Business Planning

Business planning often gets a bad press.  Yet those who do sit down and plan their business are so much more focused, confident, and successful than those who float along with the economic tide. Successful leaders plan their business, so they can focus on leading their team to deliver their plan. Over the past ten years as a strategic planner we’ve worked with hundreds of business owners and seen how those that create a plan and implement it. Those that plan their business do so much better than those owners who try aimlessly lead their business on a wing, a prayer or a dream.  Successful leader’s plan their business, so that everyone knows where they are going what their role is in achieving that success. According the latest BERR report, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME’s) together accounted for 99.9 per cent of all enterprises, 59.8 per cent of private sector employment and 49.0 per cent of private sector turnover. SME’s really do matter to the British economy, and yet they receive little effective support from Government agencies despite being the backbone of the economy, employment, and innovation.

Why Business Leader’s Don’t Plan

“If you don’t make things happen, things will happen to you” Lanes Company Having questioned business owners over the last decade the reasons why owners have not put a plan in place and then executed it, the excuses range from not having the skills, make the time, or have the conviction of their thoughts. Owners know they should have a plan ‘we had one when we first started, but have not looked at it since’ is a common theme. The other is being too busy fire fighting to realise that preventing fires starting, is the best way to not have to fight them. Do business owners not see the value in developing a plan for their business? On the other hand, is the classic perception for business owners that frenetically staying alive is seen as being successful? For many not knowing how to plan is one major reason why people haven’t and don’t plan their business.  Where to start, and how to know what they are trying to achieve immediately puts people of planning.

Faults in Business Planning

Business planning is also often at fault here.  The most common reason new start up businesses create a business plan is to secure funding from banks, that’s when banks did fund business start-ups (now they just offer a high interest mortgage backed by the Government). Therefore, once people have received funding they no longer see the main advantages of planning (and the real advantages are not around money).

Business Planning Skills – Have some GOALS

“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.” – Lee Iacocca Planning takes time, resources, (grey stuff) not the executive trip to some exotic away weekend planning, but some time allocated to review where you are as a business, how your sector and industry are performing and what you want to achieve in the future. Whether it is looking at the next year or planning the next five years, everyone who owns or directs a business is responsible for setting its direction. However, just having a plan in your head, with the classic defence of ‘its flexible at the moment’ is either ducking the responsibility or deluding themselves. The only way to have a plan rather than a dream is to have it written down, turned (if it is not already) into an action plan which is resourced and owned by someone to deliver. Only then do businesses go forward in a deliberate purposeful way. Only then do the right things happen because you made them happen and only then can everyone, employees, shareholders, customers, channel partners and even other halves, see your dream, share your dream, deliver your dream. That’s when planning works. It is a written document, which lives within your company, and it doesn’t matter if you are a one-man (woman) band or running a multi-national Plc.

What Business Planning Delivers

A clear business plan is the result of a process. It starts with thinking, then writing it down. That commitment itself is a sense-check, it creates a reality and makes the writer accountable for their thoughts. By writing down your business plan a leader takes a dream and begins to make it a reality. Others can see, critically evaluate, and judge the business idea and review the opportunity the plan intends to address. By doing this a business idea is viewed in the round, looking not only at the idea, but the actuality of what needs ot happen across all busienss area functions to turn the idea into reality.

“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.” – Robert Heinlein

Planning provides focus in strategic direction.  It provides clarity of where the business is and where it is going as well as a vehicle for getting from where you are to where you want to be. Planning time out of the business provides time to reflect on personal and corporate goals, time to share and channel new ideas while reviewing existing activities. Planning in a structured and open format develops clarity of purpose and a clear understanding of the organisational and individual skills people have and can use to leverage advantage. Bringing in outside views widens the planning horizon, a fresh perspective to drive businesses forward. This is why many successful businesses use non-executive directors or outside specialists to help drive their business forward. That is one reason why so many people volunteer to get support from people like the Dragons from Dragon’s Den, they are looking for expertise and advice which gives them confidence to go forward as much as the money.

Plan More For Success

British business owners need to plan more often to keep being successful. Good planning creates and sees opportunities as owners and directors lift their heads up from the daily grindstone. How often should you plan? Well it all depends on the speed of your market’s evolution, but even stable and stagnant businesses should review their business every year, and not just a light dusting (add ten percent and change the year) but strategically review what and how well they are doing. It is only by looking for fresh opportunities and how to take best advantage of them, by planning your business around those opportunities, that companies successfully compete in today’s business environment.

Business Planning is not a four letter word

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage” Jack Welch

The old adage, compete or get beat, is more relevant today than it has ever been. The rise of the Internet means there are no secrets, competitive advantage lies with those who can see an opportunity and adapt fastest to take advantage of it. Those owners and directors who see and go for opportunities become the stronger ones.  That is where good strategic business planning provides it real advantage. That’s why successful leaders plan their business to achieve that success. By orientating a company to where it can retain better, win new and develop existing customers companies that plan their success out compete in their sector, and equally importantly have everyone focused on where they are going. From the smallest to the biggest every business needs to have a plan that is written down, owned and guiding your business in the direction you want it to go. Good Luck

Richard Gourlay

@richardgourlay www.cowdenconsulting.com