Thursday Nov 28, 2024
Thursday Nov 28, 2024
Tuesday, 24 March 2015 00:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Planning has become increasingly challenging in today’s fast-changing environment. Plans should be formulated using a framework that is user-friendly and adaptable to the changes in the market.
Smith’s workshop will focus on delivering valuable insights into effective planning using the SOSTAC model and take delegates through real-life examples and work with them using the SOSTAC workbook that will be issued to all delegates at the workshop. The workshop will be interactive and intensive in order to bring out the best ideas from the group. To maintain the interaction and quality of the workshop the number of tables will be limited to a maximum of 35.
On 31 March, Smith will conduct an inspirational session for school students on sportsmanship. This session will be hosted by the Rotary Club of Colombo Midtown in association with the Interact Club of St. Joseph’s College.
Smith is also planning on setting up the PR Smith Foundation in Sri Lanka with the twin objectives of developing the soft skills of the youth and offering valuable advice to the corporate and the SME sectors. Smith plans on introducing a new concept of corporate consultancy in association with Synergy. This will be unique in that the companies do not have to invest large sums of funds to enlist long-term consultants. Smith’s concept will be based on providing a solution. The panel of consultants will be headed by Smith and will offer advice and guidance, when sought, on a case-by-case basis.
Following are excerpts from an interview with Smith.
Q: What will be the unique features of this workshop?
A: By the end of this workshop on 30 March every delegate will be able to write the perfect plan using the unique, globally-accepted, SOSTAC® planning system. They’ll also know how to make great decisions. They’ll be able to avoid the classic mistakes that are made by business after business. Finally, a lot of tips and techniques will be shared to boost results.
All this will be done in a memorable and actionable way so delegates can make immediate improvements as well as plan medium- to longer-term improvements.
Whether a business plan, a marketing plan, a digital marketing plan or even their own personal life plan, they’ll be able to write a plan that will be based on intelligence and structured easily so that it creates an overarching strategy but ultimately breaks down into actionable steps. It also reduces risk by identifying ‘what information do I need to make a great decision?’ I’ll show what information you need to make great decisions.
They will feel a real sense of clarity and a new confidence to present plans that boost results and that are accepted by boards of directors, and that are realistic and workable.
They will also save time and money as these simple plans stop firefighting, rushed decisions and purchasing over-priced services. Delegates will also harness all resources within an overarching strategy to give you ‘more bangs for your buck’.
Q: As an author, consultant and trainer of global repute what is your view on the importance of planning specially in a fast-changing world?
A: Yes, although it is a fast-changing, hyper competitive world without borders, businesses must plan from basic clarification of their raison d’etre, or their mission which can energise and mobilise all employees and it can also help make quicker and better decisions around your choice of strategy and subsequent tactical choices. 90-day planning can be accommodated and certainly monitoring relevant KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), some on a daily basis and some on a monthly basis, helps to keep you close to a fast-changing market.
Also you’ve got to carry out a detailed analysis of your competitors, alliances, middlemen, market trends, strengths and weaknesses, and of course, your customers. You effectively have got to know them better than they know themselves. Nothing less. Otherwise it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, except it’s worse, you don’t know what the needle looks like! All the hard work done at the Situation Analysis stage always pays dividends.
I always tell businesses to stop chasing customers until you can answer these three questions: ‘Who are they?’, ‘Why do they buy?’ and ‘how do they buy?’ Spend days, even weeks, getting these answers will save you time and money plus generate you far more sales.
I know it’s a cliché – failing to plan is planning to fail - but I really do believe basic plans are important, save money, speed decision-making, allocate resources more effectively and, most importantly, boost results by getting more bang for your buck. The plans we generate are nimble and flexible and not great big monsters that cannot be fully implemented or understood. The crystal clear and well structured plans we generate are nimble rather than numb, that is they can be quickly digested by a board and also disseminated in whole or part to the teams below.
As the workshop is highly interactive and requires each delegate’s total attention, I have asked Synergy to limit the number of participants to 30 tables of eight delegates.
Q: Some consultants and consultancy companies have been criticised for being ineffective and in fact creating more issues than solutions for the companies that hire them. Your thoughts?
A: Well yes, particularly some of the big boys who may charge very large fees. Sometimes clients discover what they already knew or felt but weren’t sure. They are then reassured by the experts and pay large fees for this.
