Published Articles & Blogs
Published Articles
|
January/February 2022.
|
Blogs
|
To see additional blog posts, click the 'previous' link at bottom of page
|
AuthorsDeb Dietz, CEO Archives
January 2022
|
Back to Blog
Strategic Planning Assessment1/20/2022 Blog post by Deb Dietz. Complete this assessment to determine if your Strategic Planning process is working for you. It will help you clarify where you are today (current state), and where you want your business to be (desired state). "He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign". - Victor Hugo 
0 Comments
Back to Blog
 Blog post by Deb DietzIn your business are you constantly changing, constantly re-prioritizing? Shifting direction frequently rather than staying the course? As part of the business planning process you're certainly prioritizing objectives, and those objectives ideally should be looked at, even re-prioritized, each quarter based on inputs like market and financial analysis, customer and supplier feedback - you know, factors that impact your profitable growth. But what happens when re-prioritizing isn't based on data, or customer feedback, or market insights? What happens when you shift direction based on someone's feedback? Maybe a business colleague who has an opinion, someone who isn't in your industry, or isn't an expert in what he/she is providing feedback on? Do you follow that advice, knowing that you're changing again? Because change can be addictive. You know, that next shiny penny. Maybe you've worked hard on brand awareness, spending much time and investment in getting the word out about who you are, your company, your value proposition over a period of several months. Then, when you're building steam and gaining momentum, which are essential to your success, you change the way you talk about yourself. And you change your website to reflect this new way of thinking. You are excited about making change because change, in and of itself, implies making either an essential difference or a substitution of one thing for another. So, you've discarded the essential, thrown it out in the bathwater because of the excitement and energy that change brings. Think of the time wasted. Opportunities missed. Following the shiny penny, then finding a new shiny penny, then another, isn't sustainable. You can't focus and you won't make ground. And, you'll lose that one thing that was essential to your success. So, no matter where you're going - this way, that way, or the other way, justify your direction with insights gained from data analysis and business intelligence.
Back to Blog
 Article written by Deb Dietz for publication in the January/February 2022 issue of International Market and Competitive Analysis Magazine. Live stream/podcast date TBD.Now that it’s almost the New Year, you’re moving along implementing the strategic business plan you developed last fall. We all understand that a business plan is paramount for success, but did you take these three critical process steps last fall that resulted in a plan that will deliver on your goals in the New Year? Step back and review if you did. These process steps you should have included are: (1) project planning, (2) data analysis, and (3) targeted research. Often businesses jump right into plan development, missing key learnings from collecting and analyzing business information that would have put them on the right path. And that's the point. You want to be on the right path, ensuring you have the right focus on your people, your internal operations, your value proposition, and your customers. Because it takes this kind of focus to drive improved business performance. Only then can you drive the financial results for your business that are truly transformational. In today's complex business climate, each organizational department is being asked to support the company by delivering deeper insight and greater value more effectively than ever before. Today's companies must be:
Every company needs two things when embarking on a strategic planning project. Business information, and a clear set of goals and objectives necessary to achieve the maximum benefits from its strategic planning project. The data and information goals may include:
So before you get too far down the road, consider your business intelligence framework. Gartner has a great framework that recognizes that, "Increasingly, a broad set of users, in a variety of roles, will be enabled to create analytics content. Leaders of the business intelligence, analytic and performance management initiatives need to foster this trend, encouraging more people to think like analysts." Articulating these goals is essential. Yet a company must do more than state its goals to achieve its strategic planning objectives. It needs a working framework that provides a blueprint for business. Gartner's framework is defined as "the people, processes and technologies that need to be integrated and aligned to take a more strategic approach to business intelligence, analytics and performance management initiatives". To make the shift from tactical to strategic planning, companies must start with a shared repository of trusted information. This includes a common set of dimensions, hierarchies and business rules to ensure consistency across all analytic processes. Business users can rely on insights gained through an integrated reporting, analysis and planning solution to fulfill their vision for an information-driven business culture. Think of the business information process as having two distinct phases: the goal and the process. The goal of the project articulates its purpose. To be able to articulate the goal and understand the process to achieve the goal, ask these questions:
So, don't jump right into the plan development process or you'll miss key learnings from collecting and analyzing business information that would put you on the right path. Before you get too far down the road, ensure you have your goals identified and project plan developed; you've gathered and analyzed data; you've articulated the business problem, impact and root cause; you've developed your project work plan; identified all stakeholders and your planning team members; you have your stakeholder communication plan; and you have identified your project process, timelines and deliverables. Deb Dietz, MBA is the Founder and CEO of SMB Value Partners, Inc. She is a champion of BI and data-driven Strategic Planning, offering consulting services and her online course, The Strategic Planning Academy. She is certified in Executive Data Science from Johns Hopkins, and develops, hosts and markets online courses for B2B and B2C subject matter experts, helping them ‘productize and monetize’ their expertise and teach a global, online, target audience, sharing their knowledge with the world.
