JDA Strategic Planning Process
The Four Decisions™
What are the Four Decisions and why are they important?
The Four Decisions™ refer to the critical decisions that growth companies must get right to maximize their revenue, profit and time.
What is the One Page Strategic Plan?
Based on the Scaling Up Process developed by Verne Harnish, the One Page Strategic Plan is a simple yet powerful tool that helps you edit your vision and strategy down to a single, action-oriented page.
The One Page Strategic Plan is the culmination of the four critical business decisions (People, Strategy, Execution, Cash) that growth companies must get right to maximize their revenue, profit and time. The One Page Strategic Plan will help you and your management team get aligned, focused, and accountable, working with purpose toward common goals.
- If you had to start the company all over again tomorrow, would you enthusiastically rehire everyone on your team?
- What percent of your people are performing at an “A” level?
- What percent of your people are truly engaged and passionate about their work?
- Is there organizational clarity? Does everyone know what they’re accountable for?
JDA will work with you to:
- Get the right people, in the right seats doing the right things
- Improve hiring and retention of “A” players
- Ensure clear accountability exists for each function and process
- Build stronger trust, communication and collaboration amongst the team
- Do you have a solid top-line revenue growth strategy in place?
- Can everyone on your team concisely describe that strategy?
- Does everyone understand the organizations top 1-5 long and short term priorities?
- How many quarters in a row have you exceeded your revenue targets?
Companies typically fall into 2 categories as it relates to strategic planning:
- “We never create a strategic plan. Things just move to fast so planning is a waste of time”
- “Sure we created a strategic plan a few years back. It’s up here on my shelf…let me just clean the dust off and get it down for you”
At JDA, we believe that a powerful growth strategy and a plan for its execution is necessary for consistent healthy growth. The effectiveness of the organization can never be optimized without alignment around the company’s core ideologies, targets and priorities. Since these targets and priorities will adjust over time, strategic planning processes and competencies need to be a core part of your process.
JDA will work with your leadership team to create a strategic planning process which will include:
- Determining your 3-5 year key strategies to catapult your growth
- Implementing the Scaling Up One Page Plan
- Leveraging thought leadership in strategy development
- Developing your core ideologies (values and purpose)
- Is your team executing consistently, with discipline and accountability?
- Are your managers regularly communicating progress on their highest priorities?
- Do you spend most of your time fire fighting?
- Is “I don’t have the time” the most common phrase heard in your company?
- Are you consistently meeting your profit targets?
A great strategy means nothing without effective, consistent execution. By simply tightening up your execution habits, you can dramatically improve gross margins and profitability while reducing the time it takes for everyone to complete their work.
JDA can help you build execution discipline in 3 critical areas:
Priorities
- Which activities will make the biggest difference?
- How do you achieve alignment across the organization?
Data/Metrics/KPI’s
- What leading and lagging indicators will allow you know know how you’re doing?
- What customer and employee feedback will help drive activities and priorities?
Meeting Rhythms
- How will you create a continuous loop of communication throughout the organization?
- What daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meetings are needed to ensure effective execution?
- Do you have consistent sources of cash to fuel growth?
- How can you tune your core business engine to scale your companies growth?
- Do you understand your cash conversion cycle and where it’s limiting your growth?
- Are you focused on the products and services that are most profitable?
- Do you understand which of the 7 variables of cash flow will have the greatest impact?
It is said that revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king and the first law of entrepreneurial gravity is “Growth sucks cash.” As a growth company, you must ensure you’re building a business engine that drives growth and profitability on a foundation of liquidity.
JDA will work with you to:
- Understand your cash conversion cycle and identify the right cash acceleration strategies
- Implement tools to better track and manage the productivity of your workforce
- Uncover the drivers of your cash flow and understand which variables will have the greatest impact
- Identify strategies to increase cash to fuel your growth internally and externally