Strategy Games - Why Is Strategy So Difficult?

Robert Craven argues that the failure of many strategies lies in the failure to understand whom the strategy is for.

Strategy is a subject that people like to refer to, but often they don't really know what they mean by the word. We should not be surprised that many people find it difficult to actually think strategically when they are unclear about what strategy is all about.


Commonly asked questions include:

• Does our company have a strategy? Is it the right one?
• What exactly do we mean by a strategy?
• How should we go about designing our strategy?

Before talking about the actual 'doing' of strategy, let's be clear about some of the 'strategy' issues, and why strategy can go wrong. There is a requirement to do things in a different way from the old way. After all, if you keep doing what you have always done, then you will keep getting the same (not better) results; and to expect a different result from doing the same thing is a definition of insanity!


THE PROBLEM

The main complaints about the strategy process are:

• There is little agreement about what strategy actually is and what it does
• It gets lost, uncoordinated, frustrating, messy and unfinished - there is lack of focus and clarity
• Most people involved either question their own ability to contribute, or, arrogantly dominate and suffocate the process
• No SMART goals are achieved (SMART is an acronym that is used to remind us that goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-based)
• Fear of the future, combined with fear of failure, makes the team behave like reindeer freezing on the road when blinded by the headlights of the oncoming lorry
• Management 'speaking in tongues' parading as science - the tools are not helpful - they are superficial, confusing and too theoretical.

In a nutshell there are three reasons why strategy does not work.

WHY STRATEGY DOESN'T WORK #1 TYPES OF STRATEGIC THINKING

Managers often fail to differentiate between business unit strategy and what is referred to as 'corporate centre' strategy. The reason for this is that business schools and consultants normally talk about big business/corporate centre strategy when they are talking about strategy.


Business unit strategy is for single product/market players or 'strategic business units' of conglomerates; corporate centre strategy is for conglomerates that are planning the future and the relationships between the centre and its various subsidiaries. The distinction is crucial; this is where so much of the confusion comes from.


To misquote Orwell, 'business unit strategy, good; corporate centre strategy, bad'.


Business unit strategy, good - it gives you insights into where and how you need to do things differently. It helps you to see the business through the customers' and through the competitors' eyes. Both today and tomorrow. It shows you your strengths and weaknesses and where and how you should be expending your efforts. We will come back to this later.


There are instances where corporate centre strategy is beneficial. Examples include where there are global economies of scale, brand benefits, regional or global economies of scale, overcoming technological barriers and so forth. You only need to think of Apple, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Sony, and Toshiba. But this type of thinking is pretty irrelevant if you are running your own business, or a business unit employing say 500 people


Moreover, for the multinational or conglomerate, the ability of the centre to generate strategies that have little to do with the needs of specific business units is awesome. Couple this with the centre's (and the board's) lack of contact with the territories and you can see the potential for disastrous decisions. Corporate strategies constantly frustrate and bamboozle the managers of regional business units.

WHY STRATEGY DOESN'T WORK #2 NO CLARITY OF PURPOSE

Put simply, business strategy is planning while being aware of the business environment. So, who should be involved? Consultants? The Senior Team? The Whole Team? Well, this depends on the level (and size) of the organisation that you are talking about.


Strategic thinking is not the same as strategic planning. In fact strategic planning is an oxymoron like 'friendly fire', 'fun run' or 'fighting for peace' - planning and thinking are totally different activities requiring different skills. Strategic thinking is the role of the strategy team - those beneath them should carry out the (strategic) planning.


Strategic thinking must be used to improve understanding of the environment and the options available to the business. Any analysis must help the decision-making process. There is no room for using models that are simply intellectually attractive. The task at hand is to shed light on options and directions and find evidence to support decisions about the future.

WHY STRATEGY DOESN'T WORK #3 THE USE OF TOOLS AND THEORIES

At the business unit level, the tools of analysis are relatively straightforward. The only real barriers to a successful strategy are intimidation by the so-called 'professionals' and their jargon. Rogue management consultants have been known to blind their clients with science; BCG matrices, Value Chain Analyses and differential equations bully the innocent client into agreeing to a strategy that they may not fully understand or appreciate but are too timid to admit their ignorance. Despite this, the manager may well understand their business and industry with a clarity and perspective that the models are unable to detect.


