STRATEGY: The first step in setting goals and priorities is to personally develop what the organization should look like at some point in the future. Try to picture what your department would look like if it was perfect, or what the most efficient way to produce your product would look like, or perhaps if your budget was reduced by 10 percent, how you could still meet the same quality product?
“One of the best starting points for a strategy session is at the end of it. I’m talking about more than the goal, but what the experience will be for customers and employees.” — Paul Williams
Strategy: Start at the end.
A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a vision.
Paul Williams is the Founder of Idea Sandbox, a self-described Barnstormer, Creative Problem Solver, Retail Marketing Crackerjack and Writer. Recently Paul wrote, “One of the best starting points for a strategy session is at the end of it. Starting by clearly expressing what the end results should be, serves as a clear target for participants to aim for. I’m talking about more than the goal, but what the experience will be for customers and employees.”
Creating an outstanding customer experience for your customers is dependent on really knowing your customers. Are your customers primarily from the loyal and industrious World War II generation? Or are they millennials?
The first step in setting goals and priorities is to personally develop what the organization should look like at some point in the future.
The organization’s mission is crucial in determining your vision. Your vision needs to coincide with the big picture. The term “vision” suggests a mental picture of what the future organization will look like. The concept also implies a later time horizon. This time horizon tends to be mid to long-term in nature, focusing on as much as 2, 5, or even 10 years in the future for visions affecting the entire organization
The concept of a vision has become a popular term within academic, government, defense, and corporate circles. This has spawned many different definitions of vision. But, the vision you want should be a picture of where you want your department to be at a future date. For example, try to picture what your department would look like if it was perfect, or what the most efficient way to produce your product would look like, or perhaps if your budget was reduced by 10 percent, how you could still create the same quality product.
“Remember to Think about the Customer”
Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th century economist, theorized that most effects come from relatively few causes; that is, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the possible causes. For example, 20% of the inventory items in the supply chain of an organization accounts for 80% of the inventory value.
Don’t waste your time or energy on the 80% that will only affect 20%!
Businesses across the country report poor communication is the single biggest daily obstacle to smooth efficient operations. (click to enlarge - ©Dolighan)
Under continuous pressure to accomplish all this with budget-constrained resources while maintaining respectable margins, these teams are relying more than ever on their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to support the all-encompassing view of their accounts, including quoting, order tracking, customer interaction, partner management, and service management.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new clients, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former clients back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and client service.
Customer relationship management describes a company-wide business strategy including customer-interface departments as well as other departments.
Measuring and valuing customer relationships is critical to implementing this strategy. Starting by clearly expressing what the end results should be, serves as a clear target for participants to aim for. I’m talking about more than the objective, but what the experience will be for customers and employees.”
Start at the END.
Once you have your vision of how it ENDS, it needs to be framed in general, measurable terms and communicated to your team.
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