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Tag: business plan

The Ultimate Guide To Strategic Planning

by lauramills
The Ultimate Guide To Strategic Planning

The Importance of Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning is the key to the success of any business, no matter its size or age. The strategic plan sets out:

  • the company’s direction and priorities;
  • its main operating and financial targets,
  • the actions it will take to achieve those objectives,
  • the new initiatives and investments planned, and
  • their impact on performance.

As we swiftly approach the end of 2023, now is a great time for reflection. What were your objectives for this year? Are you on the way to achieving them, or have other things got in the way?

Some SME owners keep plans in their head, but a formal plan is an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business, as it: 

  • clearly communicates the company’s priorities
  • ensures all key staff are working towards common goals
  • sets the focus on key objectives
  • delegates actions and accountabilities amongst employees
  • ensures that decisions made will benefit the long-term company goals
  • highlights strengths and weaknesses.
Failing to plan is like planning to fail

Not spending quality time on strategic planning usually leads to a chaotic working environment. Our clients often talk about ‘not feeling in control’ and ‘not really knowing what is coming around the next corner’. When the plan is weak, business owners tend to operate without the same sense of conviction as those who allocate time and expertise to the planning process. Our CFOs often find that their clients have done some good planning and strategic thinking but need a devil’s advocate to ask the right questions and help to steer the ship in the right direction.

4 Mistakes Business Owners Can Make

  1. They don’t have a plan at all
  2. They don’t have a formal plan, it’s in their head which is difficult to share with others
  3. They don’t have an implementation timetable attached to their plan
  4. They don’t have a mechanism in place to conduct regular reviews

Without a comprehensive, up-to-date strategic plan and an implementation timetable, companies may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realising their full potential. A formal plan can be an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business, as it allows a company to recognise its strengths and weaknesses. 

The Importance of Reviewing Your Plan 

Strategic Planning is integral to business success, however a plan is only useful if it is reviewed regularly to ensure it meets the current and future needs of the business.  It’s vital business owners regularly review their financial strategy to ensure they have the right funding in place to meet the needs of their business, at its current stage of the business lifecycle. 

Most CEOs simply don’t have the time to spend on quality strategic thinking and to document and communicate that thinking in a way which allows the whole business to buy into the vision. Harder still is managing and implementing the business plan. Significant strategic course corrections are commonplace in fast-growing companies. These should therefore, be embraced. The tricky part though is in managing regular change. That requires a combination of time and specialist knowledge. 

There is an art and science to effective strategic planning. Getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to a business – this is where an experienced part-time CFO can make a significant contribution. 

Creating Your Plan

Step 1: Analysis

1.  Analysis of Existing Situation – Organisational Philosophy & Mission & Value

  • Does it reflect what you stand for?
  • Do your people understand its true meaning?
  • Does it make it clear as to how you have to compete and against whom?
  • Is it simply written? Is it clear and unambiguous?  Is it believable and realistic?
  • Does it motivate people? Does it attract pride or cynicism?
  • Does it give us some indication of what we should be doing and how we should be doing it?
  • Do all the constituent parts fit and hang together?
  • “Identity Pyramid” – do you have clarity around all the issues?

2. Internal Appraisal of Company
  • SWOT analysis – revisit previous analysis & ensure it is complete & current
  • Distinguish between endowments and core competencies
  • Assess and audit core capabilities.
  • Gauge fit between external environment and core capabilities
  • Identify fit between customer requirements and core capabilities

Having identified what you perceive to be your competences ask yourself the following questions:

  • Will this give us any source of long term sustainable competitive advantage? Clarify the how? (ie. how relevant is it to the needs of our customers (actual and potential)).
  • Do customers (broadly) agree with our findings (ie. the market place)?
  • Can competitors (present/future) emulate or do better? Do they share our perception?
  • How was this list of core competences arrived at (eg. Training, innovation etc)?
  • Any weaknesses/shortfall still? If so, what further investments will be required?
  • Is there any impact on the strategic balance sheet (ie. Intangible and human assets)?
  • Can it be levered, onto other applications and/or markets?
  • What happens next?
3. Competitive Analysis
  • What is the current process for this task?
  • The Positioning Statement (competitive positioning) – refer below
  • Scan present competitive position but focus also on future competition.
  • Do you really know your competitors strategy?
  • Understand changing face of competition
  • Who could be a future competitor?
  • Is your strategy and your competitors becoming more alike or more divergent?
  • What is the most radical thing that your competitor(s) could do?