Back to Blog
 Blog post by Deb DietzIt's that time of year again. The business planning cycle has begun for the new year. And as much as a business plan is paramount for success, much work must be done before you can develop your plan. That work includes three process steps you must take which include project planning, data analysis, and targeted research. Often businesses jump right into the plan development, missing key learnings from collecting and analyzing business information that would have put them on the right path. And that's the point. You want to be on the right path, ensuring you have the right focus on your people, your internal operations, your value proposition, and your customers. Because it takes this kind of focus to drive improved business performance. Only then can you drive the financial results for your business that are truly transformational. In today's complex business climate, each organizational department is being asked to support the company by delivering deeper insight and greater value more effectively than ever before. Today's companies must be:
Every company needs two things when embarking on a strategic planning project. Business information, and a clear set of goals and objectives necessary to achieve the maximum benefits from its strategic planning project. The data and information goals may include:
So before you get too far down the road, consider your business intelligence framework. Gartner has a great framework that recognizes that, "Increasingly, a broad set of users, in a variety of roles, will be enabled to create analytics content. Leaders of the business intelligence, analytic and performance management initiatives need to foster this trend, encouraging more people to think like analysts." Articulating these goals is essential. Yet a company must do more than state its goals to achieve its strategic planning objectives. It needs a working framework that provides a blueprint for business. Gartner's framework is defined as "the people, processes and technologies that need to be integrated and aligned to take a more strategic approach to business intelligence, analytics and performance management initiatives". To make the shift from tactical to strategic planning, companies must start with a shared repository of trusted information. This includes a common set of dimensions, hierarchies and business rules to ensure consistency across all analytic processes. Business users can rely on insights gained through an integrated reporting, analysis and planning solution to fulfill their vision for an information-driven business culture. Think of the business information process as having two distinct phases: the goal and the process. The goal of the project articulates its purpose. To be able to articulate the goal and understand the process to achieve the goal, ask these questions:
So, don't jump right into the plan development process or you'll miss key learnings from collecting and analyzing business information that would put you on the right path. Before you get too far down the road, ensure you have your goals identified and project plan developed; you've gathered and analyzed data; you've articulated the business problem, impact and root cause; you've developed your project work plan; identified all stakeholders and your planning team members; you have your stakeholder communication plan; and you have identified your project process, timelines and deliverables.
