Business Strategy

Business Strategy is being able to clearly detail your company's strategy, direction, focus in such a way that from it you can make all your corporate decisions. It requires the skill of understanding your business / your market / your clients; the macro and the micro; even the individual personalities of your staff. Yet, it is the one most important decision that you will make for your business. Can you find your way through the various choices with clear focus and an understanding of where your company is going?

Designtoo can help you clarify your strategy, giving you a simple approach against which you can make other decisions. We can help you understand how your strategy can drive the growth of your company and we can help you make sure that your business / brand / systems / processes / etc. are all working in harmony supporting the strategy and developing the business.

Your strategy will also change over time - markets / clients / products / services / staff skills all change and develop, your strategy should be flexible and develop alongside.

Example:

Designtoo was set up in 2005 as a traditional design company offering print and web design. As the company grew over the next few years two clear needs became apparent in how we worked with our clients - to support their business at 1) a process and 2) a system level - through business strategy and system development. As a result we started doing more work at a business level and more detailed coding, providing company systems.

Initially our strategy was:

To offer high quality business design at a reasonable price.

however that has changed over time and our strategy now is:

To help our clients grow through business advice and design.

And this can now be seen in our strapline at the top of the page: designtoo strategic | business | design. It hasn't changed the work we were doing - we still do traditional design from business cards to brochures, flyers to websites - however weuse this to support the client's strategic direction; and of course, the quality and value for money are still there - they are taken for granted.

It might even seem strange to some that we put business advice and design together, but we have had a growing awareness that there is a lot of commonality - we are generally approached for design / coding work, but to do this outside the business context doesn't make sense, there is only any point in doing this work if it builds and grows the organisation we are working with and therefore there is a natural logic in including business advice as a part of the overall approach.

And then...

The most important step is to understand the core strategic direction of the organisation. However, once that has been done, there is still plenty to do - each area of the business should be analysed to ensure that it is in-line with the overall strategy - this is the strategic thinking at a lower level of detail.

Your business' success is made up of a number of areas:

• Product - Your product or service is the key reason for your existence, it is what you do / offer / sell
• Business Skills - The ability to actually run your business - accounts / customer service / managing staff / etc. The day-to-day detail of your business
• Strategy - The ability to direct / focus / grow the business.

The balance of these is what will define your success, for example - fish & chips:

• Being good at the product - fantastic fish and chips, business will probably fail withn the first couple of years
• Good at product and business skills - a successful local fish and chip shop
• Good at all three - a chain of fish and chip shops.

Every aspect of your organisation needs to be tied into your strategic direction, any part of it pulling in a different way will dilute your strength.

Whichever area of your organisation - whether at the macro or micro level we can help you focus your strategy and therefore your business growth.