As we prepare to wind down a turbulent 2011 and plan for 2012, businesses still face a great deal of uncertainty in the financial marketplace. Although the Great Recession may have ended, many consumers believe we may yet be headed for a double-dip recession. As a result, consumers are still being extremely cautious with their finances. That fact, coupled with continuing increases in regulation and consolidation, has made it critical for organizations to adopt sustainable growth strategies that are measurable and adaptable as we look ahead to 2012. Growth strategies require teams to be focused and informed so that decisions and changes can be made faster than ever. They need to be able to actively track performance and see the impact of their efforts. They need a visual report card that keeps them all on the same page and instantly reveals their progress towards achieving the goals of the organization. As you plan for 2012, you need to consider the tools you need to have at your disposal that will make your teams highly dynamic – because the ability to respond to change will continue to be key.
Like in most downturns, a slower market has meant a heavy strategic emphasis on prototyping new products and services for some organizations. For others, it has meant a return to the basics of providing high quality customer service. In all cases, however, it has created a serious need for reliable, up-to-date metrics that are easily understood by executives and Board members.
After you finalize the plans for 2012, consider how these have to be communicated to your staff and board. Of course these plans have to be shared not just once but any updates, progress milestones and even setbacks have to be shared throughout 2012. In our experience, the most successful management teams have figured out the most effective ways to communicate and reinforce these plans through the use of technology. The best practices for well communicated Strategic plans and the most effective tools include:
- An Employee Portal set up with a Dashboard of all the Key Performance Indicators
- A Blog by the CEO or senior management to constant reinforce the strategies and tactics
- An activity feed set up to celebrate every victory and mitigate any setbacks on the plans
- An updated strategic plan, complete with document versions, available to all the key employees
Visual data management is the key to bringing this information to the fingertips of decision makers. A single page dedicated to showing the progress of your organization’s strategic initiatives can be very effective for quickly determining strategic direction. Visual representation makes incredibly complex strategies easy to understand and, more importantly, easy to evaluate. Dashboards and graphic data displays have always held been valuable to strategic planning for Boards and managers, but in the modern business environment, they have become integral to tracking and adapting your strategy.
Organizations have more data available to them than ever before. We can (and do) track everything from individual customer accounts to various ratios by branch or region. What that means, however, is that Boards expect more data to make decisions – and we should do everything we can to make that data digestible. In almost every planning session looking ahead to 2012, we have heard Board members and executives dive deeply into remarkably complex data as they weigh strategic options. We believe that increased understanding of those complex numbers and trends help executives and boards make better decisions in the context of the broader strategic vision. Visual representations of data don’t make decisions for us, but they do make decision making about the synthesis of information. Given the economic uncertainties ahead, the more information we can intelligently funnel into our planning processes for 2012, the better.