Back to Blog
Differentiating Your Brand6/23/2020  Blog post by Deb DietzLet’s face it – you’re surrounded by competition. But how you stand out – how you differentiate yourself - is critically important. Ask yourself this, “what does our company do that makes us stand out from other similar competitors in the marketplace”? If you can’t clearly articulate that difference, consider developing a differentiating strategy that your potential customers will find valuable. I’ll use my own company, SMB Value Partners, Inc. for an example. Up until recently we were “all things to all people” – we do full service consulting, we do on-line business education, we source tangible products. Our company name is SMB (small to mid-sized businesses), but we work with larger corporations too. We have expertise in Marketing. We have expertise in IT. We have expertise in Strategic Planning. We have expertise in Operations. “We can do it all – for any one”. So, here we are thinking we can be all things to all people, but all that did was confuse our value. Confuse our marketing, confuse our messaging. And, confuse our potential customers. So, we sat down and thought about what we could do to leverage our thought leadership in another way, one that differentiated ourselves, that wasn’t confusing, where we could leverage our expertise. So we made the decision that in order to truly differentiate ourselves, we were going to change our business model. THAT would be our go-forward strategy. That clarity has taken us a very long time to get to. Our consulting services business model was not differentiated. Do you know how many marketing consultants are out there? How many business planning consultants are out there? How many IT consultants are out there? Exactly. Now add the on-line education format to that…..how many webinars, on-line learning platforms, free trainings are out there? And now we’re also sourcing tangible products. How does that fit our ‘professional services’ model? It doesn’t. We were living in the reality of ‘chasing the shiny penny’, losing our core identity and brand promise. There are many ways you can differentiate yourself. You can specialize in an industry, offer a particular service, offer a unique process, focus on a specific target audience, specialize in serving customers of a certain size, focus on solving a specific business challenge, offer a unique business model…..there’s a long list. But for us, we didn’t reinvent the “what”, or the “why” – we reinvented the “how”. In our case, by taking what we know – our thought leadership in different disciplines – and we’re making it experiential and available in a different format. We reinvented the “how”. Take a look at your brand identity – how you are relevant to your customers, how you are authentic and true to your customers (and, are you able to prove it?). Find where you are differentiated, and if you can’t quite articulate it, do some homework and find how to build a sustainable differentiation strategy that makes your expertise highly visible to your target audience. One that sets you apart. One that is sustainable. Sometimes it’s not what you’re doing, or who you’re doing it for. Maybe, like us, it’s in the “how”.
Back to Blog
 Blog post by Deb DietzOnce this pandemic is behind us and our businesses open up, our environment is going to look different. Our 'new normal' will be just that - a new, normal. The days of sauntering into the office, taking our place behind our desks, in cubicles that are very close together, will need to be adjusted. Office layouts with more space in-between or higher cubicle walls will be more important than ever. Hand sanitizer and masks available front and center will be a necessity. When you think about all the things it will take to open back up for business, the list is very long. Are you thinking right now about what you'll have to do differently to ensure a safe environment for yourself, your employees, and your customers? Here we are, focusing on getting back to work. But the most critical factor in all of this is ensuring our workforce is safe in doing so. After going through the recent health crisis, business processes, procedures and technologies will need to be reviewed, re-imagined, restructured and re-implemented in order to respond to the new normal for businesses and employees alike. SMB can help you navigate the new normal. We can support your needs for protective equipment - masks, gloves, thermometers, anti-bacterial wipes, hand sanitizer, and more. We can also help on the technology side. Solutions such as sensor technology will be a critical need and can support our 'new normal' work environment. You may have to be ready for your employees and customers to have their temperatures taken prior to entry into your building, ensuring that no one who enters has a fever, putting your team at risk of the virus spreading through your office. And, your hardware needs may change to support continued work-from home efforts. We're seeing a significant increase in laptops, external hard drives and printer orders as a result. Who would have thought just a few months ago that these items would now be essential products and new technologies you will need to have on-hand in your business. Will you be ready? Stay safe out there.
Back to Blog
 Blog post by Deb DietzOne of my colleagues, Jennifer J. Fondrevay, is the organizational transformation guru companies work with to keep their growth strategies on track. And, while data is increasingly used to develop and guide business strategy and inform decision making, Jennifer helps ensure the human component of a company’s plan, such as culture, productivity, and retention remains a cornerstone of success during times of change rather than an inhibitor. Let’s look at your growth plan. Most likely you’re accommodating for external changes and their impact on your business. External changes like what’s happening in your industry, your competition, changes with technology, changes with the economy. But what about internal changes? Are you in the midst of a reorganization, consolidation, restructuring or a merger or acquisition? Or, are you anticipating changes like this for your business? If so, are you planning now to mitigate disruption in the future? Because changes like this can cause massive disruption. Imagine the impact on your team. The feelings of loss and uncertainty. Trying to get a handle on what to expect as their roles change. Are they safe in this new world of uncertainty? This is the kind of fear that keeps them up at night. Leaders navigating through this sea of change have to proactively manage the transition stages. How will your people respond? How must you improve communications with colleagues who are experiencing workplace stress? Are your people prepared to assess the requirements for success in a new role? Will they be able to pivot to achieve these new goals? What can you do now to help them be successful? Yes, data and analysis are important in any growth plan. But sometimes you need to rely on your gut instinct, and cultivate the human point of view as part of the decision-making process. Human beings may not have the computing power of software programs, algorithms, or robots, but intuition (or inner wisdom) should never be underestimated, especially in business. To learn more about how to cultivate the human point of view in this era of data-driven decision-making, I invite you to learn more about Jennifer and her work as an organizational transformation guru. She’s published her book, so visit her website at https://www.jenniferjfondrevay.com.
