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Crafting a Path to Success with Objective-driven Strategies

Crafting a Path to Success with Objective-driven Strategies

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Featured, Innovation, Insights, Mindset, Positioning, Scale & Grow.

In the realm of business, success doesn’t just happen by chance. It’s a result of careful planning, strategic decision-making, and effective implementation. Just like tuning a radio to the right frequency, aligning your objectives, strategies, tactics, and implementation is crucial for achieving your desired outcomes. Let’s explore how these elements work together to create a roadmap for success.

Objective: Intent, Investment, and Asset Building

At the heart of every successful venture lies a clear objective. It’s not just about making money or creating a product; it’s about understanding your intent, investing wisely, and building an asset that stands the test of time. Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, defining your objective is the first step towards realising your vision. Are you aiming to secure a return on investment? Are you looking to build an asset that generates long-term value? Understanding your objective sets the foundation for all your future endeavours.

Strategy: Purpose-driven Solutions

With your objective in mind, it’s time to chart your course with a clear strategy. Rather than chasing trends or following the crowd, focus on solving a problem for your customers. Be a builder, not just a seller. Your strategy should reflect your purpose and differentiate you from the competition. Whether it’s through innovation, exceptional service, or niche targeting, your strategy should pave the way for sustainable growth and customer loyalty.

Tactics: Executing with Precision

Now that you have a strategy in place, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Tactics are the nuts and bolts of your operation – the specific actions and initiatives that will bring your strategy to life. Position yourself to distinguish your brand, develop a system of delivery to enable seamless operations, build a purposeful team to empower your workforce, focus on growth to dominate your market, and create value to remove dependencies. The operator’s job is to execute these tactics with precision and efficiency.

Implementation: Leadership and Collaboration

Implementing your tactics requires strong leadership and effective collaboration. Identify team leaders who can optimise processes, integrate efforts across departments, delegate responsibilities, and inspire others to achieve their best. As a leader, your role is to provide guidance, support, and direction, ensuring that everyone is aligned with the overarching objective. By fostering a culture of accountability and teamwork, you can turn your strategies into tangible results.

Single-Simple-Scalable: The Key to Success

In the complex world of business, simplicity is often underrated. But as the saying goes, “keep it simple, stupid.” By focusing on a single objective, crafting simple yet effective strategies, and executing with precision, you can build a scalable business that stands the test of time. Whether you’re a start-up or a multinational corporation, the key to success lies in clarity, focus, and relentless execution.

Success in business is not a matter of luck – it’s a matter of strategy and execution. By aligning your objectives, strategies, tactics, and implementation, you can create a clear path to success and achieve your goals.

How to Resolve Partner Disputes and Make Better Decisions in Your Business

How to Resolve Partner Disputes and Make Better Decisions in Your Business

Written by Lindokuhle Ntombela on . Posted in Asset of Value, Innovation, Insights, Mindset, Positioning, Scale & Grow.

In the intricate world of business partnerships, success often hinges on the delicate balance of complementary skills, shared values, and aligned goals. However, even the most promising partnerships can hit rough waters, requiring careful navigation to steer back on course. Today, we delve into the journey of two business partners in the realm of PCB manufacturing, exploring the challenges they faced, and the innovative approach taken to resolve their differences. 

Our story begins with a partnership forged in the crucible of entrepreneurship, where one visionary entrepreneur laid the foundation for a PCB company, inviting another to join forces. With a 21-year age gap between them, they embodied a symbiotic relationship—one excelling in sales while the other championed operational delivery. From humble beginnings in a spare bedroom, their enterprise burgeoned into a bustling office and warehouse, a testament to their combined expertise and unwavering dedication. 

The Good and the Bad 

At its core, their partnership thrived on complementary skills, the cornerstone of any successful venture. For over two decades, they navigated the tumultuous waters of business, weathering storms and celebrating triumphs. However, beneath the surface lurked subtle fissures – a lack of formal agreements, a myopic view of the evolving business landscape, and the emergence of divergent values. 

Navigating Change 

As time marched on, changes rippled through their partnership, exposing fault lines that threatened to rupture their shared vision. Shifting agendas and evolving values brought simmering tensions to the forefront, challenging the very fabric of their alliance. The stage was set for conflict, but amidst the discord emerged an opportunity for reconciliation. 

Mediating the Partners 

Enter the mediator, tasked with diffusing tensions and fostering mutual understanding. The mediator introduced two empty seats at the negotiation table – one symbolising the customer’s perspective, the other embodying the essence of the business itself. With every decision scrutinised through the lens of customer satisfaction and long-term business viability, the partners found common ground. 

The Path to Resolution 

Through introspection and guided mediation, the partners embarked on a journey of rediscovery, reconnecting with the ethos that propelled their enterprise into existence. By revisiting their shared history and the challenges overcome together, they transcended personal grievances, embracing a collective purpose larger than themselves. 

In the intricate dance of partnership, conflicts are inevitable, but not insurmountable. By fostering open communication, embracing diverse perspectives, and prioritising the greater good of the business, partners can navigate turbulent waters and emerge stronger than before. As our story illustrates, the path to resolution lies not in discord, but in the shared pursuit of a common  
goal – the enduring success of the partnership and the legacy it leaves behind. 

