How to Form a Business Strategy

A business strategy takes research, critical thinking and setting targets. It provides the objectives and direction for your company, helping to achieve growth, security and competitive advantage.

Your strategy helps staff and stakeholders understand the strategies and work towards a common goal.

A business strategy should cover the following:

• Description of your business and its purpose
• Explore the environment you operate in
• Define your goals for the next few years
• Outline how you’ll achieve the goals
• Allocate and prioritise resources
• Explain what success will look like
• How will you measure success

Benefits of business strategies for small businesses

For a small business, taking time to write a strategy may seem daunting but investing the time early can save you time in the future.

Strategies give you the confidence to get where you need to go, and researching in advance makes it easier to navigate pitfalls and succeed.

Not only that but it helps provide clarity while serving as a reminder of why you made the decisions you did and why you should stick to things rather than changing tactics when things get difficult.

What to include in your business strategy

So, what should you include in your business strategy? Read on for more details.

Identify aspirations and values

Rather than concentrating on results only, consider your vision for the future and think about your aspirations. Use this to set your goals.

Self-assessment

A SWOT analysis will help you identify your strengths, weakness, opportunities for growth and threats to your business. Thinking about these will give you ideas, and navigate issues.

Identify your target market

Pinpointing your market will help you determine the best way to get your product or service in front of them.

Research your competition

Knowing your competition is the best way to find way to make your product or service stand out from theirs. Find out what they do and how they do it and do it better.

Set goals

Now that you have done your research it's time to set your goals. Not just business goals but also team and individual employee goals.

Make a plan

Plan actionable tasks that will help achieve the goals you have set, this can be short-term, long term or both.

Consider management

Consider how your management will approach skills training and development as well as which tools and software may be required.

Results measurement

Thinking about how you will measure success. Use metrics to figure out if you are meeting your KPIs and if not, this is the perfect opportunity to make adjustments.