4.Value Proposition
  • Consider or revisit the current Unique Sales Proposition within your Marketing plan & ensure it is complete and up-to-date.
  • Do you know why your customers buy from you and not you competitor(s)?
  • Have you asked them?
  • How can you improve customer experience?
5. Environmental & Industry Analysis
  • Consider legal, social, political, economic, technological, markets, labour position, society, pressure groups, and any other environmental issue.
  • Assess potential impact of any change(s) and consider timing implications.
  • Conduct intensive industry analysis.
  • What is the long-term viability of the industry as a whole?
  • What could change the industry dynamics?
  • What is the nature of current industry changes i.e. radical, creative, intermediate or progressive?
  • What could be the impact on your strategy and source of competitive advantage of such changes?
  • Five years or so from now how will the industry leaders look and act?

Step 2: Strategic Thinking

1. Identify Strategic Alternatives

  • All options to be examined – growth, acquisitions, alliances, JV’s, innovation.
  • Upside and downside risks identified

2. Strategy Evaluation & Selection

  • Clear choice to be made
  • How will we compete?
  • Evaluate impact of each option
  • Will it give unique competitive advantage?
  • Can it last? Can it be sustained?
  • Will it differentiate us from our competitors?
  • Can it be converted easily into a set of business objectives / KPI’s?
  • How will competitors react?
  • Easy to implement?
  • Contingencies in place?
  • What about the next wave?
  • Is it consistent with customer requirements and industry changes?
  • Will it create shareholder value?
  • Is it financially viable?

Step 3: Implementation

1. Matching Strategy & Organisational Structure 

  • Do we have the necessary resources?
  • Is there a logical fit?
  • Is current structure adequate? Assess extent of change. Do not ignore culture effect.
  • What about the organisation’s values?
  • Is strategy personalised enough? Assess flexibility and robustness.

2. Allocation of Resources & Responsibilities

  • Planning, Plans, budgets, controls, appraisals etc….. all to be consistent with strategy
  • Strategy well translated into clear objectives
  • Priorities and constraints identified
  • Time horizons clearly laid out
  • Management information systems to dovetail strategic choice

3. Regular Reviews & Adjustments

  • Planning, plans, budgets, controls, appraisals etc…all to be consistent with strategy

Strategic Planning – How a CFO Will Guide You

Under The Spotlight – The CFO as a Strategist

Photo by Rohan Makhecha on Unsplash

22 Ways a CFO Can Help You Create A Winning Strategic Plan

by lauramills
22 Ways a CFO Can Help You Create A Winning Strategic Plan

Creating a well thought-through, comprehensive strategic plan is an arduous task. However, it is fundamental to businesses of any size.  It can increase your profits, increase your chance of success, help tackle challenges that arise and assist in securing funding as and when required.

Thinking through objectives and likely outcomes which may occur many years down the line is, by nature, challenging. But it is the hard work up front which makes for lighter work down the road as well as a better chance of profits and reaching your goals.

Creating a solid plan

An experienced CFO (Chief Financial Officer), in particular, our part-time/as needed CFOs, can make a significant contribution.

Our CFOs often find their clients have done some good planning and strategic thinking but need a devil’s advocate to ask the right questions and help to steer the ship in the right direction. Being a CEO without a high level ‘finance person’ to bounce ideas off can be tough. CFOs often possess a different albeit complementary set of skills to CEOs.

We highly recommend you take the time out to work through the detail of your business plan. It is rare to see a company succeed if it doesn’t have a robust plan.

