Developing & implementing a strategy for business growth

Damien O’Brien, founder of SME Matters, spoke at one of our recent Members’ Virtual Meeting on developing a strategy for business growth.

Damien emphasised the importance of putting key items in place before starting on the strategy:

  1. An understanding of the owner’s motivation for developing and growing the business to get a clear view of what success looks like. E.g. a lifestyle business will have a very different motivation from a high growth start-up.
  2. A vision statement should be created which specifies “objectives tied to timelines”.
  3. A purpose statement should be created which defines three key items – “what we do, how we do it and how it benefits others”.

If a strategy is to be successful, it is important that it is aligned with the owner’s motivation, the vision statement and the purpose statement.

The growth strategy should cover the following key areas:

  1. Financial
  2. Market
  3. Customer
  4. Efficiency and innovation
  5. People and organisation

Strategy for growth

The strategy is then broken down into department objectives with KPI’s and milestones for each department which are measured and reviewed directly.

Here is a link to another excellent talk by Damien: