Business planning is hugely important to the success of a metalworking business.
A well thought-out and documented business plan will outline your business goals and ambitions across many or all facets and functions of the business. Most importantly, it will describe how to do things and how much of an investment is needed in order for you and your team to achieve the goals you have set out in the plan.
Well-developed plans that are updated and referred to regularly will constantly inform management decisions to keep a business on a path to success.
By investing time into formulating a business plan or a strategic plan, you and the business will benefit from the clarity and focus contained in a documented roadmap for the future of your company.
At Irish Steel, we encourage all of our members to invest in the development of business plans which can be prepared for any number of purposes:
Strategic / business plan – A strategic business plan is ideal for long-term planning. It will allow you to see what is important, how to achieve your goals, the pitfalls to avoid along the way, and the noise to ignore. It is a documented but dynamic roadmap for the future of your company covering all functions of the business – strategy, marketing, finance, human resources, technology and equipment, and operations
Marketing Plan – A marketing plan highlights the specific actions team members plan to take to reach target customers, increase brand awareness and, ultimately increase sales, income and profit. Developing a marketing plan forces teams to specify goals and develop strategies to achieve them. It helps businesses identifies their target market, the value proposition of their brand, the way they will reach out to their customers, and the ways to measure and assess the effectiveness of their sales and marketing initiatives. It sets out which changes to make and the steps to be taken along with the investment needed whilst on the journey to benefit from diversification, new market sectors, new products, more market penetration or maybe new branding to name just a few benefits.
Invest in the plan to make yourself less important than you currently are.
Remember, the more valuable you are to your business, the less valuable your business is!
