How to successfully prioritize the needs of your business

Alisha Jernack, Partner at Mazars, provided insight on how high-performing privately owned businesses can best shape and define their objectives. 

For many companies, objectives aren't clearly defined; the focus, instead, is on day-to-day needs and putting out fires. Truly successful organizations work hard to understand where they are today – and where they want to be. That’s often the difference between staying mediocre and performing the same year over year – or being a high-performing company that delivers long-term sustainability and shareholder returns for years to come.

 Before any prioritization occurs, what are the best practices for defining priorities?

It's always critical to start with an in-depth, diagnostic analysis conducted by an independent third party to gain an understanding of where the company is today – and where shareholders want it to be.

This is important because many businesses are family firms with a lot of granular involvement. A third party is able to bring objectivity to the diagnostic and identify where gaps exist. 

The assessment should cover all of the business' core areas, including finance and risk; management mindset; business operations; market, product and customer analysis, as well as technological and organizational capabilities. Next, a strategy should be devised to bridge any, and all, gaps. 

External data forms a key part of this, providing robust insight for management teams about how they stack up against others in their sector. This can then be compared with historical performance data to gain an accurate understanding of the true potential of the business going forward. 

There's also much value in analyzing existing internal reporting, such as financial forecasts and how frequently they're created and revisited. Any financial forecast going forward should always be developed in parallel with strategic plans and serve as a means of measuring success, monitoring costs against priorities and adjusting plans with a thorough understanding of the financial implications. 

How do clashes between business owners' personal objectives and the wider business strategy most often occur – and how do you prioritize one over the other?

Clashes are common because medium-sized businesses are often family-run and passed down from generation to generation. Aligning business objectives and shareholder needs is imperative to success. Family members will often have different priorities, leading to differences of opinion on direction.

For us, it goes back to looking holistically at the business, understanding what’s important to each of the shareholders and then factoring this in during diagnostics, but before defining strategic scenarios. 

In your experience, how do companies most benefit from prioritization?

With a structured approach, you can build consensus. Without prioritization, we often find that management teams are overwhelmed, not knowing which direction to go in first. This, in turn, can easily lead to corporate inertia. The list stays a list and sits in a drawer without being acted on; the business owners revert to what they're used to doing.

Focus is also important. We recommend prioritizing no more than three-to-five breakthrough objectives at a time. This enables tasks and resources to be allocated manageably, enabling accountability and delivery.

What if priorities need to evolve?

The importance of carving out time every month as a team to review progress against objectives can’t be underestimated. Meetings need to be diarized formally, as you would board meetings.

Monthly strategic reviews will enable you to monitor progress against KPIs – and allow you to be agile, adjust assumptions, reprioritize objectives, and reset timelines and expectations when needed. Input from an external business specialist can bring objectivity, and in-depth sector experience, to this important part of the process.

Ready to get started?

Work with us