“UNLEASH YOUR STRATEGY DNA with 52 SEQ’s”

by REG ATHWAL, FPSA

World-Renowned Family Business Executive Advisor, Author & Keynote Speaker; Founding Partner & MD, RTS Global Partners

Strategy is the first part of our S.T.A.T.E. methodology that we use to support family owned businesses in building out their strategy plan.

What is Strategy? 

There are many experts who define strategy in different ways. For some it is all about knowing your competition and how to build a competitive advantage, whilst others link it to sustainable growth. At RTS we simply refer to strategy as a way of achieving your V.I.P. (Vision/Intention/Purpose). The Vision is “Where” Do You Want to End Up? The Intention is “What” Must Happen to Get There? and the “Purpose” if Why Are We Doing This? – Where, What and Why…

When advising and consulting board members of a family business, we like to deep-dive by asking lots of questions, which becomes part of brainstorming session.

Below we have listed our Top 52 questions, that you should consider answering to build out your Strategy.

Top 52 – Strategy Evolution Questions (SEQ’s) as Open-Ended Questions (OEQ’s):

1. Where do you want your business to end up 5 or 10 years from now?

2. What is driving this vision?

3. Why do you want to achieve this?

4. What has worked for you in the past?

5. What specific product/service has generated the most revenues/margins in the past?

6. What specific product/service has generated the least revenues/margins in the past?

7. What specific types of clients/customers have contributed the highest revenues/margins in the past?

8. What specific types of clients/customers have taken most of your time and contributed the least in revenues/margins in the past?

9. What specific markets/sectors/countries have contributed the most to your growth in the past?

10. How many new competitors have entered your segments in the past 3 years and what data do you have on them?

11. What specific areas have you lost business and market share in the past 3 years?

12. What products/services have you added in the past 3 years that have not given the returns you expected?

13. What external micro- and macro-economic factors have given you an advantage and accelerated your past revenues that don’t exist in the present?

14. What is the current market demand like for your products/services?

15. What is the industry supply like for your products/services?

16. What are the needs of your clients/customers at present and in turn their clients/customers/consumers?

17. What are the growth plans for your clients/customers over the next 3 years?

18. What is your capability and capacity like to handle your future client/customer demands/needs/plans?

19. What is unique about your offering that your competition can’t copy in the next 1-3 years?

20. What products/services are you still offering that are out-of-date and lacking an upgrade?

21. What products/services are you still emotionally attached to that need to be terminated, departed or sold?

22. How much does it cost you to sell the products/services that contribute the highest revenues/margins?

23. How long does it take to sell the products/services that contribute the highest revenues/margins?

24. How can you reduce the cost to sell and get paid faster?

25. How can you accelerate the time to sell your product/service?

26. How are you attracting the future prospective client/customer of tomorrow, by them connecting with your brand and offering today?

27. What do you want your client/customer to experience from start to finish, leading to complete satisfaction, more repeat business, additional referral business and more up-selling opportunities?

28. What are the dynamics like internally and how satisfied is the internal customer, including all your management team and employees?

29. Who has the power and upper hand, you or your clients/customers or suppliers or both?

30. How easy is it for your clients/customers to swap and shift to another provider?

31. What part of your business is leading-edge or cutting-edge that drives a superior client/customer service experience?

32. What technologies can you use to automate your business?

33. How can you simplify your business, your offering, your processes, your systems and your execution ability?

34. What new products should your develop and for what specific markets?

35. What is total cost anticipated to launch new products or enter new markets and can you sustain the investment required?

36. Where can you reduce/increase the size of your product/service or eliminate something to de-risk your business or upgrade something to enhance your offering?

37. What can you add to your offering with a strategic alliance partnership?

38. Who could you acquire or merge with to grow faster?

39. What are your strategic assets that are under utilized?

40. How long does it take for you to make decisions?

41. What new authority levels can you adopt to speed up your cultural decision making ability?

42. How can you reshape your entire industry?

43. How can you stretch your goals?

44. How can you attract complete winning-teams instead of individual talent?

45. Where are the growth opportunities to drive profit and not just turnover?

46. What new client/customer segments can you enter immediately?

47. How can you kill off your own business with new disruptive technology as if you were a start-up again?

48. How can you cut 50% of your costs by redefining your entire operating model?

49. How can you re-ignite your workforce with one common aligned compelling purpose?

50. How can you re-invent yourself like a mega pop-star and appeal to a newer younger audience as well as the existing and old?

51. How can you bring something from 100 years ago into the present?

52. What risk are you prepared to take and be bold enough to pioneer and invent the next product/service that is a luxury today but becomes a basic need tomorrow for millions of people?

Imagine if you answered just 1 question a week and started 1 year in advance, before your financial year ends. How better equipped would you be to strengthen your strategy?

After your strategy is crystalized, we are now ready to move to building your “Super Organogram Structure” (SOS) to go from paper to reality by attracting, hiring, developing, deploying, retaining and unleashing the right talent and teams. A Strategy without a Structure and without the right Talent and Teams, will remain a strategic plan on a piece of paper, so Unleash Your Strategy DNA the right way!

About RTS Global Partners

We offer leading-edge scientific and practical advisory, consulting, education and venture solutions to family owned businesses and conglomerates, as well as large corporates with an entrepreneurial DNA. We also provide superior management consulting services for businesses who want to transform their human-capital and grow into new markets across Africa and Middle East.

As a rapidly-growing advisory and consulting firm, we have members supporting 85 key clients in 7 countries and adding value to millions of employees with our collective knowledge capital, DNA systems and DNA processes. Our company is the creator of the ‘Unleash Your DNA’ brand and ‘The DNA Model’. 80 percent of our senior leadership team are client-facing professionals from different nationalities. We have plans to expand our Partner Network to 22 countries by 2022 across Africa and Middle East and service 22,000 clients, which is all part of our Vision 2022.

Contact us to learn more about how we can help you transform your business.

www.rtsgp.com