Any organisation’s commercial strategy should be about one thing – which is to help your customers … exceed their expectations.
It’s about having the right business strategy and knowing everything that your organisation needs in order to successfully develop and expand the business.
Fundamentally, if you have products or services to take to market, it’s about focusing on three specific areas:
Customers – Who are they, where are they, what market sector are they in, how will you find them, what’s the size of the market, what’s the realistic potential?
- What will your marketing strategy be, what methods will you use, what would this cost, how long will this all take to implement?
- What sales strategy will you utilise – direct, indirect, online, channel, outsource… or a combination?
- What about any customers you may already have! How do you intend to retain them – both now and in the future?
- What new or updated products and/or services do you have that your customers could, would or should be interested in? In other words – just how well do you know your customers.. both those you already have and the ones you haven’t got yet?
- Competition – Who are your likely competitors, where are they, how big are they, what solution do they have, who are their customers, how do they do their marketing & selling, how are you going to compete?
- Are you in a niche market sector that could be better exploited?
- How can you differentiate yourself from the competition?
- What will make you stand out and what are your USP’s?
- Are you continually losing out to key competitors – and if so, why?
- Organisation – What is your infrastructure like.. who is going to implement your overall business strategy?
- Do you have the wherewithal internally to achieve your stated goals and objectives?
- Who within your organisation is going to do the..
- development, marketing, selling, deployment and implementation?
- Is your structure right to allow you to compete effectively, or do you need to look at any sort of re-structure – even if in part?
- Do you have all the right people you need, with the right skill sets, in the right place and at the right time – to undertake your overall business strategy?
- If not, what are you going to do about it?
- Will you need to expand and recruit people, or downsize and lose people?
- Will you need to re-structure any internal teams?
- Will you need to re-locate people?
- What training requirements will you need?
- How are you currently or planning to support your customers?
- Or… are you going to have to work with a third party (who has got the resources / skills / services / time you need)… to help you deliver your strategy and achieve your objectives?
- If you have to make changes – how long will this take to put in place?
The above is just to provide a ‘flavour’ for the moment of what’s ultimately involved in developing a successful business strategy for your organisation.
To be successful means ensuring that you have done all your research and due-diligence across your projected marketplace, your likely competitors and (last but not least) your own organisation.
Any strategy has to start with your own organisation actually realising the issues that you face – before then assessing whether you are then in a position to tackle and resolve them.
- Do you have the wherewithal internally to achieve your ultimate goals and objectives?
- Do you need a complete re-organisation internally, or perhaps just a part re-structure?
- Have you allowed yourself enough time for this?
- Do you have the right resources, with the right skills, to undertake this?
These are all fundamental questions that you need to ask yourself as part of the overall preparation if you truly are to succeed.