It is most notably at the corporate centre level that the jargon takes over and so often the process turns into Frankenstein's monster - you have a much more sophisticated list of tools (product portfolio analyses, discounted cash-flow, BCG matrices, three-dimensional modelling). A whole industry has grown up around corporate strategy - it is here that the business school hype runs amok - 'Long live the emperor and his new clothes!'


More complex is almost always worse, and yet the corporate centre has a propensity to complicate things!


Most of the models of analysis, some good and some bad, are over thirty years old; few people in business honestly know how to use them effectively and appropriately. For today's entrepreneurial business, the relevance and value of the models must be questioned.

THE SOLUTION

In order to work, the whole strategy process must be effective and practical; highfalutin theory is not the order of the day! Participants need to start the process with no axes to grind.


Strategy can be likened to 'seeing'; that is seeing behind, above, below, beyond, beside ahead and through the future. To be effective, strategic thinking tools must satisfy the following conditions:

1. Reflect the business needs of today and tomorrow
2. Start with the customers - be rooted and immersed in market understanding
3. Be Practical (not theoretical)
4. Be Specific (not superficial)
5. Encourage a longer-term view
6. Be Measurable.

SO… WHO SHOULD BE DEVELOPING YOUR STRATEGY?

The right people rarely work on strategy development.


For business unit strategy, each of the operating managers should be involved; for corporate Centre strategy, the Chairman, CEO and a few close colleagues should be involved. In both instances, a cross-section of operational managers should be involved to influence, double-check and approve the thinking process.


The next-best solution is to involve a firm of management consultants. You must choose carefully otherwise they will bring over-complex tools and theories. You need to be able to stop them from doing that by giving them a clear brief of what you want. A good relationship will pay dividends as they can facilitate the process or give you the right tools to work out the way forward.

WHERE TO START? A PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE

If strategic thinking is a creative process then the best place to start is with where you would like to be, and work backwards to where you are now. Then you can work out how to get there.


If strategic thinking is a systematic analytical process then start with where you are now and work out where you think you can get to. The snag with this second approach is that constant use of linear thinking stifles your creativity. If you believe that 10% growth in sales is realistic then you will plan away the idea of faster growth and the need for more unusual approaches to achieve a truly stretching goal.


In reality, you need to combine both approaches.

HOW TO DO STRATEGY - AT THE BUSINESS UNIT LEVEL

You need to know what target market groups (segments) you work in and how profitable they really are. Only then can you focus on what you do effectively and cut out the deadwood.


These are the crucial questions that you need to be able to answer:

1. What business are you in?

This question is not as straightforward as it appears - what business do your customers and competitors believe you to be in? And, what do you believe your business to be. Manchester United is no longer just a football team; the merchandise side of the business means that branding is more important than ever. Starbucks is not simply selling coffee; it is selling an attitude to life.


2. Where do you make the money?

What parts of your organisation contribute the most value to the whole? Where is the real value being added? What parts of the industry generate the highest profits? This follows on to a series of external issues:

• How good are your competitive positions?
• Is this a good industry to be in?
• What do your customers think about you, your product and the market?
• What do your competitors think about you, your product and the market?

The external analysis can be followed by internal analysis so that you can establish:

• How do you raise profits quickly?
• How do you build long-term value?

HOW TO DO STRATEGY - AT THE CORPORATE CENTRE LEVEL

While this article is not aimed at the big corporations, it is useful for readers who work in them to be clear that corporate centre strategy is flawed because the centre rarely represents or reflects the needs of the outposts. The centre has a life of its own. Few corporate centres are small. Most do not add enough value to justify their cost. Most destroy more value than they add.


Corporate centre strategy must be approached with a great deal of scepticism and caution.

