What is Business Strategy?

If you’re setting up a business, or even just thinking about it, you’ll surely be seeing lots of references to your business strategy – how important it is and how you should be spending time and money on getting it right, but perhaps not to what a business strategy actually is.

Today we’re taking a look at this important document so you understand what it is and why it could be so vital for your future success.

What a Business Strategy Isn’t

The first thing it’s important to clarify is what doesn’t belong in a business strategy. Most importantly, your goals.

What you want to achieve for your business and for yourself, be it your long term vision for the future or short term targets for revenue this year are separate from your strategy. They still deserve as much thought and research: they should be realistic, and tailored to your personal wants. There’s no point setting a goal to expand to a global brand in your first year if it’s neither a realistic aim nor the sort of business you want to be running!

Achieving Your Goals

Your business strategy is the place to lay out how you will achieve those goals. It’s not your aim, but it is your plan.

It’s a useful place to lay out your company culture, the red lines you won’t cross, and safety features to bake into your decision making process to stop you rushing into opportunities without properly assessing them.

For example, you can set out the process by which you decide whether a growth opportunity is the right one for you. If you’re looking to expand into new premises, you can decide a best process for ensuring the candidate site is right for your needs, if the price is reasonable, as well as a series of checks on your own business to ensure you’re in a healthy financial position to sustain expansion.

You can also lay out strategies for funding – how much you’re willing to draw on your own resources, how much debt you’re prepared to sustain and how much decision making power you’re prepared to give away in exchange for investment.

Getting Help

Writing a business strategy is no small task. It requires lots of insight into many different areas of the business world and it’s simply not realistic to take on the hours of work necessary to make them part of your day to day knowledge set. If you’re looking for strategy consulting London is a useful place to start. They can provide the specific insight and expertise you need for this step of putting together your business, letting you focus on the task of running it.