Goal setting & strategic planning

Once there is a full understanding of a business, goals can be established, and strategies are developed to achieve those goals. Testing is undertaken from which adjustments are made, before a full plan is developed, detailing the actions required and by which parties. This should be a regular process, with the business plan being used to refer to and measure against, with adjustments along the timeline of the plan. Too often such a process is seen as the domain of corporate business, when in the reality it’s arguably important for smaller businesses, particularly growing smaller business. Any divergence from a plan will inevitably have a major impact on cashflow, whether it is positive or negative divergence. Corporate businesses can usually withstand shockwaves including mismanagement, but smaller businesses rarely can, such is the ‘tightrope’ between success and failure.

Having carried out my own study into the reasons behind the success of many smaller German businesses across international markets, it was clear that one important factor was the introduction of the the development of international markets from a very early stage in the businesses development. In fact some even at conception. This is in contrast to less successful international traders who focus on the home market, and only when they have exhausted that opportunity, might they venture into overseas markets. So often however this is not done as part of an integrated international market development strategy. Instead, they scratch the surface of international market potential, and the lack of market knowledge leads to challenges and lower returns, leading potentially to a withdrawal from the market.