Partnerships

Managing business partnerships to avoid stalling growth

Written by pippa@aurik.com on . Posted in Leadership, Mindset, Team.

It is vital to manage changing intentions and goals of #BusinessPartners without stalling the growth of the business.

Recently, we have experienced many conflicts between partners that were formerly solid. These may be due to the additional pressures that Covid-19 and the lockdown have put business owners under. People are frayed. Resolving the impasse is vital for the business’s survival.

You may wait, time does not!

LISTEN: podcast

WHAT CREATES THIS CONFLICT?

We are seeing several factors drive the impasse between business partners:

Age differences

Many partnerships emerged when the founder, had to ‘bake-in’ skill and talent so he offered equity by way of performance or for sale to a productive and vital employee. The founder has then had to adjust to this new dynamic as does the employee, now shareholder and investor. The transition alone is hard enough and often carries loads of baggage that interfere in the partnership. However, if properly done and managed, these partnerships settle. Desirous of a change of pace and lifestyle, the founding, older partner wants to exit. How to exit, on what basis, at what price and what risk creates the impasses that we are seeing today. Driven by uncertainty of the skills loss from the exiting partner. Affordability to exit driving unrealistic valuations on the business. Ability to raise the capital to buy the exiting partner out. As well as a loss of identity and meaning from the older partner all cause ructions and rumbles in what was a formerly solid partnership.

Family changes

Either health issues or parent/kid issues change the dynamic in a partnership between the partners. Family changes can introduce disruptive spouses, or create a need to extract more money that would typically go to investments in the business’s growth, or shift working hours to an unfair balance, for example. The need to rebalance continuously is hard to negotiate and navigate and cracks appear in the partnerships.

Loss of faith in South Africa

Many current issues we deal with result from differing attitudes between partners on the future of SA. One partner may mix in a social circle where emigration is a frequent occurrence. Doubt around the country’s future seeds a short term, investment-resistant mindset and behaviour. Should the other partner see opportunities because of the same factors, their desire to invest and grow conflicts with the formerly tight partnership between the two business owners.

Low growth, slow economy

The shocking performance of the SA economy takes its toll on all business owners. In circumstances where partners are unable to agree on a new direction, the stress of low growth can harden perspectives and seed resentment between partners.

COST OF THE CONFLICT

It’s vital that the conflicts and ruptures get solved fast. You may wait to have it blow over, time does not. We see an increasing number of business owners invest today for tomorrow. They are growing and eating the lunch of their similar competitors. The cost of not quickly resolving the ruckus’s in a partnership will be seen in the business’s performance, and include:

Stalled growth

A business that maintains its turnover growth is dying. At a minimum, to stay ahead of the depreciating Rand and inflation, a business should be growing around 18-22% on a compounded annual basis. If it’s not, its regressing and in that, losing market share.

Loss of talent

Already, SA is talent scarce. Losing good people is the fault of the business owner. Employing good people and holding onto them means progress, positivity and opportunity for them. you hold good people by offering careers and opportunities for them to improve their lot. This includes skills, talent, professionalism, opportunity and more. These are all features of a growing business that has a vision, is executing on it and solid business partners leading from the front.

Leadership loss

If you aren’t driven to succeed and get to the front to compete for the customer, the likelihood it’s unlikely that you will be the first in line to spot new opportunities, changing customer behaviours and the like. This places you in a follower position and your arrival at new pricing models, business models, products, services and more that the market demands will be late.

ACTIONS THAT CAN BE TAKEN
Several remedies are on offer to solve these challenges. A few examples include:

Buy-outs and sales

Having a partner sell out in full or in part can provide relief for the business. Careful consideration on what this means for the business is needed. Should the partnership be well-balanced, it means that there will be a skills gap in the business with one exiting and the other remaining. Resolving that through either bringing in a new partner or employing talent must be included in this remedy. In the interests of the business, this might well take place over time. knowing that there is a resolution is often sufficient for the partnership to remain positive and productive.

Re-envisage the business

An exercise of re-visioning the business, in effect, resetting the business is very helpful. It enables partners to see what they have and how they can use this to reshape the business for success. It effectively resets the business based on the partners’ current goals rather than build the business based on their founding goals. Goals, vision and strategic intent in all business should be an annual event, something often omitted because of the busyness of business and everyday life. Partners forget to communicate and speak to each other in a business. This process, properly facilitated, will remind partners why they are partners, what brought them together and what they can do to find resolution. Most valuably, they will see and hear each other for the first time in a long time and in that, de-personalise their changed focus in relation to each other and the business.

Wear the right hats

Changing workloads and responsibility can be easily accommodated through business performance incentives. A partnership based on a 50:50 basis for example, does not mean salaries are equal. Splitting out shareholding/investing thinking from director/day-to-day thinking is crucial. Shareholding drives dividends and the dividend policy of the business. Director responsibilities and performance drive salary and incentives.

Partnerships are often loaded with emotion and history. Resolving conflict, fast and fairly is extremely hard for this reason. The risks are that the business suffers irrevocably.

We frequently work with established business owners to resolve partner conflicts. Our approach seeks to serve the needs of both parties but with a firm intent on saving, stabilising and growing the business born from the fruit of the partnership. In this way, all parties win.