6 Secrets To Strategic Planning for Finishing and Coating Shops

Strategic planning is often the key to higher profitability for finishing and coating operations.

Jim CastigliaWhat is strategic planning? It is a systematic approach to maneuvering an enterprise over time through the uncertain waters of its changing environment to achieve prescribed aims.

What is your purpose for strategic planning?

Accelerate your growth and improve profitability.
Develop better communications.
Provide a roadmap to show where your company is going and how to get there.
Pick up the pace of a “tired” company.
Provide better awareness of your company’s potential in light of its internal strengths and weaknesses before developing your analyses of external opportunities and threats; this is the classic SWOT or WOTS UP.

All business challenges — including those for the finishing and coating industry — are the same regardless of whether they involve products or services, problems or opportunities, or are high tech, low tech, or no tech. Why? Because you’re seeking the same end result: plans that increase sales and profits, reduce costs and risk, and just simply make things better.

Three pitfalls that shops should avoid (Zambruski):

The excuse that there never seems to be enough time for proper analysis.
The lure of the comfortable and familiar, which leads to recycled decisions that don’t match new problems very well.
Emotional excitement in the heat of a crisis or the euphoria of success which blocks the cool thinking needed to solve problems or take advantage of opportunities.

The 6 Secrets

Here are the six secrets to strategic planning for the finishing and coating industry:

K.I.S.S. — Keep It Simple and Straightforward.
Use a model to guide you and your team, e.g., Welch’s “Five Slides.”
Must be iterative, i.e., refer to the plan regularly and repeatedly; no gathering dust on a shelf.
Consider the background of the people involved in the planning process and their biases — the “hip-shooters” vs. “snipers,” the variety of value systems; the various perspectives.
List company priorities from the top down (Allen):
1. Purpose and Values (50,000 ft.)
2. Vision (40,000 ft.)
3. Goals & Objectives (30,000 ft.)
4. Areas of Focus & Responsibility (20,000 ft.)
5. Projects (10,000 ft.)
6. Actions (Runway).
Focus on how and your underlying assumptions! Question everything and everyone. This is the most important factor in executing your strategy.

Examples of Big-Time Strategy

Here are two examples of strategy at the highest level:

First: During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln put forth his core war aim, which was to preserve the Union. It was clear and simple enough for anyone and everyone to understand. It was unambiguous.

When he went to the venerable Virginian and General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican War, and asked for a strategy supporting his war aim, Scott developed the “Anaconda Plan.” This was the strategy that guided the Union to success throughout the war and ultimately ended the most destructive war in American history.

So, part of your strategic planning process should be to clarify your “war aim.” Here’s a suggestion: maximize the value of the company over the long term. The value of a business is directly tied to the size, predictability, sustainability, and growth rate of its earnings.

Second: On December 7, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on his way back to the United States from the Allied leaders’ conference in Tehran and Cairo, breaks his journey at Tunis in North Africa to meet U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of Allied forces in the Mediterranean. The president tells Eisenhower that he has been chosen to be Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force now being formed in Britain. This force will launch the campaign — codenamed Overlord — to liberate Hitler’s Europe (war aim), and it is scheduled to begin on May 1, 1944.

Eisenhower created an 8-step strategy for defeating the Nazi war machine and ending the war. Eight steps for the entire invasion of Europe; can you create eight steps or less for your objective?

Note that each step is a broad action lacking specific details. The specific details were worked out at the operational level over a two-year period, starting before Eisenhower was chosen as Supreme Commander. Lesson? Keep your strategy at high levels, but for execution, create plans at the operational level.

Land on the Normandy coast
Build up the resources needed for a decisive battle in the Normandy-Brittany region and break out of the enemy’s encircling positions (land operations in the first two phases were to be under the tactical direction of Montgomery)
Pursue on a broad front with two army groups, emphasizing the left to gain necessary ports and reach the boundaries of Germany and threaten the Ruhr. On our right, we would link up with the forces that were to invade France from the south
Build up our new base along the western border of Germany by securing ports in Belgium and in Brittany as well as in the Mediterranean
While building up our forces for the final battles, keep up an unrelenting offensive to the extent of our means, both to wear down the enemy and to gain advantages for the final fighting
Complete the destruction of enemy forces west of the Rhine, in the meantime constantly seeking bridgeheads across the river
Launch the final attack as a double envelopment of the Ruhr, again emphasizing the left, and follow this up by an immediate thrust through Germany, with the specific direction to be determined at the time
Clean out the remainder of Germany.

So, choose your purpose for being strategic, use a roadmap to guide you and your team, and get to work! A simple strategic direction is better than no strategy at all. Your employees will appreciate the leadership.

Jim Castiglia is the founder of Business Street Fighter Consulting and supports entrepreneurial business owners in their desire to grow and maximize the value of their business. He can be reached by email at JimC@BSF.consulting or by phone at 919.263.1256. Visit www.BSF.consulting