CHECKLIST - STRATEGIC THINKING

• Be clear about what you want to achieve from the strategy process. Is it business unit or is it corporate centre strategy that you are working on?
• Decide your goals and be prepared to pay the price - after all strategy, by definition, is about trade-offs.
• Do not undertake 'strategisation' unless a system is in place that allows strategy implementation - otherwise the whole process is counter-productive.

It is imperative that the strategy process is not seen in isolation of other processes. Strategy is not a 'black box', a one-off activity, carried out at annual awaydays - to think strategically is an art form.

Robert Craven©2001, Business Executive Magazine.

- See more at: http://www.robert-craven.co.uk/article-why-is-strategy-so-difficult.php

You Think The Recession Is Holding Back Your Growth?

In research, growing businesses say that market conditions would have the greatest impact on inhibiting their growth. It does not surprise me that businesses cite market conditions as the key influencer of growth but this does blur some of the key issues around the subject of growth. Research, as well as an intuitive feel, consistently suggests that there are several key factors that inhibit the growth of a business. No one factor dominates but rather a combination is what the entrepreneur normally cites. The four key issues are: Market conditions Staff/recruitment issues Cashflow, and Competition Put another way; finance, labour and market issues. However, the growth question provokes some other arguments about growth that need to be aired. One. Of course market conditions impact on business growth; in a growing market, your business can grow without gaining market share. Think of the market as a balloon; if your market share is like a circle drawn on its surface then your area (turnover) will grow as long as the market grows - imagine blowing air into the balloon and how the circle will increase with the increase in size of the balloon. Two. If you ask successful people to look at what held them back in the past then you get another answer entirely. After the event, successful people do not dispute the importance of finance, market and labour issues. Interestingly, these are seen as external factors. Research such as the LBS Pulse Report concurs with Tenon that the number one external factor holding back a business is, to be specific, market growth. BUT... the key internal factors cited are lack of innovation and the thorny issue of willingness to accept the price you have to pay for the growth. The plot thickens. Here is the crunch... the core of the debate about growth and what holds it back... the 'winners' claim that the ability to grow is dominated by the internal factors (lack of innovation, fear of diluting ownership, aversion to debt). So, to grow, you must possess conducive internal factors that dominate the hostile external factors. At the heart of this argument is the price of growth... are you prepared to accept the loss of managerial and/or financial control? If you are not, then do not pass 'GO' and do not collect your 200 pounds! Three. Rather than focusing on poor performance let's ask 'What is it that the really successful businesses do?' The successful are obsessed with: Where do we want to be in, say, three years' time? i.e. strategy - planning while being aware of the outside environment What is it that our clients really want, and how can we get people to buy it? i.e. marketing How can we work together? i.e. teams and people. This holy trinity of strategy, marketing and teams (underpinned by financial understanding) is an obsession that I find in all successful fast growth clients.  These clients don't look at market conditions alone, shrug their shoulders and give up trying - they are constantly measuring the outside environment and constantly adjusting their game to suit the conditions. It is probably changes in the outside world that will 'get you' in the end.  Often imperceptible changes in the market place change the landscape that you are working in and you might not even notice the changes. It is the ability to recognise and respond to change that separates the exceptional from the average business. So, when asking the question 'What inhibits growth?', we cannot expect a simple answer. I agree that the number one issue is market conditions (when each participant can only have one choice). However, the reality is more complex.

What David Can Teach Goliath – what ‘small’ can teach the ‘big’ businesses

What David Can Teach Goliath – what ‘small’ can teach the ‘big’ businesses


There is a plethora of articles and blogs about what small businesses can learn from large businesses but very few that turn the phrase on its head. So, what can large businesses learn from small businesses?

As usual our first dilemma is one of definition.

For the purpose of this article we need to recognise that there are small businesses which are essentially lifestyle businesses and there are small businesses which are being grown to be sold or ‘harvested’ (entrepreneurial businesses).

All the ‘motherhood and apple pie’ talk about small businesses revolves around attributes that most large businesses tend to lose with time and size:

• Passion for the product
• Led and run by the founder
• Close to the customer
• Tightly-knit
• Innovative, responsive and flexible
• Close to the marketplace
• No silos
• Able to make and create the rules.

