How to Craft a Winning Strategy for 2016

Angela

Happy New Year! 2015 may have been fulfilling to some people and frustrating to others, 2016 is here and it’s only upon me and you to make it the most successful year ever.

One of the goals that fell through for me last year was a get together with members of my most successful WhatsApp group. Samson Macharia, the Lead Consultant at Oceanic Group business consultancy, who was to be one of the main speakers graciously accepted that I publish the content of his speech on my blog.

I’m happy to share it with you, as it’s the most appropriate way to get prepared for a winning 2016.

Don’t just read, grab a pen and paper and get to work on your goals for a successful 2016.

Angela Kamanzi
Your Friend in Biashara

hand drawing idea board of business strategy process_________________________________

Every entrepreneur starts a financial year with a set of defined goal(s) and this is what defines whether or not the year would be successful. The essence of defining your goals is always to enable you as an entrepreneur define what you want to achieve and without this, you would be virtually working without a direction.

Goals may include but not limited to

  • Achieving high profits
  • Reducing employee turnover by a certain percentage
  • Increasing the business throughput by a certain percentage
  • Growing the business market share by a certain percentage

It’s however worth noting that defining one objective and achieving a different one IS NOT WINNING. Winning is all about defining what you want to achieve, working towards it and actually achieving or even exceeding what you had targeted.

This shall count for a very crucial step towards achieving success for 2016: Defining what you want to achieve.

Steps Towards Achieving a WIN for Financial Year 2016.

Business that is a going concern is bound to face various challenges in different seasons but it is important to remember that a new year is a new season of which its success shall be defined by the foundations set forth by the shareholders.

Step 1.

CONDUCT A THOROUGH ANALYSIS AND AUDIT of both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the business for past year. Get to understand what the year’s strong points were and capitalize more on them, understand the weak points and develop action plans linked with time-lines to tackle them. Of equal importance, understand the threats and opportunities that face your business and document them as these shall largely define the future of your business.

Analyse the quantitative aspects such as percentage of market share growth, profits or losses made, growth or shrinkage in capital, business costs and overheads and get to interpret these results as these will help achieve the next most important step in the business which is PLANNING FOR A WIN.

Step 2.

PLAN FOR A WIN. This brings us to the theme of the speech. Remember that you can plan based on wrong facts. Reason being, your objectives may be well defined but the action plans in place could be based on a wrong set of facts if the exercise in Step 1 above is not effectively done.

Use the results for past year to fully understand your business position, define what needs to be achieved based on the past results and the objectives as the shareholder you would want achieved and let these two be the guiding elements of what you want to achieve for the coming year and set up action plans.

Please note that the planning in this stage is both qualitative (in terms of the goals and strategies to be put in place) as well as quantitative (aspects that can be measured in numeric metrics). It’s worth noting that as an entrepreneur, you need to be realistic (not too ambitious and not too conservative).

Step 3.

Once all the planning has been done with the help of a professional, it’s up to you as the shareholder to sell your objectives to your staff members and offer full support in implementation. Your staff is your front line of defence and clearly need to know what they should be achieving for the year.

But remember, business is like a triangle. It has three important faces and can’t function if neither of the faces is not supported.

The three faces are, Shareholders, Customers and Staff members. It’s the job of the Shareholders to take care of Staff members, Staff members take care of Customers and Customers take care of the Shareholders. The shareholders need to provide financial and strategic support to the business. The staff members need to offer operational support to the business and in return, satisfied customers happily pay for goods and services received.

Increasing the number of clients is always a success as this is the only entity that brings money to the business.

Finally, I would wish to share a secret that you shall find common in all successful businesses.

The secret is CREATING LASTING RELATIONSHIPS.

All aspects in life that have success are normally surrounded by good relationships created and maintained by all stakeholders. You notice that everyone wants to be a part of a good relationship as it leaves a great experience, mentally and emotionally that no amount of money can equate.

As an entrepreneur, make it that part of your goals for 2016 is to create lasting relationship with your staff members and clients. This is the surest way of maximizing staff output as well as retaining clients.

Tips on achieving this.

With staff members:

  • Continuously engage and involve them in running the business. Trust their ability to work and do not micromanage. Encourage personal growth and skills sharing across the company.
  • Motivate them by appreciating them, allowing them to master what they do and give a good degree of autonomy for them to fix problems. As the business owner, you cannot be the specialist in all areas and it doesn’t mean that all your opinions must be right and executed. Give room for fresh ideas and be objective in all aspects.

With clients;

  • Ensure that you always acknowledge their presence and appreciate them for choosing you as a service provider.
  • Create time to visit clients and keep them informed on new products and changes in your business. This as much as possible needs to be personalized as the client needs to feel valued.
  • Give clients value for their money, whatever you commit deliver with a joyous heart and always go an extra mile for the client.
  • Always have something new for the client. This may not be products sold but a personalised message, invite for cocktails and so on.

All these will keep the sparks between the business and the client ignited and translates to more business.

I wish you success in your year 2016.

Sam Macharia

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About Angela

Angela Kamanzi is passionate about empowering African women through entrepreneurship. She is the publisher and founding editor of MKAZI, a digital magazine that offers solutions and tools to women who are starting up in business or taking their ventures to the next level. She is the founder of BizzRafiki-Your Friend in Biashara, a mentorship program which specialises in helping budding or aspiring women entrepreneurs start or grow high income business ventures from their passion. For more than ten years she contributed to a number of local and international publications as a freelance writer. She has 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship. She lives in Nairobi with her husband and their two sons. Her journey was featured on Lionesses of Africa, on AM Live NTV , in the Saturday Nation, on Supamamas website and Mummy Tales blog.

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