plan for each action plan an no one in the management team overseeing the projects.
My area of expertise is in mapping business objectives to IT directions (strategies and plans) and bluntly if you don't map your business strategy out you will lurch from one issue to the next. Whatever you spend on your overheads (whether it be IT or office space) may not be effectively used and wasted.
So a strategy is irrelevant when you don’t manage the action plan and if you don’t review at key times the strategy is still relevant to your business ( i.e. the credit crunch event)
Hth
Dean
Stevenj214 said:
For business owners/those responsible for strategy within your business/department:
Does your business have a defined strategy? What is it in general terms? What changes have been made to achieve the strategy? Have they been successful?
Strategy exists in all business, granted not all formally or written, but someone in the business has the notion of why the business is there and why it does what it does. Vision and mission.Does your business have a defined strategy? What is it in general terms? What changes have been made to achieve the strategy? Have they been successful?
Strategic objectives are developed to close the gap between the actual and the vision. Strategic objectives are then deployed throughout the business to align everyone towards the company vision.
Theory over, now for the practice, the directors / senior management set the vision, mission and values. This is actually the difficult stage of getting executives into the same room for a couple of days and get them to do what they are actually paid to do, set the direction of the business for the medium term, 3-5 years and short term, 1 year.
Once the business key performance indicators are agreed, they can then be cascaded down to department and then cascaded further down to the individual. This is achieved by holding several "action" meetings. Where the KPI is broken down to department / individual level and then reported back up from the individual to the department to the company. For example, the company has its monthly management meeting at the end of the first week in the month reporting on the KPIs from the previous month. Prior to the management meeting there is a departmental meeting to discuss performance and track corrective actions. Prior to this there is an weekly individuals meeting.
To clarify this a little. The company KPI is net profit. The departments will split profits into sales turnover and costs. The individual on the shop floor can then break the cost down into O.E.E. Action is then taken at each level of the business to solve the problems and meet the targets to achieve the strategic objectives.
The strategic objective cascade is the basis for the performance management system, ensuring everyone is aligned, defining training objectives where required and recognising and rewarding achievement.
Stevenj214 if your company are not already actively engaged in strategy development and deployment then there are going to be changes to the business to make it happen.
If you want to go into specifics pm me.
We have a fairly defined long term strategy which we are following quite well. We have built in a reasonable level of flexibilty to allow us to change the way we ge there within certain boundries however the goals are pretty solid (exit and ££).
Our issue is keeping on track and measuring it, this is now a lot better as we've put better reporting in and shrunk the top team a little.
D
Our issue is keeping on track and measuring it, this is now a lot better as we've put better reporting in and shrunk the top team a little.
D
I was interested to see how this topic would pan out and I'd concur with the other sentiments. Over the past twenty years plus that I've been a Management Consultant I have seen little to no evidence of formal business management in the majority of the SME's that I have been involved with, in fact I'd go so far as to say that the term is not even understood.
The majority of business' do not have a formal documented business plan and if you question the logic as to why not, invariably the answer comes back to a variant of "we know what we're doing/ my belly tells me whats going on/I know this industry inside out lad"- To survive is not a strategy it's a knee jerk.
The picture is totally different in the larger organisations with formal strategies and KPI's in place.
It's interesting isn't it to hear Hairy Cornflake outlining how it should be done
and DavidD implementing it and having the success as a result.
My view is that the SME has neither the willingness nor the financial capacity to adopt and implement a formal methodology and yet the cost in not doing so is potentially huge in lost opportunity.
My thoughts as to the reasons why are due to a culture of short termism (poor grammar i know) and
that perhaps comes from the financial institutions and their own agenda of day buck profits. Branson pulled back from the market for exactly this reason and Warren Buffet's view of long term investment and strategy ( farming as he calls it) must be the luminary antidote.
I think there is also validity in the fact that a smaller business doesnt need a weighty tome business plan but rather something more lightweight that allows them to react quicker to the market; we call this a "TOP" - a Three Year Operating Plan; heavy in detail in the current year, objectives in the second and srategic in the third.
Wherever we've delivered this, the results have been outstanding; check out our website or drop me a line if you'd like some guidance, always glad to help.
The majority of business' do not have a formal documented business plan and if you question the logic as to why not, invariably the answer comes back to a variant of "we know what we're doing/ my belly tells me whats going on/I know this industry inside out lad"- To survive is not a strategy it's a knee jerk.
The picture is totally different in the larger organisations with formal strategies and KPI's in place.
It's interesting isn't it to hear Hairy Cornflake outlining how it should be done
and DavidD implementing it and having the success as a result.My view is that the SME has neither the willingness nor the financial capacity to adopt and implement a formal methodology and yet the cost in not doing so is potentially huge in lost opportunity.