The CFO Centre will provide you with a highly experienced senior CFO with ‘big business experience’ for a fraction of the cost of a full-time CFO. Your CFO will work closely with you to develop your strategic plan and your timetable for implementation to:

  1. Gain a full understanding of the business and its operating procedures.
  2. Work through the existing strategic plan with you and make necessary changes to build a plan which clarifies how the company’s objectives can be realistically achieved.
  3. Agree on milestones and break down the plan into annual and quarterly targets.
  4. Conduct a fresh SWOT (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats) analysis bringing the plan up-to-date.
  5. Conduct a new PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technological) analysis bringing the plan up to date.
  6. Carry out a full competitor analysis to understand in detail what is and isn’t working in the market.
  7. Explore opportunities for effective market research to enable innovation and development of new products/channels to market/operating procedures.
  8. Identify key players in the business.
  9. Identify skill gaps in the business.
  10. Agree financial incentive structures to retain and motivate key members of the team.
  11. Identify five key metrics for determining what the future course of the business should look like.
  12. Agree on the exit or succession strategy.
  13. Develop a clear, coherent message (vision/mission/purpose) to staff and to customers.
  14. Work with the senior team to ensure individual department goals are aligned with the big picture strategy.
  15. Agree on a who/what/when set of objectives for all department heads.
  16. Implement accountability protocol for every member of staff.
  17. Determine methodology which allows the senior team to course correct periodically when a change in strategy is required.
  18. Agree on delegation of authority to department heads to spread responsibility across the business and to free up the CEO’s time.
  19. Create a feedback route so that strategic goals are regularly shared with staff
  20. Develop a set of relevant KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and a system which allows for regular (daily/weekly/monthly/annual) monitoring and reporting.
  21. Develop a long-term efficient tax structure for the business and for key employees.
  22. Identify key outsource suppliers/advisors and, in particular, corporate finance contacts

This process will instil a deep feeling of confidence both within the senior team and throughout the rest of the business.

You will move out of the chaos and into a more serene working environment where each of the cogs, which make up the bigger system, is able to move in harmony.

Don’t leave success to chance.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business with a strategic plan, phone Venu on 1300 447 740 or watch this quick video on How It Works.

The Top 4 Mistakes People Make When Planning

by lauramills
The Top 4 Mistakes People Make When Planning

A strategic plan is fundamental, it sets out the company’s strategic direction. It defines its main operating and financial targets, the actions it will take to achieve those objectives, the new initiatives and investments planned, and their impact on the company’s performance.

The top mistakes business owners can make when it comes to planning are:

  1. They don’t have a plan at all
  2. They don’t have a formal plan, it’s in their head which is difficult to share with others
  3. They don’t have an implementation timetable attached to their plan
  4. They don’t have a mechanism in place to conduct regular reviews

Without a comprehensive, up-to-date strategic plan and an implementation timetable, companies may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realising their full potential. A formal plan can be an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business, as it allows a company to recognise its strengths and weaknesses.

Chaos Reins

Not spending quality time on strategic planning usually leads to a chaotic working environment. Our clients often talk about ‘not feeling in control’ and ‘not really knowing what is coming around the next corner’. When the plan is weak, business owners tend to operate without the same sense of conviction as those who allocate time and expertise to the planning process. Our CFOs often find that their clients have done some good planning and strategic thinking but need a devil’s advocate to ask the right questions and help to steer the ship in the right direction.

Helping Hand

Being a CEO without a high-level finance person to bounce ideas off can be tough. CFOs often possess a different albeit complementary set of skills to CEOs/MDs. It is natural for business owners to bring people into the company who see the world in the same way they do. However, it is often more valuable to have key members of your team who possess very different skills to your own.

Constantly doing the same things in the same way with the same people will usually lead to achieving the same results. If you are worried about whether you have the right team in place to fulfil the vision you have for your business, or whether you have the funds you require, or whether your business plan is sufficient to reach your objectives, then we would recommend you take the time out to work through the detail. It is rare to see a company succeed if it doesn’t have a robust plan.

Our part-time CFOs often work with clients who started off with intentions to run a business and have ended up working in a job. However, with the right business plan in place and a robust implementation approach, the business owner is able to run the business without getting drawn too far into the day-to-day details. Contact Us if you would like to discuss your options.

How A Strategic Plan Will Change Your Business

by lauramills
How A Strategic Plan Will Change Your Business

Strategic Planning is the key to the success of any business, no matter its size or age but it’s said that many small to medium-sized businesses don’t have a plan of any kind.