To be fair, some large consultancies genuinely do good analysis and generate some alternative strategies before getting into the tactical detail. But I say why don’t businesses have the confidence to do this themselves?
Sometimes the client feels inferior, particularly with reference to planning or say, digital marketing planning. So they can get bullied or feel slightly intimidated by big words or slick models.
It may be that clients also feel they don’t have the time, which is a very limited resource. However, the SOSTAC® Planning System uses the results from this year to build some of your plans for next year. And over time it helps you to find sources of information that save a lot of time and money. So, over time, all managers can write perfect plans using this system. It simply gets easier every year.
Q: Your sportsmanship program for youth has been used by top clubs like Arsenal. Will you be conducting a program in Sri Lanka for the youth?
A: Yes I’m thrilled to be speaking to 1,000 plus final year students at an event hosted by the Rotary Club of Colombo Midtown in association with the Interact Club of St. Joseph’s College. These students are Sri Lanka’s future. Some will be leaders, creators, scientists, artists, workers and hopefully many will be lucky enough to have their own families.
One thing they all should be, and can be, is global citizens. To appreciate, respect and befriend other people. And there is no better way to do this than by sharing some true, two-minute, inspirational stories about amazing moments of sportsmanship.
Sportsmanship values also overlap with leadership values and intriguingly overlap with values of bringing people together to complete in sport rather than war and also to make friends with young people from other nations.
It’s amazing, young people live in a world sometimes more difficult than the one I grew up in. Sometimes they struggle for self-esteem, maybe find school difficult, lose their confidence and lose their enthusiasm. In Europe, I work in tough areas where tough kids don’t have a lot. In fact some of them have a chip on both shoulders. These hard kids absolutely love the sportsmanship stories. They argue over whose turn it is to read the book, etc.
The milk of human kindness is alive and well but sometimes it’s buried deep down inside kids who find life tough. When they hear these stories, they light up. They want to read more, explore more and they start feeling good about the world we all live in.
Basically the Great Sportsmanship Program is a not for profit program designed to inspire a new generation of global citizens and boost literacy through short stories about sportsmanship posted online at www.GreatSportsmanship.org or Facebook. Students alert us to sportsmanship stories which we then check and share across different platforms. We try to publish one story every day on Facebook. I’m looking for some Sri Lankan cricket sportsmanship stories.
It is a flexible program. For example we have a six-hour version which has just been piloted in London. We have 11 schools in Dublin using it now. Arsenal , QPR, the University of East London and CONCACAF are using it as one-day workshops. There’s a four-minute video on GreatSportsmanship.org that explains everything in a very colourful way.
I’d like to, in the not too distant future, give out 100,000 copies of the book to youths free and from that see what schools come forward to run the program. The next book will be written by students for students. They send the stories, we check them, post them on Facebook and the most popular ones are written up and posted on the blog on Great Sportsmanship.org and finally everyone votes for their favourite stories and voila we have the next edition of the book written by young people for young people.
Q: What are your future plans where Sri Lanka is concerned?
A: I want to explore your beautiful country. This trip is a short trip. I want to come back already. I also want to support the Government’s plans to create a sustainable economy that is fair to one and all. I feel as if it is a new beginning for Sri Lanka and I am delighted to support this new beginning all the way into the future.
I have been invited to set up the PR Smith Foundation in Sri Lanka with the twin objectives of developing the soft skills of youths and, separately, developing business skills of business professionals through the SOSTAC® Planning Books and by offering a new valuable advisory program to the corporate sector and the SME sector.
I want to introduce a new concept of corporate consultancy in association with Synergy. This will be unique in that the companies do not have to invest large sums of money by using expensive large, long-term consultants. We want to share advice about micro matters that might take an hour to discuss, analyse and advise, to help businesses get the right solution whether it takes an hour, a day or a several months of work. Clients will be in the driving seat, selecting exactly what specific help they need and getting it as and when they need it.
The panel of consultants will be headed by me and will offer advice and guidance when sought on a case-by-case basis.
The PR Smith Foundation, in association with Synergy, will not only help SMEs in Sri Lanka but also build sportsmanship qualities in Sri Lanka’s youth. The traits of sportsmanship, if developed within the youth, will help them become better citizens and better leaders. As mentioned, I’d like to start by giving out 100,000 free copies of the Great Moments of Sportsmanship book. Well actually, I am going to start with an inspirational set of short stories about sportsmanship in Colombo on 31 March at 3:00 p.m.
