Business Strategy Consulting, Small Business Strategy Consultant

Business Strategy Consulting

Is it just the business idea or its commercial viability that is sufficient to skyrocket a business enterprise to success? No is the pretty obvious answer. After validating a business idea through market research and business model development, the next critical task for businessmen and entrepreneurs is to envision and figure out how the business will work and grow. This simple-sounding statement engulfs planning for the entire business’s functional machinery and how the business will snowball towards growth and expansion into the future.

Generally, business strategy formulation involves defining the strategies for growth, identifying the strengths and vulnerabilities of the enterprise, defining the proposition and positioning strategy, and formulating the functional strategies for operations, technology, HR, supply chain and logistics, etc. In essence, it is about defining the business growth objectives and strategies and aligning them with operational planning.

Challenges in business strategy formulation

What most businesses often fail to reckon is the intricate relationship between business growth strategies and operational planning. As an example, you cannot store 10,000 units at a time if your store or warehouse capabilities do not permit it. Or you cannot expect to receive customer feedback on last-mile delivery if there is no such provision in your business IT systems. Often because of several seen and unseen challenges businesses fail to read and map these intricacies.

Lack of experience and expertise

Say a retail FMCG departmental store is failing to attract enough footfall and conversion despite being in a good location. This is a very common challenge for many departmental stores. Given that a potential customer base is available and the growth objectives are there but it seems that the business strategy is not turning out to be effective. A big strategic drawback with many departmental stores is that they do not offer price discounts and thus, they fail to attract a wider customer base. In FMCG retail, you cannot afford to confine your customer base. This is where the services of professional and experienced retail business strategy consulting firms or eCommerce strategy consulting could be of help.

Delays in decision-making

A slow internal decision-making process means delayed action and response. This impacts the effectiveness of a business strategy because, by the time a decision comes into effect, the conditions for the decision to work might have worsened. For instance, a strong positive for business growth and expansion is the ability of an organization to retain its best employees. When such employees begin to leave the organization, it may not be a good sign from an HR perspective and immediate strategic HR changes must be brought to contain the situation. Attrition may be a common phenomenon but how a business tackles it is what makes its HR competitive and strategic than that of its competitors.

Technology deprivation

Technology has become a standard for thinking of ‘business’. Modern-day business ideas and business models are massively dependent on technology. Business growth and operations are now more closely knitted with the fabric of technology. And when this is so, the effectiveness of a business strategy also gets intertwined with business IT. Whether or not a business enterprise has the relevant business IT systems in place, in either case, its business strategies get affected. Lack of adequate IT will impair its ability to formulate competitive strategies or to implement the same through its operations. As the understanding of business technologies can be off domain for many entrepreneurs and businessmen, there are professional digital strategy consultants who could help identify their unique business IT requirements. Translating unique business requirements into specific IT requirements requires someone who understands the language of both business and technology.

Lack of support system

The flexibility of a business enterprise in formulating its strategies is dependent on its support system which is the interplay of three key elements - people, processes, and technology. The right people working through the right processes driven by the right technology determine what strategies a business enterprise can conceive and implement. Now, for example, if you want to build a niche in last-mile delivery, you must also build or improvise the support system accordingly. You must focus on the skills of your delivery team and provide them with training if necessary, define the SOPs where the standards of performance and output are clearly defined, and make use of technology in the delivery function for better order tracking, GPS-aided locational services, ensure payment flexibility for customers, a mechanism to receive customer feedback, etc.

How YRC can help you in Business Strategy Consulting: a glimpse

We have served the retail industry for eight years now, delivering strategy and management consulting services. As a Retail business consulting service provider we understand the niceties of managing a retail and eCommerce business and what goes in formulating effective business strategies here. We seek to emerge as one of the most preferred and best strategy consulting firms in the world. Here’s a glimpse of what we do in business strategy consulting.

Technology strategy

Working closely with your team, our Retail Business Consultants will help you identify the business IT requirements for your retail or eCommerce venture. But merely having the right technologies is not enough; we will also ensure that your operational planning and systems stand integrated with the business applications in place. This integration is critical to keep your business’s technology and operational planning go hand in hand. Any deviation here means your technology strategy will come in conflict with your business growth objectives and operational planning.

Personnel planning

We explained earlier that human resources are a critical component of your business’s support system that affects your ability to craft and implement the growth strategies and operational planning. This means that in carrying out the entire gamut of HR activities, from manpower planning and recruitment to PMS and HR audits, you will have to consistently focus on building a people-oriented organization so that your business remains conducive to smooth operations and growth and expansion. Our Retail business consulting service areas include organization design, manpower analysis and succession planning, performance and risk management system, change management, and policies and procedures.

Infrastructure Strategy

The infrastructural requirements of a retail enterprise depend on its channel and distribution strategy. In the brick and mortar format, infrastructure means the store itself, furniture and fixtures, warehousing, logistics, etc. For an inventory-based eCommerce venture, the infrastructure needs would be similar to that of brick and mortar except that a physical store is not required and the same would be replaced with delivery hubs. In dropshipping, the infrastructural requirements are at a relative least and usually, are confined to logistics if that too is not outsourced. Our Retail Business Consultants will help you identify the unique infrastructural requirements for your retail business with detailed specifications.

Digital marketing strategy

Digital marketing can prove to be an efficient and effective way to reach out to your customers. Whether it is retail brick and mortar, eCommerce, or omnichannel, without strong digital presence businesses miss on reaching out to a massive audience present in the digital world. From search engines to social media, giving effective online visibility and sustaining a strong online presence significantly enhances the chances of a brand in coming to the notice and attention of its target audience and in creating conversions. Business growth ambitions and strategies are incomplete without a corresponding strategy for digital marketing.

We are a boutique retail consulting firm. To know more about our services or if you have any query, drop us a message and we will get back to you.

Business Strategy Consulting (Retail & E-commerce)