Posts Tagged ‘strategy’

Business owners should think about their business strategy. Regardless of the size of your enterprise, you need to be concerned about developing a strategy. Strategy formulation is an important element of business management. Whether your business is a small one-person affair you run from home or a global one you operate online, the success of your business depends on the effectiveness of the strategy you adopt.

The problem with many small or home business entrepreneurs, especially the first-timers, is their fear of strategizing. Many are satisfied with creating simple plans of what they intend to do for the week or for the month, at most. If you’re one of them, you may find some difficulty when it is time for expansion. So this early, start thinking about developing strategic plans for your business. The process is not really complicated, and you can refer to various business strategy models. This article discusses two business strategy models: the Goal-Focus Graph and the Kaizen Model.

The Goal-Focus Graph

If what you want is an easy and simple approach to strategic planning, you can develop a strategy graph to help you define your goals for your business. The goal-focus graph is something any business owner can make, even one who did not go to business school. All you need is a few hours to work on this graph.

To create your graph, get a blank sheet of unlined paper. This paper represents your strategic plan for a five-year period. Start at the bottom of the paper and mark it as year zero, your starting point, or where you are now. Write about the present state of your operations. The top portion is your fifth year where you must write your goals, or what you want for your business five years from now.

Divide the space between year zero and year five into the number of months or years you expect to achieve concrete steps that will take you to your end goals. Write the major tasks you need to do and the quantifiable achievements you aim for each month or year. When completed, your goal-focus graph should give you clear directions on how to steer your business toward the goals you’ve set.

The Kaizen Model

Kaizen is a Japanese model for continuous improvement to increase business productivity. You, too, can adopt this practical strategy to create a specific culture for your business. Japanese establishments in the West practice the Kaizen way to improve overall performance and ensure accomplishment of their objectives. The Kaizen approach is straight forward but two-pronged: external and internal. If you wish to follow the model, focus on improving your relationship with your customers and boosting the morale of your employees.

The internal strategy aims to promote teamwork, improve quality of output, instill discipline, and encourage thrift. The external strategy is geared toward satisfying customers, providing greater value, cultivating long term relationships, and opening communication channels. Applying the Kaizen principle to your own small or home business operations will half-guarantee the success of your endeavor. The Kaizen model has been proven to be an effective strategy in developing customer loyalty and establishing a healthy relationship among co-workers.

Try to take on a forward thinking attitude when you are creating your business strategy. Once you get started, you won’t find it to be difficult at all. Just be clear about your goals, or what you want to achieve. The key to succeeding is to consciously direct all your efforts within the strategic plans you have carefully laid out.