Is your planning process blocking growth?


Is your planning process blocking growth?

Over the past decade, technological innovations have allowed companies to do more with less and achieve greater levels of growth in shorter periods of time. Advancements in the areas of manufacturing, computing and financing have all made this possible.
 

Manufacturing: Globalization has now made it possible to design a product in the US and have it manufactured cheaply and quickly almost anywhere in the world. Moreover, continued innovation like 3D printing are continuing to accelerate the pace of change in product development.
 

Cloud computing: Many take this for granted, but it wasn’t very long ago that a simple business web site would cost thousands of dollars. Today, technologies like WordPress, Google Apps and Skype all make launching and managing business ventures simpler and less expensive.
 

Financing: Capital markets have never been so connected. While the recent financial collapse may demonstrate why this isn’t always a great thing, innovations like crow-sourced financing (i.g. Kickstarter, Kiva or CircleUp) all make it easier for people and businesses to get the funds necessary to launch and fuel their ventures.
 

With so many innovations accelerating the ease by which business ventures may be launched, why are so many firms stuck with the old traditional model of strategic planning?

 

Make no mistake; strategic planning can be valuable for any organization, large or small. Many companies fail to appreciate the value of adequate planning or confuse strategic planning with the annual budgeting process. This transforms what should be a creative, innovative event into a dull, sterile process.
 

Companies serious about growth and innovation should continue to plan, but they should adopt a process more aligned to rapid prototyping—piloting out new business concepts and generating data in real-time that can be fed back into the decision-making process.
 

Many initial strategic plans are full or assumptions. A pilot launch of a business concept allows the firm to replace these substitutes with real-world data, and often times, pilots are no more expensive or time-consuming than the business plans of yesterday. To the contrary, piloted launches can often be less expensive and time consuming than traditional business planning efforts.
 

How rapidly is your firm able to bring a concept to reality and develop growing, profitable ventures? Is your organization taking advantage of the innovations necessary to launch pilot programs to test business concepts? How does your firm go about strategic planning? Does strategic deliver real innovation, or is it confused with budgeting process? Maybe it’s time to give us a call to discuss.
 

About the Kabardian Group: We help clients achieve profitable growth. Short, simple and to the point. Our clients include companies large and small and at every stage of their development, including start-ups. www.kabardian.com