The Clifton Review
The Clifton Review is a tri-weekly column that examines the question of the Clifton project along with the evolution of the war between two billionaires. We covered the start of this war with articles describing the battle over easement rights, the mysterious burning of a home, the blocks to rebuilding, and countless questionable court filings.
While the 2018 series salutes fashion mogul Peter Nygård’s Golden Jubilee detailing his rags to riches story, his incredible business success over these past fifty years and an inside look at how he did it, The Clifton Review will also continue to address current affairs as they relate to the good of The Bahamas.
Let’s Talk Strategy
By P.J. Malone
So how do business leaders strategize in a way that helps their businesses soar? Let’s explore.
As we’ve discussed, communicating your goal and strategy to employee-partners is a part of setting the foundation that will allow employees to become aligned with the direction you wish to take your business in. However, alignment will not occur if the goal and strategies are not the appropriate ones.
In order to take your business to new heights, there are a series of steps that business leaders must take that all tie together and lead to the right strategies being implemented and aligned with all organizational components.
To review, here are the steps in one place:
- Conduct a SWOT analysis (assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats).
This is an important process for your business because it is the only way you can choose a goal and strategy that will can a major difference in your business.
When fashion mogul Peter Nygard chose the business objective of not joining the 2008 recession, it was based on his analysis and discovery that the expected recession was a threat to his business.
If he had never determined that and recognized the threat, he may have suffered like many others in the industry and he would not have seen a 25% growth from effective strategies he implemented while others were experiencing the downturn.
We’ve discussed SWOT analysis in great detail in previous articles. It would be worth the effort to review those—that is if you haven’t done so already—before choosing a goal.
- Determine which discoveries from the SWOT analysis should be the business focus.
A suggestion for a key focus on setting a business goal to aim for is to look at either what opportunities exist for your business or what threats may be on the horizon that could derail you.
If the potential threat could have dire consequences—like a recession in the case of NYGARD—then you may want to choose a goal that mitigates the threat or avert it completely. If there are no dire threats on the horizon—though be sure to conduct a careful assessment because not all threats are huge, nor can you necessarily see them coming from a mile away—then focus your attention on a goal that can take advantage of opportunities for your business.
- Set a SMART goal—(specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound)
A part of defining the goal is in determining your end result. So, if you know what you want to achieve, what does success look like? For example, if your desire is to not let the threat of new competition put you out of business then maybe success looks like you keeping the same number of customers or you keeping the same amount in profits. You have to determine what that looks like specifically and using the SMART goal process helps you to break that down.
- Identify the right strategies
Your key focus in identifying strategies is to consider the business strengths and weaknesses that were identified in your SWOT analysis. They can help or hinder you with your strategy implementation so make sure that whatever strategies are identified, they are helped by your strengths and not sabotaged by your weakness.
- Align organizational components to the goal and strategies to be implemented.
This means setting the right foundation—as we have been discussing—motivating employees to work toward your business objectives and goal and giving them the tools to help them achieve the end result.
Now that this is clear, we can address how to line it all up with your employee-partners.
