Читать книгу Business Plans For Dummies - Paul Tiffany - Страница 39

Planning doesn’t guarantee success, but it does go a long way toward bettering your chances. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. And a recent survey of close to 1,000 small businesses backs up the claim. The survey found that companies that have business plans enjoy 50 percent more revenue and profit growth than companies that fail to plan. It’s that simple.

Planning works best when your company integrates strategic thinking into every aspect of your business, every day of the week, and every week of the year. An ongoing process means that you do the following things:

 Always question what makes your company successful — it’s more than mere luck.

 Observe customers and markets, tracking their wants and needs.

 Relentlessly examine the competition and what progress it makes.

 Steadily work at maintaining your competitive edge.

 Optimize the organization to rapidly transform if and when change occurs.

 Continue to search for ways to take better advantage of what you do best.

Some managers may follow all these tips automatically and intuitively. But if you want to make sure that strategic thinking extends into all parts of your company, you have to create a framework to ensure that it happens. When you make planning a basic responsibility for the whole enterprise, you get the added benefit of including all levels of employees in the process. Employees — especially those closest to the customer — often have different and equally valuable viewpoints about shaping strategy. Having a planning framework ensures that you hear their voices.