Firms risk shrivelling without master plan

HOW do you bottle up and release the energy of a business? Make sure it has a well-crafted, explicit and concise strategic plan that gives stakeholder confidence and buy-in.
In everyday business talk, everything seems to have strategy associated with it - plant and equipment, production, research and development, marketing, pricing, distribution and advertising. But in reality  they are sub-strategies, subservient to the master  plan. A business or organisation without a master strategy will lose its momentum and growth potential. It will not be energised. A culture of flatness and mediocrity will prevail.
Leading floricultural company Bloomz New Zealand, operating out of Pyes Pa, has managed to energise its business by revisiting its strategic plan. Owner Andy Warren was concerned  it was spreading its wings too much in attracting business. It was simply trying to do too much. So he  decided to rework the  strategic plan and re-establish clear goals and associated priorities.
Andy says companies   often  deal with  many countries. "But do we really sit back and analyse what the market segments really want. And do we look at the constraints that hold us back?"
Ambitious firms take time to plan their  strategy.
A company with international goals cannot just attend an overseas trade show  and expect to attract  connections such as potential customers, distributors and agents.  The  key is to do your homework first by fully understanding the needs of the market segments that make up the potential market, then go back into product design and development. Several NZ companies who have performed this radical step
are doing  nicely.
Rissington Breedline in  Hawke's Bay springs to mind. This global company develops genetically superior sheep and cattle breeds, and reliable supply chains for the farming and food industries.
Additional funds and nous from BioPacificVentures - with their main backers being Nestle and PGG Wrightson -  added a more solid strategic platform to take the company to its next stage of development. It supplies   Britain's Marks and Spencer,   which has 267 food stores. M & S is gaining a very strong position in the food retailing market in Britain andrequires  high levels of ethical animal welfare in meat production.
It works closely with Rissington Breedline and its other suppliers to ensure these standards and the meat quality sought by its customers.
M & S is the first major UK retailer to end the sale of imported white veal and calf livers and picked up a CIWF (Compassion in World Farming) award.
Yes it is a bit harder than attending trade shows.
Mike Gilbert, a business associate, says that "often the criticism directed at a company is its lack of ambition to grow and move on to bigger and better things. A company can get to a certain size, and lose its appetite."
If growth is not pursued, a company can simply wither,  its competitors gain the ascendancy and customers turn to  more go-ahead and energetic companies.
"Simply, the company that lacks ambition is on the road to mediocrity."
Business strategy aims to build a sustainable position that  does not take for granted the resources it uses to produce its goods. An energised business is also good at planning and execution.
Business strategy needs to be understood by  the key stakeholders. Often  it is contained in  more than 100 pages of a report  that only a few people  get a chance to read or have the stamina to wade through.
Any company seeking to be energised and proactive must crystallise its plan into key strategic concepts and goals to promote understanding, inspiration - and the key outcome, buy-in.

Business strategy has a shelf
life of not more than three to
five years, and after that all the assumptions that once underpinned the business strategy need to be revalidated.
Cliff Osborne is principal consultant with Cliff Osborne and Associates based in Tauranga. View: www.cliffosborne.com or contact Cliff by email: cosborne@watchdog.net.nz