What is a Strategic Plan?

The strategic plan sets out:

  • the company’s direction and priorities;
  • its main operating and financial targets,
  • the actions it will take to achieve those objectives,
  • the new initiatives and investments planned, and
  • their impact on the company’s performance.

Nearly a fifth of SMEs say they prefer to keep plans in their head, according to research by Close Brothers Asset Finance. Mike Randall, CEO of Close Brothers Asset Finance, says, “It’s concerning that so many small and medium sized firms do not have a strategic business plan.  Without clear direction, they may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realising their full potential.”

A formal plan is an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business as it:

  • clearly communicates the company’s priorities
  • ensures all key staff are working towards common goals
  • sets the focus on key objectives
  • delegates actions and accountabilities amongst employees
  • ensures that decisions made will benefit the long-term company goals
  • allows a company to recognise its strengths and weaknesses.

Failing to plan is like planning to fail

Strategic Planning is an area SMEs should be focusing on.   Furthermore, a plan is only useful if it is reviewed regularly to ensure it meets the current and future needs of the business.  It’s vital business owners regularly review their financial strategy to ensure they have the right funding in place to meet the needs of their business, at its current stage of the business lifecycle.

Most CEOs and MDs simply don’t have the time to spend on quality strategic thinking and to document and communicate that thinking in a way which allows the whole business to buy into the vision. Harder still is managing and implementing the business plan. Significant strategic course corrections are commonplace in fast-growing companies. These should be embraced. The tricky part though is in managing regular change. That requires a combination of time and specialist knowledge.

There is an art and science to effective business planning. Getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to a business. This is where an experienced part-time CFO can make a significant contribution.

There is an art and science to effective strategic planning. Getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to a business.

Business Plan for Funding

It’s likely at some point in your business journey, that you need access to funding. Whether that be to scale faster, expand into other territories or buy other businesses.

External funding could be via banks, non-bank lenders, venture capitalists, and angel investors.  None of these are unlikely to look at any funding request that isn’t accompanied by a very solid business plan.  It defines exactly what you want to achieve, and how you plan to achieve it across a set time period. It’s a sure-fire way to ensure that growth targets and plans are being met.

However, business owners will struggle to formulate a concrete business plan without firstly ensuring that their strategic plan is solid and robust.

Our team can assist in creating and implementing a solid strategic plan and/or business plan that paves the journey for your business. Click here to find out more, or contact us on 1300 447 740.

Why Your Business Will Fail Without A Plan

by lauramills
Why Your Business Will Fail Without A Plan

Do you know how much revenue your business is going to deliver in the next year? What’s your profit forecast? How many goods/items will you be able to deliver to your clients? How many man hours will you need for each month to make this happen?

It is common sense that all activities in the business have a financial consequence. Many business owners’ responses to these types of questions is “How could I know?”

Well, it would be gold to predict the future operations 12 months ahead. CEOs and executives would be able to plan just enough resources to cater for it accordingly. However, nobody is 100% accurate in their predictions.

Moreover, if we plan the business operations activities at the beginning of the year and manage business according to these plans with disciplines, our results won’t be too far from our predictions. We call this process “Budgeting”.

Case Study

A client I have been working with recently, is turning over in excess of $30 million with 12 business segments and over 200 employees. The business adopted a “top-down” approach to budgets many years ago. Most of the managers didn’t even know how to check their budgets. Effectively, their budgets had been not very informative.

I was brought in as the interim Chief Financial Officer to implement a set of more suitable budgets within short period of time.

After investigating their databases and legacy systems, I managed to extract relevant mega data with the help of query tools. Furthermore, I suggested that the Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) approach would benefit them in the long run.

What happened next

  • Planning meetings were held with all business managers to identify daily activities and 12 month action plans
  • Identifies cost pools and cost drivers within each business segment
  • Extracted, transformed and loaded historical data from and to the relevant databases
  • built customised data models to quantify the business plans
  • Time series analysis, multi-factor regression analysis and stress-testing
  • Presented findings and action plans to all business heads in language everyone could work with
  • Tested the numbers with various scenarios
  • Conducted retrospective forecasting

As part of the budgeting journey, we highlighted the business improvement opportunities and the ways in which to realise them. In fact,  this was pushed by the Activity Based Budgeting.

