In a fast-changing world, evolving customer needs, shape-shifting technologies and pressure on our eco-system are unlocking a huge amount of potential to create value for your customers in the upcoming years. In fact, the world around you, and your business, is filled with innumerable opportunities to create game-changing businesses. These opportunities are yours for the taking if you know how to look for them.
This year we have been working on many exciting growth strategy projects for different companies, in different industries, and in different parts of the world. We want to share our biggest learnings in 11 key elements that you can use to redesign your own strategy.
Strategy starts with a deep understanding of your current business. You need to know where you are coming from to understand where you would like to go. Deep dive in your past with a visual graphic history. Mapping key events in your past will give you insights in the evolution of your company andhow and why value creation evolved with the different underlying business models. It will reveal your strategic moves and DNA as well as where you were more or less successful in the past. You can identify strengths and weaknesses that you can leverage in the future.
Most likely your company is creating value with more than one business model. Your business model portfolio exists of your current business(es) and a funnel full of on-strategy initiatives that all have different maturity levels and are operating in different markets. By mapping your business models as a portfolio that is developing, you can better define where value is next and how you can create synergies in your markets with each of the models.
Download our portfolio map here.
Designing a vision and a strategy does not have to be hard. You just have to commit to articulating a vision and strategic choices that truly revolve around value creation for existing and new customers. You need to define specific growth areas for each of your businesses and explore and define where value is next at the business model level. What are your options for growth and making impact? Where should you be shifting with your business models? An entrepreneurial and growth mindset is the mindset you need to take your company into the future. A future where you make a big difference in the life of customers as well as making a positive socio-environmental impact. If you focus on value and positive impact, solid new revenue streams are generated as a result.
When you look at the future more often, you see more. (Yes, this could have been a Johan Cruijf expression.) But we see that companies hardly take the time to look outside. They work and act in the now. In a lot of cases there is no shared image of the future. What will value creation look like for you company in the next 3 to 5 to 10 years time. What role do we want to play as an organization?
Invite a graphic designer and futurists to the visioning and strategy design process to explore this. This will bring clarity for everybody and reveals opportunities on where to play.
Once you have crystallized that vision; your picture of the desired future, you need to make sure your team understands what this looks in the near future.
If your future is about being the best in class company, offering the best digital experience with one click, what would that look like specifically? How is that going to show up for your customers? How is that going to make a big difference? Invite digital designers to the team and build simple and cheap prototypes to understand and make the key elements of your vision come to life.
All companies eventually become digital or are already digital. Digital should be an enabler of more and better value and leveraging digital technologies should be considered in everything you do. So, in any vision and strategy, it should be clearly indicated what digital means for your customers, and how it powers value creation and business operations. Once you have this clarity, you can make the required investments in systems, people, capability development, Machine Learning/AI/IoT, or any other digital technology with more confidence.
Apple Pay allows us to pay easily and smoothly with our mobile phones. Amazon allows us to order instantly and receive our goods the same day with a smile. Do I need to say more? Your customer experience should at least match the experience of what customers experience from home shopping or delivery. You need to be at par to remain relevant.
Strategy is not for the board and highbrow consultants only. Vision and strategy is about orchestrating strategic conversations with all members of the company at all different levels. By doing this, your organization will collectively see and feel how customer needs are evolving, what is happening in the market, and where your company wants and need to play. Everybody is then involved and understands how you can win in terms of the best value for your customers. As such, all teams and individuals know how to make a difference and contribute to value-driven growth of the company.
You can talk about the future for days and imagine the unimaginable. As Barack Obama would say: “You can be most comfortable in your own bubble”. But staying in your bubble is not how to craft a vision and strategy. We need to go out in the real world to gain deep insights about customers and their needs. Insights from customers, either through interviews, videos, or even conversations during the offsite, gives direction and inspiration for making strategic choices. Unfortunately, very few management teams feel comfortable to invite customers to their offsite.
Strategy should not be about the offsite with the boardroom. It should not be this single, once a year event. It is not setting a strategic plan in stone. Strategy is about a clear direction and the journey to validate and develop that direction by continuously engaging leadership and teams throughout the entire organization. You engage by sharing stories about the journey, about the efforts, about the twists and turns, and about the results—both successes and failures. Make this sharing periodically, a so-called strategy heartbeat. This is a communication format tailored to the various audiences in your organization, that runs every other week or month in which people share stories on how your vision and strategy is materializing.
Yeah, the offsite with all of your company employees. A great experience to have strategic conversations and validate explorations of the future. You need to spend time with your teams to think about who you are and where you want to be. You will get great insights from unexpected sources and it gives them time to internalize the strategy and their contribution to making it happen.
Are you ready to design your next growth strategy that will get you to triple bottom line results? Let's talk. We would love for you to join our mission to design, build and grow better businesses.
Interested to know where you stand with your strategy? Take our 5-minute test and get actionable advice and pro-tips on your result.
