How to define a coherent and effective business strategy? The issue of consistency is important because choices must fit into the plan, the positioning and the values defined at the highest level of the company. We can imagine that a company positioned on know-how and competence will inevitably reach its goals.
Business strategy is a fundamental element to ensure the growth of a business. The strategy consists in designing an offer that will exploit a set of business assets in order to be as close as possible to the expectations of the target customers.
Let's discuss some key points of an effective business strategy.
1. Components of a business strategy
It may seem obvious that a clear business strategy for all sales teams is a prerequisite for monitoring development and achieving goals. But are you sure you have taken into account all the elements of a business strategy? Will it still be effective when you have to have your annual strategy?
Does it include all the components of the "go-to-market" of your product or service offering, ie a consistent guideline: the objectives, means, resources allocated and the resulting operational organization? Take note of the key points that ensure you have an effective business strategy and that gives you every chance to reach your goals.
2. Outcome objectives and their monitoring indicators
You set goals for results (and you did well!). This involves following and pursuing your goals throughout the year to make sure you reach them. How? By defining the associated measurement indicators, and therefore the corresponding key performance indicators to evaluate them: "output" indicators on the expected results and "contribution" indicators on the activities expected to reach them.
3. The means
Intimately linked to the targeted customer or prospect segments, the means to earn and retain are also a key element to be defined with precision: preferred sales channels and expected revenue streams per channel, marketing and communication means deployed, flows Expected prospects reach the level of business activity defined in relation to the end goals.
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4. Priority Targets, According to Potential Criteria
The field of intervention of the sales teams is what I use because it is a key input of reflection. Segmentation of customers and prospects is a necessity. Are your customers ranked according to revenue or margin criteria generated? Is there an assessment of their development potential during the year?
5. The level of commercial effort to be made on each of these segments
The distribution of efforts then consists in determining the coverage and the commercial pressure on these segments. Thus, the different types of actions to be conducted on the sales process (calls, discovery visits, defense, training …), as well as the allocation of resources and commercial time per share on the different segments will be adjusted . Not defining it at the level of the strategy means that each salesperson will decide himself the distribution of his efforts according to his own criteria … Do you want to take such a risk?
6. The optimal commercial organization
The formalization of the strategy also includes the choices of commercial organization: should we form specialized teams in different segments, or rather support different types of employees according to the stages of the process? of sale?
The customer's visit has a cost, and the time spent in pre-sales has an impact on commercial profitability. This is the reason why some companies can for example entrust the detection and the qualification of the opportunities to sedentary teams, and the phases of discovery of the needs up to the contracting phase towards a commercial domain.
If all the points raised were addressed when you defined your business strategy, you have established a solid foundation and created the right conditions at the outset to give you the best chance of success. The next step is to turn this business strategy into operational action plans and drive them effectively to ensure goals are met.