Consequently, the senior executives were thrilled with the “Porsche budgeting experience”.

What does it mean to you?

Budgeting is a disciplined management process that every business needs to achieve the optimal commercial outcome.

A part-time CFO will review and build out your business plan so that your budgets and forecasting make commercial sense.

Lastly, it is never too early to start planning, and it is never too late to roll out budgets into your everyday business management.

 

Written by Clinton Cheng, CFO at CFO Centre Australia

4 Little Changes That’ll Make a Big Difference on your Stress Levels

by lauramills
4 Little Changes That’ll Make a Big Difference on your Stress Levels

Your best chance of succeeding in the fight against stress is to aim for prevention. Use these three methods to prevent stress on the individual and organizational level.

The following excerpt is from Dr. Nadine Greiner’s book Stress-Less Leadership.

Too many people wait until stress has progressed too far before taking action. But unlike other afflictions, like alcohol abuse or cancer, that only affect certain individuals, stress affects all of us — stress is not an “if” but a “when.” So, it makes sense to take preventive measures against stress.

Following are a number of methods you can use to prevent stress on the individual and organizational level. You should select the ones that feel right to you.

1. Time management

As an executive, you know there are never enough hours in the day. From streams of emails to floods of meeting requests, your time is under constant attack. Time management becomes more difficult as workloads increase, but it’s crucial to effective leadership and stress prevention.

The first step toward understanding how effective you are at time management is to do a time audit assessing how much time you spend on the activities that consume your day. Then, to-do lists, calendar apps, and time-tracking software can all help you remain on task and better understand how effectively you are dividing your time.

2. Delegating

Managers frequently struggle with delegating. Do you enjoy delegating, or does it give you anxiety? Effective delegating doesn’t just prevent stress and burnout among leaders, but it also enhances team capacity. When leaders delegate work thoughtfully, they empower their team members to take on new responsibilities and expand their skill sets. Effective delegation involves five key steps:

  1. Evaluate.Leaders must first determine whether a task should be delegated. If it’s critical for long-term success and mission-critical to the company, they may not want to delegate it. Leaders must also evaluate whether they have enough time to effectively delegate the job. Delegating shouldn’t be a rapid-fire handoff. They’ll need to spend time training, checking on progress, and engaging in constant communica­tion.
  2. Prepare.Leaders must map out exactly what’s required. They should include clear and comprehensive information about timing, budget, milestones, communication frequency, and resources.
  3. Assign. Leaders must determine which team members have the required skill set or expertise to complete the task. Ideally, it should help employees grow and expand their capabilities.
  4. Confirm understanding and commitment.Leaders often make false assumptions about whether employees under­stand what’s being asked of them. They should confirm understanding by asking their employees to summarize the request and what’s required. Managers must also get explicit commitment from their employees, who must commit to the expected results, milestones, resource requirements, and pro­posed budget.
  5. Avoid micromanaging.Once leaders hand off the baton, it’s critical to avoid micromanaging. If an employee hits a roadblock, leaders should treat this as a learning opportu­nity and not take the reins. Effective coaching will help employees understand where they’ve gone wrong and help empower them to succeed in the future.

If you struggle with delegation, consider blocking off time each day to create a plan of action. With careful planning, you and your team can succeed. Once you start delegating effectively, your team will dare to come forward more often and more vigorously.

3. Avoiding over-commitment

Do you find yourself biting off more than you can chew? Over-commitment is common among executives and leaders as they agree to take on tasks without considering whether they have enough bandwidth. But as requests and tasks pile up on each other and deadlines draw near, leaders can become overwhelmed and stressed.

Overcommitment can be crippling and lead to a kind of paralysis. The most effective antidote against over-commitment is to be firm and set boundaries. You must be vigilant about protecting your time and learn how to say “no.”

We hope you enjoyed this article courtesy of https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/337726.  Before you go, we’d like to add another tip to this list!

