To have a successful workshop a CEO needs to start planning for it 6-8 weeks in advance. A meeting owner has to be appointed soon and a potential set of issues for discussion identified. At this stage it is also necessary to define data requirements, determine number of presentations and timings as well as number of internal attendees at the workshop. Thereafter, the process flows with a meeting owner acting as driver. A month before the meeting a final set of workshop objectives should be agreed and communicated to all participants.
Strategy plans are usually developed once every 2-5 years. They tell us what an organisation should do, why and how it should do it, and where it is going in the future. Among other things strategic planning provides a framework for understanding the organisation’s position in the marketplace and focus on key issues such as quality, productivity, customers, growth and profitability. Strategy must be expressed through specific and measurable objectives and corresponding key performance indicators to provide for undoubtful follow up and control.
It is a common practice for businesses to organise once every year a ‘strategy workshop”, not to develop a new plan, but to review the current position of an organisation relative to its strategic objectives as well as the current internal and external environment situation relative to the one assumed at a time of original planning. As a result, some adjustments in a form of re-allocating resources (of all kinds) and/or rebalancing your portfolio of products and services may be necessary.
To have a successful workshop a CEO needs to start planning for it 6-8 weeks in advance. A meeting owner has to be appointed soon and a potential set of issues for discussion identified. At this stage it is also necessary to define data requirements, determine number of presentations and timings as well as number of internal attendees at the workshop. Thereafter, the process flows with a meeting owner acting as driver. A month before the meeting a final set of workshop objectives should be agreed and communicated to all participants.
There are few issues which, in my opinion, should be investigated, presented and discussed each year. These are the key drivers of your success in the market place as they define what you sell, to whom, which resources you use, what value chain you utilise and how much profit you generate. Each analysis should be delegated to a different person from the relevant department of your organisation who will also present findings at the workshop. They include:
1. Customer profitability analysis. Your accounting department can do it. Find out who are your ‘top 20’ customers who probably bring 80% of profits. Learn what they buy, how much they pay and how often they complain about your service or return the goods you delivered. All data should be readily available internally. Finally, ask your sales and marketing how much they spend annually on these customers (estimate will do if they can’t provide accurate data).
2. Product / service profitability analysis. Again, your accounting guys can pool data from the costing system (Activity Based Costing is superior in my opinion). Learn how much of each product you sell and what does it contribute to the bottom line. 80:20 principle will probably apply here as well. Ask your production executive to prepare a presentation about manufacturing efficiencies on high volume product lines (scrap, rework, output per labour hour, cycle times etc). Ask him/her how many improvements were implemented on those lines over the past year and by how much each of the above indicators were improved over a year.
3. Customers’ perception analysis. Do it with your ‘top 20’ customers but don’t send someone who is in regular touch with them. Your HR department can be an ideal source. Pre-design questions for interviewing to learn how clearly a company understands the needs and expectations of its customers (i.e. which are the key buying criteria for customers) and how easy a company is to do business with (i.e. how effective its processes are).
4. Conduct a survey among own employees to learn how well a company engage the hearts and minds of its people throughout the organisation and how those pre-defined business objectives impact on behaviour and performance of each employee. Learn if your company has effective bottom-up communication (important for innovation and organisational development among other things) or your managers only communicate top-down. Your HR can do this as well.
A week before the workshop, the meeting structure and agenda is previewed with all presenters and facilitator(s). All surveys and analysis are ready and reading material can be distributed to participants. They must receive it at least couple of days before the workshop!
The actual workshop can last one to two days. It should be a relaxed event to promote brain activity and team building. If time allows, it is wise to engage a team building specialist. I have very good experience with this.
Start with discussing agenda and the importance of time keeping. Follow with a CEO’s presentation about where you are now and where you should be according to plan (give participants a chance for a critical Q&A afterwards).
Present reports about customers. Use flipchart and segment your existing customers (add a new segment which hasn’t been captured yet but it was in the plan). Now present the report about products/services. Break a team into smaller groups and allocate each with one market segment. Ask each group to perform a SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats) analysis for a specific segment. Ask them to list competitors in each segment and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Give groups enough time.
Now bring groups together and let each present own segment SWOT and record it on a flipchart. Discuss commonalities and differences. Identify those issues from the SWOT analysis which have major impact on your market share and profitability. Agree corrective action plan(s) and tactics for the next period.
Review your product portfolio using a flipchart and a BCG matrix (or any other matrix which makes you comfortable and confident). If you are not familiar with those ‘consulting tools’ simply look at those products which make a doubtful profit for you and ask yourself if there is any reason to keep them. Refer to the report about employees and see if you, as an organisation, have enough capacity to innovate and improve the situation. After all, there may be an efficiency gap in the particular product line which your employees can turn into cost advantage.
Don’t forget to draw conclusions after each session! If you agree at the workshop to delegate an assignment to individual or team, put that in writing and allocate a time frame for this.
Ask the facilitator to prepare a written report with formulation of all agreed tactics and corrective actions and distribute it to participants afterwards.
Carry a follow up / review meeting every 3 months.
If in doubt or lacking time or capacity, ask for external assistance.