The flipside of this is:

• Too much in love with the product
• Founder has too much control and becomes the bottleneck
• Lack of professional management and reporting systems
• Myopic
• No career ladder
• Doesn’t ‘do the research’ and makes (knee-jerk) decisions without the evidence
• Doesn’t have the basic infrastructure (legal, HR, IT, cash reserves, R and D, resources)
• Doesn’t have the network, scale, contacts.

For many, the reality of running their own business is rather sad. One single ‘entrepreneurial seizure’, those immortal words “I could run this better than they do”, sends the intrepid ‘entrepreneur’ on a desolate journey. In the naive hope that they will become the next Richard Branson, these people have actually started banging the nails into their coffin! In a belief that they now have the joys of wealth and freedom, nothing could be further from the truth.

Armed with puppy dog enthusiasm, blissful ignorance and the messages from one too many get-rich-quick gurus, our hero sets off. The reality is that, armed with no real business experience, our protagonist is now dependent on suppliers, staff, customers, banks and a belief that things will be OK. Often it is not.

There is, however, another version of this story. Our protagonist this time is more of an entrepreneur: they spot opportunities, gather together the resources and make something happen. This is a rather more sophisticated approach to the business of business than that of our, often hapless, lifestyler.


So what can Big Businesses learn?

Big businesses (even with relatively recent beginnings) spend millions on training and consultancy to revive or instil some of the characteristics their nimble but smaller relatives possessed: effective teams, positive morale, keen attitude, flexibility, people focus, listening skills, communication, commitment, engagement... these are the buzz words in each new initiative which will supposedly sort the future. The stereotype smaller business has all this in spades, already!

Smaller businesses, by their nature, by their place in the food chain are more nimble. Jobs do actually depend on success. There are rarely deep pockets or the possibility of being moved sideways if things get tough. When the money runs out, that is it!

While I am speaking in generalisations, there is this sense of nimbleness that the big business doesn’t just yearn for, but knows it needs to find, to compete in this furiously competitive world. What would a car manufacturer or a telecoms company give to have one-tenth of the passion or mojo that a small upstart would have.


Can Goliath work with David?

The old-world view was that the big boys were not even interested in small businesses. With internet explosion came the (naive) idea that the Davids could destroy and replace the cumbersome and slothful Goliaths; meanwhile the Goliaths continued to believe that they could destroy any potentially threatening minnows. Next the big boys tried to buy out the minnows and bring them in-house. That didn’t always work.

So, now we have a world where the big fish and the minnows can, and often should, work together. It is time for David and Goliath to work together. The combination of passion, excitement, innovation, free-thinking of the minnow, combined with the resources, funds, footprint, network, partnerships, access to market of the whale makes a fascinating combination.


Can Goliath learn from David?

Yes.

Despite all the upside of being part of a large multi-national, there are so many things that they just don’t get. They just need to look at sheer numbers that emigrate to work in start-ups (with all the inherent risks) to start to see just the tip of the iceberg of discontent and apathy that their workforce would rarely admit at work.


So, what is to be done?

Both parties (Davids and Goliaths) should engage more because they...

• have a lot to learn from each other (formally or informally)
• can exploit each other’s strengths to their own advantage (a ‘win-win’ situation).

The untapped potential is vast. The missed opportunity is vast. Time to pick up the phone?

Would You Like To Increase Your Sales And Profit?

The dumb question most people say 'yes' to is: "Would you like to increase your sales and profit?";  And, the question most people nod their heads to is: "Are you great at delivering your service but less sure about how to attract more clients?"  If you want your business to succeed, then you need to know why people should buy from you when they can buy from the competition. Answer this question with confidence and you will be able to grow your service firm. It will become almost inevitable. You need to find out the tools and techniques that you need to transform your often flaky, dream-like plans into actions and measurable, tangible results (= profit).  For instance, do you know how to: identify the unique benefits of your service?  discover the most effective sales method?  connect with potential clients?  win new business? get ahead of the competition? Stop working too hard for too little reward. Start making your service business work for you. Can this be done? Yes. Is it just marketing hype? No. Why are you not getting the results that you want? I'll give you a clue.  Take a look in the mirror!

