Business Planning

Creating and implementing a strategic business plan is essential for any firm that cares about its future and wants to take control of its own destiny. If you recognize your business in any of the following statements, then Dark Horse Strategies can help you define and achieve the right steps to achieve your goals:

• You're doing well, but want growth and a stronger market position and you're unsure about the best strategies to achieve it.
• You know you're up against some difficult organizational issues, but you don't know what to do about them.
• Your firm has great value and future potential, and as you look to the next generation, you feel the need for a transition plan.
• You're losing clients, and maybe even your best staff, to your competition.
• Your revenues have been flat, your firm feels stagnant and needs to be revitalized.

Business Plans tend to reflect a shorter-term (1-2 year) outlook and include a more operational focus with a set of targets and activities to reach those targets.

A good business plan basically serves two purposes. First, it helps the firm's management to work in a more efficient and effective manner (clearly identifying key business issues, providing unbiased insights into market and business conditions, serving as a tool for effective corporate communications and consensus building, identifying important action items, etc.).

Second, a good business plan communicates the firm's position effectively to outsiders. It can be (and often is) used in the context of efforts to catalyze new equity support or to allow the firm to obtain an adequate bank line (something which should be done before the firm reaches its resource limit).

Business plans can be internally-prepared, but an internally formulated business plan typically adds nothing to the firm's existing level of knowledge and will often reflect the partisan perspective of the writer. Internally prepared business plans have almost no utility in connection with external dealings. They typically are regarded, in this context, as biased and incomplete. Internally-prepared plans frequently also prove to be ineffective communication tools (since they may be founded on many flawed assumptions, including invalid assessments as to the interests, priorities or even the level of understanding possessed by the reader).

Dark Horse Strategies can also provide specialized services in

• Strategic Planning - longer-term and broader (3-10 year) outlook for the growth of the business
• Marketing – audits, research, plan development,
• Change Management – assisting your leaders and employees in making the changes that inevitably come from undergoing the comprehensive business or strategic plan implementation
• Leadership & Executive Development – skill assessment, individual development plans, and professional confidential coaching for entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, managers, teams and employees

   

Dark Horse Strategies will help you reach your business goals at least cost to you. Contact us at info@darkhorsestrategies.com to explore how our consultants can serve your business.