Back to Blog
Do You Have A Growth Mindset?6/13/2019  Blog post by Deb DietzDo you relish opportunities for self-improvement? Are you on a quest for knowledge? Are you intellectually curious? Take, for example, a business owner who has a growth mindset. How does she/he differ from a business owner without a growth mindset? One of the primary differences is having a greater sense of purpose and keeping the big picture in mind. Often, business owners get stuck in the day-to-day. They are so busy doing what they've always done that they don't prioritize taking a step back to think. Yes, time to think is critical for business success. Taking time to reflect every day is so important. You need to reflect on what you learned today....and take some time to think about what you need to learn about. What do you need to KNOW? Take, for example, your business planning process. Is it working for you? What did you learn the last time you led your business through this process? Did you learn where you have vulnerabilities? Did you learn what you're good at? Did you learn if your employees are happy campers? Did you learn where you are financially vulnerable? Did you learn if the competition is gaining ground? Did you learn about where you can innovate? Did you learn where to redeploy human and financial resources to have a greater financial and customer impact? You must pay attention. You must find answers to these questions - and many others, in order to take your business to the next level. You need to work your brain and embark on a continuous learning path. People with a growth mindset are always learning. They always want to improve. Take your strategic business planning process. You've probably hired an outside consultant in the past to help you through the process. You hired the expertise. The consultant you hired learned a great deal about your business. They helped you develop your plan. But, then they moved on and left you to implement. They took their knowledge of your business with them. They became better consultants because of it. You both benefited. You have a plan, that you can now implement, but the consultant just built another layer of expertise on top of their already substantial knowledge base. Every time they engage in a consulting assignment, they learn more. But, what if you decided you wanted to learn more? Consider this. Consider you led the business planning process yourself, surrounded by your team, all learning an effective method of planning that can result in double digit, profitable revenue growth. You provide an opportunity for learning within your organization. You bring a growth mindset inside your business, inside yourself, and inside your people. This collaborative learning process can be the spark that ignites your growth mindset, and the spark that ignites the growth of your business.
Back to Blog
 Blog post by Deb DietzI was having a conversation with a client about the decline in attendance at her association’s annual meeting this year. She was telling me that her organization had thousands of members, but many were passive. She felt they were disengaged from the organization, and she felt many were probably on the cusp of not renewing their membership. When discussing her annual meeting specifically, she stated that she was spending more on marketing and communications campaigns to drive less attendance than in years past. What’s going on? To try and make sense of this, I did a little digging and came across a book, “Bowling Alone”, by Robert D. Putnam. For those of you that don’t know the book, he speaks about the collapse and revival of the American community, and speaks specifically about the sport of bowling. He has analyzed a lot of data and has come to the conclusion that Americans are becoming increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures; whether the PTA, church, or even bowling leagues. His data show that people…individuals…are bowling more than they ever have; they just aren’t bowling in leagues. He notes the impact on revenue (declining) because bowling lane chains are no longer benefiting from the revenue associated with beer and pizza, which is where the money is. Some additional trends in Putnam’s research speak to Americans spending less time DOING and spending more time WATCHING. Watching their phones, their iPads, their TV – would you disagree? Try having a conversation with someone when they won’t put down their phone or digital device, look you in the face and actually have a conversation! This is the world we live in today. Great to be so connected, but we’re connected digitally, not physically. With this in mind, I asked my client if she was witnessing the same declining participation with her association’s on-line or digital (e-Learning) programs. She said, no. In fact, they were trending up on the digital events while trending down on the live events. Her members are getting what they need digitally and don’t seem to value the impact of social/professional connections – in person connections. Of course not everyone has their nose in their phone or iPad, and some members actually value the in-person connection, but you have to know the demographics of your membership and how they want to learn, or receive information. Have it their way. So ask the right questions and develop a portfolio of value; products, programs and services that serve their needs and that they’ll willingly pay for. If you provide the right value to the right audience with the right message via the right channel, you may just end up bowling in the league instead of by yourself.
