Customer strategy: Contact with the enemy makes all plans obsolete!

Defining business mission statements, strategies and objectives, is a relatively easy if at times laborious process undertaken by those in charge of getting and maintaining business income. Every year, countless books and training courses are devoted to the subject of business strategy and planning, and the training industry gains a lot of business in supplying programs to meet the needs of businesses and executives who want to understand and improve their planning process.

 

 

Unfortunately all the planning in the world does not guarantee the desired results. Carl Von Clausewitz said that in war, contact with the enemy makes all plans obsolete. Business is not war, but there is an element of truth that in the world of commerce, changing factors can soon make business plans obsolescent.

 

 

As a manager responsible for getting and maintaining business income, setting income objectives to support the overall business plan is relatively easy. However, achieving those income objectives may be easier said than done.

 

 

Assuming that a business has identified a 'need' in its market; has developed a product or service that provides a solution that satisfies that 'need', and at a price that potential customers are prepared to pay, then in theory, commercial success should be assured. In reality, business is never that simple. However detailed and comprehensive business development plans may be, their success depends on in the ability and motivation of personnel to deliver the actions and results required.