Businesses that are successful over the long-term achieve their success by growing and operating strategically. Business owners and CEOs should have a plan (this is different than a budget) to achieve goals for their business. I help my clients identify goals for their business over short-term and long-term time periods. We then work out plans to achieve the goals.
Identifying these strategic goals is just the first step. It is also important to put into place an operational plan to achieve these goals. Competitors, business cycles and simply ‘life’ will present obstacles to sticking to the operational plan. However, when the business operates from a strategic plan, the business owner and CEO navigate around and past these obstacles. The plan helps redirect the business back to the ‘road map’ and strategic goals.
Operating strategically as opposed to being reactive to the tugs and distractions from competitors, business cycles and ‘life’ give the business owner and CEO a better chance to make productive and effective use of existing capital and personnel in their business. This is how businesses grow successfully and survive the ups and downs of business cycles.