How Raving Fans Create Profits But… Ignore the whole social media hype at your risk

The raving fans of an elite set of businesses simply can’t get enough of the brands they love.

These fans actually set up websites and discussion forums praising and promoting the brand they love. Roberts, in his book (Lovemarks Effect), explains the relationship between Lovemarks and other selling concepts through a simple schema based on respect and love.

The full schema is as follows:

·         Mere products (commodities) command neither love nor respect

·         Fads attract love, but without respect this love is just a passing infatuation.

·         Brands attract respect, even lasting respect, but without love.

·         Lovemarks, explains Roberts, command both respect and love. This is achieved through the trinity of

o   mystery,

o   sensuality, and

o   intimacy.

Fig 1 – Brands People Love To Be Associated With

“’Disproportionately High Profit Margins’ – I‘ll have some of that!”

These businesses (see Figure 1) have disproportionately high brand loyalty and disproportionately high customer service ratings and consistently have disproportionately high profit margins. These are linked. According to the Peer Insight Study (2005) businesses in the Forbes 100 with a key strategy of customer service saw average profit levels ten times that of the rest!!! I rest my case!

Opinion – you get the customers you deserve

Surely it is easier to get the basics right in the first place. The customer experience determines their feelings towards you. You get the customers you deserve except that now they can fight back.

Opinion – keep your friends close

My mother always said “keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer”. To rewrite this for today, “Keep your raving fan customers close but keep your dissatisfied customers closer still!”

So, what can you do...?

·         Find out what people are saying about you; Google Search, Twitter, Technorati, Diggit, Facebook (to name a few) enable you to track the ‘word on the street’ both about you and about your competitors.

·         Create a more compelling offer that focuses on the value that you add.

·         Respect your customer. After all they pay the bills.

·         Get into the discussion. Be honest and authentic (even if I hate the word!). Be there to discuss, share and understand the customer’s point of view.

Surely, It’s the “same as it ever was” (Talking Heads)

In some senses it is the same as it ever was. You must listen to your customer, be different from the rest etc., etc.

So, what has changed? Why is it any different right now?

The new future is one of customer involvement and participation. Forming groups has never been easier: unpaid volunteers build an encyclopaedia (wikipedia.org), mistreated customers gather together to take their revenge on an airline (www.flyersrights.com) or a bank (FaceBook Campaign Forces HSBC U-turn). One man with a laptop can raise an entire army to retrieve a stolen phone (Ivanna’s Phone). You cannot deny the existence of a new world of easy collaboration. You can put your head in the sand but it won’t go away.

And what happens if you don’t do something

·         Customers will always talk. You can’t stop them. But now they are able to do it more than ever.

·         You will be seen to be a dinosaur business – out of touch, old world and potentially dead in the water.

·         Progressively your web-savvy competitors will have their ear closer to the ground, will be closer to the customers and, as a consequence, will be giving the customers exactly what they want.

Five suggestions for your business

1.    Corporate blog – you can dissipate antagonistic customers by giving them the platform to share their angst.

2.    Insider Twitter account – quite fashionable at the moment as long as they are genuine and not an attempt to fix the result.

3.    Track what is being said about you. Start the conversation with the complainants.

4.    Sort the social media – by definition you cannot control the social media but you can encourage the conversation explicitly (set up a Facebook page) or implicitly use (or pay!) ambassadors to spread the word.

5.    Do not try to fix the result by interfering – Sony will wish they had never tried to fix the Rage Against The Machine vs X-Factor scenario – a so-called Facebook campaign under-written by Sony! Their intentions were dishonest and they were caught. They deserved the backlash.

In conclusion,
the ‘customers talk...’ and ‘getting close to the customers’ arguments are usually presented as ‘nice to haves’ or the rants of some relatively insignificant hysterically evangelistic social media fan. The reality is that while the future is a little ambiguous, the ‘customers talks...’ agenda will become one of the key axes for business survival in the next few years. The ability to ‘get it’, to tune-in and respond to what the customer thinks, feels and wants will influence the business landscape.

