Making the family business strategic | Family Business Magazine

Having a clear strategic direction and plan for your business is critical, but many family enterprises struggle with strategic planning. As a result, setting business strategy becomes a common source of frustration and conflict.

How should family businesses approach strategy and strategic planning and what are some of the lessons learnt along the way?

A good strategic plan enables owners and managers to set out agreed longer term objectives for the business, according to Kerryn Newton, managing director of board consultancy Directors Australia, who specialises in working with SMEs. She regularly works with families that are exploring whether to take their businesses to the next level by implementing an independent board.

Having a clear strategy in place for the business is crucial whether or not they take the board route.

Mike O?Hagan, the founder and managing director/CEO of MiniMovers, says a clear strategy is crucial to business success. Mike started the business in 1985 with just $200 and a ute.

The company now has a turnover of more than $30 million and more than 500 employees.

How would you define MiniMovers? strategy?

Mike O?Hagan: It is essential that any business knows what it is trying to achieve. A business is a source of income that gives you your lifestyle and the freedom to enjoy it ? otherwise you have a job, not a business.

MiniMovers has a very clear core business strategy which works well and we don?t touch ? that is, we are industry leaders in short distance, door to door removals where the customer controls the cost. We have a clear understanding of and focus on our customers? wants and needs, our product and our people. Unlike corporate businesses, which have an 80 percent focus on financials, customers are our key focus.

How does strategic planning occur at MiniMovers?

Mike O?Hagan: Our whole business is structured and continually updated and reviewed to service customer needs. Any business should be able to put its strategic plan on one page, and this is the approach adopted by MiniMovers. While our core business never changes, marketing strategies around our core business and customer needs are always under review.

Kerryn Newton: Mike has hit on a very salient point about the importance in updating and reviewing your strategic plan. It?s not a process that you do once and it lasts the life of a business.

To work well, it?s important that a strategic plan is a living document and its principles are embedded in your business, otherwise it is just a piece of paper.

How does MiniMovers monitor achievement of its strategic goals?

Mike O?Hagan: It is important to have monitoring mechanisms that work for you. We have a series of metrics which are reported on a weekly basis and include lead and lag indicators across a range of aspects of the business such as operations, sales (including web sales), financial performance and HR. The reports are in a dashboard and graph format and focus on showing trends. Comparing this year to last is much more important to us than budgets, profit and loss statements and balance sheets.

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For more information visit www.directorsaustralia.com or www.minimovers.com.au.

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Source: http://familybusinessmagazine.com.au/business-tips/making-the-family-business-strategic/

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