Many companies claim to have a company strategy – but how does a really good strategy increase your corporate profits?  And what is the difference between a really good strategy and a “killer” strategy?  Many business consultants won’t tell you this, but - it is quite simple.

Let’s start with your company’s purpose – what is your overriding reason for existing?  Is it to eradicate polio, to find a cure for the common cold?  Who participated in defining your company’s purpose?

What is a strategy? Most business consultants believe it directs action toward a desired outcome, should bring clarity to your business, and should illustrate to employees where you, as the owner, are taking them, and what actions they need to take to get there.

Company strategies can be really good if they are developed by management and communicated effectively to employees.  But, we know that already.  Our intent here is to develop a “killer” strategy.

Let’s start with asking employees to participate.  Bring in a business advisor to structure a process that allows your staff to explain to you how they are connected personally and professionally to the company’s purpose.  You need to start here – this is your foundation, your rock.  Identify the commonalities of purpose, of connection – the alignments that exist. 

Next, work with your staff to build upon that foundation – what objectives and goals do the employees have to guide them in achieving that purpose – what motivates them personally and professionally to achieve those goals and objectives?  Once these are defined, work with your employees to consolidate commonly shared goals and objectives into larger buckets – divisional, departmental, and finally, company goals and objectives. 

When you follow this process there will be a strong alignment and relationship between each employee’s purpose and the company’s purpose.  Now let’s look at our “killer” strategy.

When you are identifying employee purpose and building the company purpose, ask the employees what specific actions would they undertake to achieve these purposes, these objectives, these goals?  There will not be unanimity in their responses, but there will be a very clear pattern to the actions.  Work with your staff to aggregate these action steps from a little to a big picture definition process – divisional, departmental, and finally company strategy.  We are almost home.

So we have a “killer” strategy.  How do we relate that to increased company profits?  As you are going through the process of identifying employee purpose, of defining strategy – action steps – define performance benchmarks at each stage.  Actively engage your staff in understanding how expenses made in producing a product or providing a service impacts the cost of production and delivery, and actively engage them in understanding how a product or service gets priced for sale to your target market – and explain to them how they can impact the product or service cost.  Then, with their involvement, establish reasonable performance benchmarks – time to produce or deliver, quantity of materials used, etc.

Every time I have engaged employees in this discovery and decision process they have taken more ownership of their individual tasks, more responsibility toward helping each other succeed, and more commitment to helping the company be more successful and profitable. 

Please let me know how your company could benefit from this process.  See you at www.RutherfordBusinessAdvisor