So How Do You Regain Control Of Your Own Destiny?
Value Creation Associates’ goal is to provide leadership and assistance to change failing companies into good companies, good companies into better companies, and better companies into great companies. To do so we believe there are 4 primary tenets that must be followed; (1) Commitment from the top down in the organization, (2) Focus on the target opportunities that are identified through the process, (3) the Discipline to stick with the process in light of whatever else is going on in the business; and (4) the willingness to uncover and face Reality regarding the true capabilities and competencies of the business.
If we cannot establish the first three with the owners and management team, Commitment, Focus and Discipline, it is virtually impossible to deal in the fourth, the Reality of the situation. Our objective is not to placate management by telling them what they want to hear to gain long term consulting agreements. We get to the facts/reality rather than dealing in speculation and opinions.
The process is not for every company and is not easy in many cases because it requires a good long look in the mirror at the true value of the company to its customers. Once we successfully uncover value opportunities, if they exist, we can then work with the company to develop strategies and action plans to attack the opportunities.
If we are unable to clearly indentify new opportunities, you will at least gain an experienced outside perspective on the true strengths and weaknesses of your organization with possible means to improve the status quo.
We also realize that some companies will choose to only engage us for the initial assessment and then develop strategies and action plans on their own. That is fine with us but understand that you will not be taking full advantage of our many years of experience in doing so.
So how does the Value Creation Associates process work?
As noted in a previous article, early success by a company can lead to being influenced by customers to do what they ask, not what they need. To put value versus product and services in perspective it is important to review the history of the company to uncover where today’s strengths and weaknesses are and how they evolved.
A tool we use is a process we’ve developed called WITH3 or What In The Heck Happened Here. We use a 2×2 matrix with elements of control or uncontrolled and planned or random to map the evolution of major developments from the company’s history. The quadrants then range from being in unplanned chaos at one end of the spectrum to being strategicly successful at the other. When the additional dimensions of scale, duration and timing are added the driving factors of the company’s growth are uncovered.
Once the history and evolution are better defined the strengths and weaknesses become apparent as they relate to the key matrix elements of control and planning. This also makes evident points of differentiation to competitors if the competitive landscape is understood. If not another phase needs to be completed to determine and measure the strengths and weaknesses of competitors.
The matrix can also highlight organizational issues that may be impeding or accelerating growth.
With these details in hand the next phase of the process, Market Sensing, can be initiated. We will discuss this phase in a future article. We hope to hear from you soon.