My thoughts as to the reasons why are due to a culture of short termism (poor grammar i know) and
that perhaps comes from the financial institutions and their own agenda of day buck profits. Branson pulled back from the market for exactly this reason and Warren Buffet's view of long term investment and strategy ( farming as he calls it) must be the luminary antidote.
I think there is also validity in the fact that a smaller business doesnt need a weighty tome business plan but rather something more lightweight that allows them to react quicker to the market; we call this a "TOP" - a Three Year Operating Plan; heavy in detail in the current year, objectives in the second and srategic in the third.
Wherever we've delivered this, the results have been outstanding; check out our website or drop me a line if you'd like some guidance, always glad to help.
Hairy Cornflake said:
Stevenj214 said:
For business owners/those responsible for strategy within your business/department:
Does your business have a defined strategy? What is it in general terms? What changes have been made to achieve the strategy? Have they been successful?
Strategy exists in all business, granted not all formally or written, but someone in the business has the notion of why the business is there and why it does what it does. Vision and mission.Does your business have a defined strategy? What is it in general terms? What changes have been made to achieve the strategy? Have they been successful?
The company has been in business for over 70 years, yet only turns over £3.8million. Its traditional main competitor was in a similar position around 6 years ago, but now turns over £15million. A new competitor appeared on the scene 3 or 4 years ago and reportedly already has a larger turnover. (N.B. I'm aware that turnover isn't always the best benchmark, but the figures illustrate my point).
It frustrates me that the business seems to have so much more potential, but I have limited influence over it!
Edited by Stevenj214 on Monday 1st March 13:43
whj said:
Type 'PORTER five forces' and PEST analysis" into google or WIKI, it should give you a starting point on how to idnetify a strategy as well as a roadmap to achieving it.
If that was for me, thank you but I'm fairly well versed in basic strategy theory. I understand it, it makes sense and the various stories above show that it works.What I can't get my head around is why my company doesn't seem to consider it important on the face of things!
Carsie said:
It's interesting isn't it to hear Hairy Cornflake outlining how it should be done and DavidD implementing it and having the success as a result.
Definitely, very interesting to read. They more or less go along the lines of my thinking and Hairy Cornflake describes it very well. and DavidD implementing it and having the success as a result.As I mentioned, being a relatively new graduate, my influence on the directors is somewhat limited (although I do try to push a strategic view on things wherever possible).
For the SMEs you engage with, how many of them are receptive to you when you start pushing on the (lack of) strategy? SME Strategy Consulting is an area I would be very interested in, in the future.
I wouldn't want to tar everyone with the same brush Steven but the bottom line is that "generally speaking" there is always the interest and the acknowledgement that it should be done but when you start talking in terms of Consultancy days ££££ then interest rapidly withers no matter which cost/benefit way you present - or maybe I've just failed in my presentations lol!
The ones that do pick up the mantle are the ones that I want to work with anyway because thats what my business is about.
I like dealing with bright people, people who challenge me as well because thats a win win with a Client.
Years ago I did an MBA at Warwick and it took me a long time to wind down from strategy talk into practicalities - I got my head shot off a few times for being a know-it-all (....ahh such youth!)
I don't think that the SME provides a rich market to operate as a Strategic Consultant for all of the reasons we've talked about - I'd go a banking route or accountancy firm and then deliver your knowledge through that discipline.
The ones that do pick up the mantle are the ones that I want to work with anyway because thats what my business is about.
I like dealing with bright people, people who challenge me as well because thats a win win with a Client.
Years ago I did an MBA at Warwick and it took me a long time to wind down from strategy talk into practicalities - I got my head shot off a few times for being a know-it-all (....ahh such youth!
)I don't think that the SME provides a rich market to operate as a Strategic Consultant for all of the reasons we've talked about - I'd go a banking route or accountancy firm and then deliver your knowledge through that discipline.
Edited by Carsie on Monday 1st March 14:20
Stevenj214 said:
For the SMEs you engage with, how many of them are receptive to you when you start pushing on the (lack of) strategy? SME Strategy Consulting is an area I would be very interested in, in the future.
As a Director of a management consultancy, all of the SMEs or indeed multinationals that I deal with, must be committed to the business process management program that I develop for them, if there is not full commitment then I will walk away. The business pays a great deal of money for the contracted service, but can expect a good return on investment and so commitment to change is not a problem.What you have to consider, is business owners can hold position because of they are entrepreneurs have an invention, found a niche, or because of family, not necessarily because they have the skills or experience to run their business.
If you want to get into consulting, do not limit yourself just to strategy consulting, think about the whole business process. Go to business school graduate with an M.B.A. Specialise in what you want. Plan you consulting future. Research companies that match the experiences you require, try to get employment with them. With seven to ten years experience you will be in a good position to be a management consultant.
Edited by Hairy Cornflake on Monday 1st March 20:12
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