Back to Blog
 Blog Post By Charles DietzThis series of posts will help a typical Small and Mid-sized Business (SMB or Mid-Market) achieve Business Improvement / Business Transformation starting from a process of developing appropriate, structured performance measurements (KPIs). These measures can be at different levels of detail, and can be:
Let’s talk about a couple of KPIs that could be important to your business, developing data that will be valuable in higher-level measurements of business transformation / improvement. Example #1, Waterfall Forecast and Sales KPI: For many organizations where there are ongoing sales of many products that must be made or procured, one helpful tool is the Waterfall Forecast and Sales Report (KPI display), a stylized version shown below. Our example is for a consumer-products distribution company, sourcing most of their 5,000 products in China and distributing to retail outlets in the USA from a Chicago warehouse. For the Product sub-class: Consumer Widgets (imported from China), representing a summation of the Consumer Widgets (China) data (forecasts, sales, purchase orders, customer orders), the time to plan, make/procure, and have a widget available for sale is 3 months. So on December 1st of this year, our current day and month, we have a current proposed forecast of 260, 290, 250, 169, 150, 140, 130, 120, 240 units for December through next August. We need to understand a few things: 1. Since there is a three month delay from a month’s order placement with suppliers in China until ocean delivery to our customer-facing USA warehouse, the forecast made back on September 1st for delivery on December 1st of 262 units is what we put on a Purchase Order (PO) and will get (aka Frozen Forecast / what we should measure Forecast Performance against). 2. The December forecast made on November 1st (for 275) will not change the 262 units originally planned/ordered, unless you take extraordinary actions to change the China suppliers' POs for 262 made on 9/1. (and that will likely cost extra $$$$s (flying potato peelers on a 747 from China to the USA is often cost prohibitive )) 3. So today (December 1st) is the last opportunity to change the forecast/PO for MARCH 1st! 4. The Three Month Total (far right column shows the changes in these forecasts over time for the period March thru May. This helps to look for trends in the forecasting process (under/over forecasting, lots of last minute promotional deals, etc. 5. Remember: for a senior-level Forecast Review Meeting, if you have a great number of SKUs, the forecasts and other KPIs are reviewed at an agreed-to aggregate level (Product Sub-Class in our example), and the forecast analysts (and others) are responsible for “allocating” the forecast changes down to the individual SKUs / Suppliers / PO's. 6. The Forecast / Sales / Marketing Analyst(s) can access the same type of report at the SKU level. Some other KPIs that might be of interest to your business: 1. From the above example, another important KPI might be the ongoing review of and efforts to decrease the lead time of products (considering the tradeoffs of the various associated costs and benefits). 2. Another related KPI might measure production/delivery to Frozen Forecast. In our example, you have to measure the actual delivery to the USA for December 1st against the December forecast for the Consumer Widgets from China made on September 1st. Thus, our March KPI for a rolling 3 month KPI calculation would be to compare the Actual Sales (275 + 320 + 255 = 850) to the appropriate forecast: ((265+290+230) – Actual Sales) / Actual Sales = 6 % forecast error shortfall. (Which may have resulted in lost sales ) 3. KPI displays can be constructed that deliver additional measures of the business. For example: adding current stock levels and safety stock quantities to a KPI display, you can calculate potential stock-outs / lost sales and the ratio of sales to inventory value. Outside experts with KPI and S&OP creation and implementation experience can work with your stakeholder team to speed the design, process development and implementation of a KPI and S&OP process customized for your organization. The key values to the business is the development of meaningful KPI measures of the business’ health, the discussion between the key stakeholders over past and current KPI results, and what can be done to continue improvements in all the operations of the business. Future posts on KPIs and related topics will include:
|
||
RSS Feed
