What’s your long game?

Many business leaders cannot answer this question with a detailed strategy. Amid the day-to-day hustle of running the business, long-term strategic planning is often swept aside. But a long-term strategy is your roadmap to sustainable growth and success. Without it, your company might be meandering down the wrong path, which can be costly and potentially ruinous.

Define your North Star.  Identifying where you want your business to go takes effort and may introduce discomfort at confronting a future one can only guess at. However, the benefits are tremendous. Here are three advantages of setting a long-term business strategy.

Three Advantages of a Long-Term Business Strategy

  1. Creates a Shared Vision

Does everyone in your organization know what your business is out to achieve and by when?  Do they know what success looks like? Are short-term goals aligned with the long-term vision? How are you prepared to meet future challenges?

Knowing the long-term vision strengthens the organization and enables more intelligent decision-making because everyone is working towards the same goal. Your organization is better equipped to align business activities and short-term initiatives with long-range goals.

  1. Enables Effective Action

We can’t predict the future. But we can maximize operational effectiveness and withstand inevitable headwinds by being more thoroughly prepared for what lies ahead. Defining where you want your business to be in three, five, or ten years gives you a target to aim for and a guide for hitting it through short-term actions.

The long view keeps you on course and gives you the knowledge and tools to develop immediate tactical decisions to capitalize on opportunities, such as developing new revenue streams or expanding into a new market. It also ensures decisions are made in the best interest of future goals, rather than short-term gains.

  1. Builds a Resilient Business

A resilient business is nimble and forward-thinking. If nothing else, COVID-19 and the impending recession have highlighted the importance of recalibration, continuous improvement and risk management.

A long-term business strategy provides greater control over your organization’s future through proactiveness. Instead of reacting to market conditions, long-view leaders constantly iterate and innovate to improve their businesses. Because they have a future-forward vision for how they want their company and industry to evolve, they are positioned to shape the future of both.

Building a resilient business through long-term planning includes establishing risk management protocols for responding to problems like a pandemic, cybersecurity breach, or natural disaster. Having a plan allows your organization to mitigate issues by anticipating threats, responding effectively and recovering faster.

Setting a long-term business strategy is an opportunity to think critically about the future of your business, including what impact you want to make, what your business’ potential is and how you will realize it, and what the evolution of your company and industry looks like.

In today’s competitive business landscape, sustainable, resilient performance begins with a future-forward outlook. Chart your organization on the right path to success with a long-term business strategy. Contact us to learn more about our services and how we can help.

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Photo of Mark Gargiulo Mark Gargiulo

Mark Gargiulo is President of Gray Reed Advisory Services. With his extensive background as a business strategy consultant and C-suite operations executive, Mark knows how to help clients embrace change as an opportunity, achieve substantial growth and navigate difficult obstacles along the way.

Mark Gargiulo is President of Gray Reed Advisory Services. With his extensive background as a business strategy consultant and C-suite operations executive, Mark knows how to help clients embrace change as an opportunity, achieve substantial growth and navigate difficult obstacles along the way. He has deep experience creating leading-edge strategies for clients, optimizing organizational performance, refining business processes, designing cost-reduction programs, managing strategic action teams, coaching executives and much more.

As COO of the Gray Reed law firm since 2010, Mark has played a significant role in helping it grow into a full-service firm with a global reputation for providing a trusted advisor approach and an exceptional level of client service. Before joining Gray Reed, Mark was a Managing Director at Accenture for 20 years focused on advising a large portfolio of clients on maximizing profitability and enhancing their business operations around the world.

Mark graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematical sciences. He has also completed certification training at the Harvard Business School’s Leading Professional Services Firms Executive Program.