Strategy

Vision, Mission and Values (VMV)

Strategic planning can be challenging and complex and like all large organisations, SME's need to establish a strategic framework to work from. This framework consists of: a Vision for the future, a Mission that defines what you are doing, and Values that shape your daily behaviour.

Vision, Mission and Values (VMV) are critical for any business that wants to achieve substantial growth.

Commercially, a vision clearly defines the purpose of the company and gives it a sense of direction in terms of what it intends to achieve. A 'mission' describes how the company intends to achieve that vision. It is a precise description of the company's key purpose, a definition of why the company exists. Values represent the core priorities in the company's culture, including what drives individuals' priorities and how they behave on a daily basis.

All successful large organisations have a form of Vision, Mission and Values in place and see them as critical to their future success. So why should it be any different for an SME? If everybody knows where the company is going, what it needs to do to get there and how they as individuals must behave along the way, then you have solid foundations for growth.

Next Level can help you clearly define your vision. This in turn will lead you to create your mission and values. This process can be quite challenging, because for your vision to have any long-term value then it has to have real meaning, and it must resonate with the people in your organisation. It cannot simply be a well constructed tag line that looks good in a frame or reads well on a marketing piece.

We have a very simple model that we use to help clients start to create a strategic plan for the future, it’s called the three ‘W’s.

As a starting point we will ask you these three questions:

Where is your business now?
This involves understanding as much about your business as possible, including how it operates internally, what drives its profitability, and how it compares with competitors.

Where do you want to take it?
What are your long-term objectives? Where do you see your business in five or ten years? What do you want to be the focus of your business to be? What will be your source of competitive advantage over your competition?

What do you need to do to get there?
What changes will you need to make in order to deliver on your long-term objectives? What is the best way of implementing those changes and what goals and deadlines will you need to set for yourself and others in the business?

We will take you through this process, challenging you all the way, until we have the framework for a detailed strategic plan.

'Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs'.
Henry Ford

The secret to delivering on any form of plan is to break each task down into its individual components parts. Our 90-day planning process helps businesses to do exactly that.

We start with getting clarity on the long-term objectives of the business and then help you work out precisely what it you need to focus on in the next 90-days to ensure you are on course to achieve those objectives. Next we help you define the individual task elements of each objective and allocate resource and responsibility to each. Finally we'll agree timeframes.

It really is that simple, all you have to do next is ensure that you and your team successfully complete a series of small, easily manageable tasks and you will deliver on your headline objectives.

Next Level have helped 100's of businesses of every size, shape and sector imaginable create practical, manageable, 90-day plans for business development....why not let us help you.