Dansk
Experience shows that a sales process is easier and smoother when a company has a well-defined strategy. The direction is clear, as are the conditions for success. Strategy expert Sanne Markwall has digitised the otherwise complex strategy process. "Super positive experience and a powerful tool", says the M+A Business Exchange.
Companies with a well-developed and understood strategy clearly outperform those without. This is borne out by both experience and empirical evidence.
Strategy processes are feared by many business leaders because they are often "long-winded", expensive, complicated and do not really lead anywhere because the end product is a vague document without concrete instructions on what the company should do to achieve its goals.
The value of a good strategy was rarely in doubt, because companies with a strategy achieve better results than those without a formalised battle plan. Yet, because of the complexity, many try to bypass the strategy work.
There is no need for that anymore. Danish strategy expert Sanne Markwall has now developed and launched an affordable digital tool that guides the company through a structured questioning process in an educational way, with the possibility for all relevant people to participate in the process. The end product is a clear and easy-to-understand action plan, which the company can also easily adjust afterwards if (when) some of the conditions change.
The process is so intuitive and simple that the company can do it itself, but many still choose to let a strategist facilitate the process. Whether you do it yourself or use a consultant, the process is far simpler and more flexible than the classic consultant-based strategy processes used in the past.
"A strong strategic foundation underpins and strengthens the company in its development and growth. It is important to always have a good overview of all the issues that affect operations and development. This overview facilitates the whole approach and process of strategy development, implementation and execution. And it ultimately influences the sale price of a company", explains Frank Jensen, Enterprise Exchange.
A powerful tool that ties up loose ends
"On a daily basis, as business brokers, we work with a wide range of companies that are in the process of planning and outlining plans for the company's development and future operating base.
This is often part of the preparation to make the company ready for sale. And we often hear - when companies need to involve several advisors with different expertise and competencies - that it's a lot of work when their contributions and input need to be built into the company's overall strategic plans," says Frank Jensen.
"We find MakeMyStrategy™ easily accessible and flexible. You are guided through the strategy process, which is finally summarised automatically in an easy-to-understand document. You can share with the whole company and other stakeholders and you can work effectively with the strategy in everyday life"
says Frank Jensen, M+A Virksomhedsbørsen A/S.
The solution has been developed by strategy expert Sanne Markwall, who has integrated a number of classic strategy methods into the powerful tool, which guides the company pedagogically through all the questions it needs to ask itself in an informed strategy process.
An effective process - with or without consultants.
We asked Sanne Markwall to describe the importance and value of working professionally and purposefully with the strategy foundation and to explain a bit about the background of the digital platform MakeMyStrategy™.
"The Centre for Owner-Managed Enterprises has done a study which shows that companies that work on strategy have on average two times higher profits and three times higher growth than companies that do not work on strategy. The figures speak for themselves. In other words, your business becomes much more valuable when you work with a sharp and focused strategy", Sanne Markwall sums up.
"I've been working with strategy processes for many years and I have to admit that the work often became too complicated and time-consuming to lead to concrete results. I decided to do something about that. I wanted to digitise the process, guiding companies efficiently through a questioning and working process to end up with a simple and understandable tool - or battle plan - with the focus points that companies themselves found important."
says Sanne Markwall
Both small and large companies can benefit from the tool, which also includes a number of pedagogical tools in the form of templates and videos, etc., to make it easy to communicate the strategy.
"I still meet an astonishing number of companies that think strategy is a waste of time. But you have to know, not guess, what the priorities should be. And you have to know which direction to go in and that requires you to be data-driven and not (only) rely on intuition.
This is particularly important at a time when business models can become obsolete in a morning and new opportunities are emerging at record speed. The ability to move in time has become crucial for the vast majority of businesses.
Where do you come from? Where to go? How do you get there? The tool deals with all this by asking questions and relating the answers.
Emotions also play a big role in a sales situation and must be respected and taken seriously. Here, the classic strategy books do not offer much help. MakeMyStrategy™, on the other hand, does. Feelings must be brought to the fore. They only become dangerous if they are left unsaid. And they are often more important than you might think. In other words, there's room for both emotion and hardcore business - if you build on strategic clarity," says Sanne Markwall.
Strategic tool with proven impact and effectiveness.
Developing a strategy is often based on unmanageable amounts of material and information, where formatting and versioning takes the focus away from content. A classic, manual strategy plan risks quickly losing relevance because it is not up to date.
Say goodbye to the dusty strategy plan, the many books, the use of analogue templates, unused data, fragmented and unmanageable knowledge, and heavy and complex strategy processes that start from scratch every time.
In MakeMyStrategy™, the company can adapt the strategy in a few moments. All material of importance exists digitally, in one place, online, and can be easily adjusted if (when) the situation requires it.
"In MakeMyStrategy™, you easily make the relevant corrections and then see where the corrections can have an impact. This allows you to rethink the strategy. Once you've made the impact corrections, you can generate an updated strategy plan with updated output in just one click," concludes Sanne Markwall.
How to make strategy work effective and simple in 2022.
This article is published by M+A Virksomhedsbørsen A/S in connection with M+A Masterclass - an event for owner managers.