Telling the customer what they need is for the dinosaurs. Interruption Marketing is Dead. 

Start talking - and fast!

The Mastermind or Consultancy Dilemma...

Many businesses recognise that they need some form of external intervention to help them grow the business. And there is no shortage of options on offer from coaching to mentoring to consultancy to mastermind groups to conferences, seminars, workshops and bootcamps. I have put them in approximate order from one-to-one to one-to many offerings.

Conferences, seminars, workshops and bootcamps are great at updating you on latest tools and techniques. By their very nature, they are one-to-many events and while the networking opportunities are a plus, they will not have the intimacy or immediacy required to reflect the specific needs and issues in your own business. It simply is not possible for the speaker to do more than speak in general principles which may or may not be 100% relevant to your business. The result is that the required actions and follow-through may not be put in place.

At the other extreme is mentoring and coaching. For the purists, I have already committed the cardinal sin of lumping the two together. While there are differences (coaching tends to be more facilitative from someone who knows how to get others to perform; mentoring tends to be slightly more prescriptive, based on the experience of the mentor) I see these as one-to-one activities that tend to focus on the individual in question.

We then have the middle ground, consultancy and mastermind groups, two very different beasts designed and appropriate for different purposes.

Consultancy comes in many forms and blurs around the edges with other interventions according to one’s definitions. The external expert comes to your business; someone who is an expert in diagnosing what is really going on and what needs to be done and assisting in the implication. Different consultants are better/worse at different stages of the process. Some are totally independent of any ‘ology’ or specific framework, others are brought into a particular methodology or toolkit, some are great at the diagnosis and others are great at helping with the implementation. While considerably more than a ‘gun for hire’, the types and varieties and definition of what you get from a consultant are many and varied. However, you usually end up with a solution to a problem (eg better marketing, clearer strategy, a more profitable business, a working boardroom...)

Mastermind groups typically run over 12 months. A group of like-minded individuals (6-10?) come together with the shared objective of helping each other’s business to grow. Usually led by an expert in the particular field (business, growth, marketing, social media), the key benefits of attending include: accountability to the group and leader, support from the group and leader, expert direction and facilitation, regular one-to-one and group communication (meetings, calls, conference calls). The results can be stupendous; delegates on past programmes have seen their businesses literally turbo-charged as self-enforced/imposed limitations are removed and businesses achieve their true potential.

To many, the expert interventions (from mentoring all the way through to bootcamps) often pitch themselves to the same people yet a successful one-size-fits-all solution is rare. Often a coach sells coaching and will try to persuade you that coaching is the solution. Likewise, the marketer/salesman for a bootcamp will also try to persuade you that his/hers is the solution.

Can both be right?

Well, yes and no.

If a business owner is just looking for something to help them then they will probably pop for the first shiny thing that looks like it might help. After all, they will all claim to make you more profitable and more successful and happier. However, this cookie-cutter approach to one’s clients is not only short-sighted but also short-changes the client. Yes, we all know about ‘buyer beware’ but I am afraid that not enough business support people will turn down your money even if they know they may not be the best solution for you. That, of course is a disgrace.

In an ideal world, the supplier will undertake some kind of filtering system and possibly even a diagnostic to understand what the issues are and what would be the most appropriate solution for the client. After all, the client doesn’t know what the client doesn’t know.

Meanwhile, and in defence of the practitioners, the potential client phones up demanding a price. Yet, apart from in the one-to-many situations, how can you give a price? How do you know if your approach, style or method is appropriate or even relevant or even efficacious? You wouldn’t ask a consultant heart surgeon to recommend a treatment before any diagnostic tests had been carried out; so why do you expect an expert business person be able to give you a solution and price without having a proper ‘look under the hood’? But I digress.

We see plenty of potential clients wanting, say, mastermind or consultancy services but maybe they are not really sure about the relevant and relative benefits and disadvantages.

Consultancy is great if you want 100% attention on your business and results for your business from someone who knows how to solve your problem. The assignment should be focused on a clear end point and result for you, the client. You go to a marketing consultant to sort your marketing, etc etc.