4. Hire a part-time CFO

The CFO Centre offers SMEs the expertise of a highly experienced CFO (Chief Financial Officer), for a fraction of the cost of a full timer, via our part-time/as needed model.  For as little as 1 day a month, our CFOs can take away your stress and help you sleep better at night.  We give our clients confidence in their numbers, confidence in their decisions, and piece of mind, knowing that they have not just our CFO, but the whole CFO Centre team on their side.

See How It Works or contact us today for a chat – 1300 447 740

 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-showing-distress-3777572/

How to Outsmart Your Competitors with a Business Plan

by lauramills
How to Outsmart Your Competitors with a Business Plan

Most business owners know that without a comprehensive, up-to-date business plan and an implementation timetable, they may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realising their full potential.  However, around 30% of SMEs don’t have one. To ensure you’re ahead of your competitors, it’s imperative to find the time and/or resources to create and implement a plan for the start of the new financial year.

A formal plan can be an extremely valuable tool for managing and growing a business. It allows a company to recognize its strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, research has shown that SMEs that have a business plan in place are consistently more profitable than those who don’t.

A Formal Plan

Planning is the key to the success of any business, no matter its size or age.  Yet many SMEs don’t have a plan. The majority of those without such a plan say they don’t believe it’s necessary or that they keep their plans in their head.

It’s concerning that so many small and medium-sized businesses don’t have a formal business plan. Without clear direction, they may be missing out on opportunities for growth and not realizing their full potential.  A plan is invaluable and should see out the company’s:

  1. Strategic direction
  2. Main operating and financial targets;
  3. Actions it will take to achieve those targets,
  4. New initiatives and investments planned;
  5. And their impact on the company’s performance

Creation and Implementation

Creating a well thought-through, comprehensive business plan is an arduous task. Thinking through objectives and likely outcomes which may occur many years down the line is challenging. But it is the hard work up front which makes for lighter work down the road as all of our team of part-time CFOs will attest to.

Most CEOs and business owners simply don’t have the time to spend on quality strategic thinking or to document and communicate that thinking in a way which allows the whole business to buy into the vision.

Harder still is managing and implementing the business plan. Significant strategic course corrections are commonplace in fast-growing companies. These should be embraced. The tricky part though is in managing regular change. That requires a combination of time and specialist knowledge.

There is an art and science to effective business planning and getting it right brings a real sense of clarity and direction to business – this is where an experienced part-time CFO can make a significant contribution.

Not spending quality time on strategic planning usually leads to a chaotic working environment. Our clients often talk about ‘not feeling in control’ and ‘not really knowing what is coming around the next corner’.

Proper business planning is very liberating for the business owner, whatever their objective might be. A well-constructed and regularly reviewed business plan will instil real confidence that the goal is indeed achievable.

Key Benefits

Writing a business plan has many benefits for businesses of any size and in any industry. It can help owners and senior managers to:

  1. Clarify objectives and develop suitable strategies.
  2. Understand the market.
  3. Identify and overcome internal and external threats
  4. Organise the company
  5. Access external funding

Key Elements

The most important part of your business plan is its financial information. Your financial forecasts should include your cash flow predictions for the next 12 months or more. You’ll also need to include sales estimates and costs to ensure the business has enough working capital or to ensure you understand any needs to arrange additional financing.

You need to explain all assumptions in the business plan, with best and worst case scenarios. Detail the risks you’re likely to face and how they will be dealt with.

Conclusion

  • An up-to-date business plan or ‘roadmap’ in your business will allow you to experience a sense of control, which may have been absent since the day you started your company.
  • The business plan will remove a significant amount of confusion from your operating procedures. There will always be challenges contained within new projects but you will have a proper framework against which all decision-making can take place.
  • The plan provides the blueprint for delegating responsibility to your team and allows you to create some space in your own environment to work on growing your business.
  • You will move out of the chaos and into a more serene working environment where each of the gears, which make up the bigger system, is able to move in harmony.
  • Potential hazards will have been identified in advance and dealt with before they become unmanageable. You will be able to move from a culture of fire-fighting to a culture of fire-prevention and the benefits will be felt by each member of your team and most probably by your customers too.
  • A part-time CFO can assist with creating, implementing and reviewing your Business Plan, as well as be a constant guide and sounding board for you.

The business plan is the first key to profitable growth!

Photo by fauxels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-people-doing-handshakes-3183197/