Mastermind, on the other hand, is less focused on your specific problem but more on the combined effort and resources of the group helping each other. Key reason people sign up to the group is for sharing, sense-checking ideas, loneliness, accountability, working alongside others and the expert... It is altogether a different proposition to consultancy.

While the benefits of participating (more sales, more/better customers, better lifestyle) may be similar, one has to recognise that different paths are more appropriate depending on your individual situation.

It is one thing to recognise that you need help. It is quite another to know to whom (or to what) you should turn...

How to compete with the big fish - a care home case study

The tendency of most smaller businesses is to feel like a cork floating on the ocean, incapable of influencing how or where the market takes them. 

This is true in almost every industry. 

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Just because you're the size of a minnow, it doesn't mean that you have to have such fatalistic views. With a clear and honest understanding of the marketplace, you can still find a niche for yourself and thrive as a result. You do not have to play the same game as everyone else (get bigger, borrow more money, buy out the competition). You can choose how you play the game.

Consultants, accountants, bankers and business schools all tell us that thriving companies grow their profits and revenues year-on-year (and if you aren’t doing it then you feel like you must be failing).

But bigger isn't necessarily better.

You could reject the pressures of endless growth and instead focus on being the best at what you do, creating a great workplace, legendary customer service, and a sense of community (both locally and in the workplace).


Here are six attributes of small giants:

1) The founders/leaders recognise the full range of choices they have about the type of company they could create. They haven’t accepted the standard menu as given.

2) They have allowed themselves to question the usual definitions of success in business and to imagine possibilities other than the ones all of us are familiar with.

3) The leaders have overcome the enormous pressures on successful companies to take the paths they had not chosen and did not necessarily want to follow.

4) Each company has an extraordinarily intimate relationship with the local community, with customers and suppliers, and in the workplace.

5) Because they are privately owned, they have the freedom to develop their own management systems and practices.

6) The leaders had unbridled, limitless passion for their business and their service/product.


We currently have a number of clients who endlessly beat themselves up because they are not achieving year-on-year exponential growth…

• Maybe the growth lifestyle doesn’t suit them?
• Maybe their business hadn’t been designed to grow?
• Maybe you don’t want to sacrifice all you have created to create a Frankenstein’s monster?
• Maybe there’s more to life than selling the business for a huge profit?

Case Study - Care Home

Take, for example, a small, moderately successful care home group in the Midlands. 

The business had grown organically but found the competition from nationwide groups harder and harder to beat. To win new residents, it was simply cutting prices. It was a road to nowhere. The owner-director had the right caring and entrepreneurial instincts, and his team were good at running the homes day-to-day, but had no real direction, strategy or plan for growth – nor experience of doing it.

The big decision was whether to “milk the cow” or grow the herd: the consensus was that growth was the only realistic strategy – but not by playing the same game as the rest. The key recommendation was to position the business as a caring, “family” business in contrast to the efficiency-and-facilities positioning of the “big guys”, and from this three core campaigns were born:

• Home From Home Care: Focusing on residents feeling at home, and being treated like family – just what you’d want for your mum. A home, not a hotel.
• Fair Prices: A from-the-heart campaign by the owner-director about how people deserve a fair price for care, and not to be ripped off by the financially-driven market leaders with dividends to pay their shareholders. Lots of media traction.
• Care Home In The Community: As a means of recruiting prospective residents, and ensuring current residents stay in touch, a range of initiatives were developed. These included a minibus for use by the local community as well as residents, and a Silver Stars awards scheme with local media rewarding contributions to, and achievements by, older people.

And the results? 

The care home is attracting new visitors which means prices can float up a little. Net profits have increased from ten per cent to close to 20 per cent in 18 months. The "Home From Home Care" experience is being reproduced in new homes, and an accelerated programme of new home openings has started. The group has a clear strategy, identity and profit performance, so is becoming an attractive acquisition target. As a result, the owner will be able to choose the next steps on his own terms.

This is a simple example of a smaller/independent business using its size and agility to compete with the big boys and come out on top. 

Remember: you, too, can design your business to give you what you want.