This month is “National Write a Business Plan Month” – when’s the last time you wrote one? Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a veteran business owner, or an employee of a larger corporation, the opportunity to create a business plan is much vaster than securing funding to launch a new venture. Business plans create discussions, ideas, and new realities within businesses new and old.
An effective business plan will aide in your efforts to introduce new strategies based on a proposed future of innovation. Given the industry I am in and most of my readers are in, perhaps consider how sustainable your business plans are regarding the initiatives you’re proposing.
What does it mean to have a sustainable business plan? You’ll likely answer one of two ways: a plan that focuses on the maintenance of your business, or a plan that focuses on your business’ impact on the maintenance of the environment. What if they weren’t mutually exclusive – that both could support each other?
In an article published by Entrepreneur, it addresses this idea of building a sustainable business plan that factors in financial, environmental, and social concerns. The author proposes six ways to shape a more sustainable future for their companies and communities: building business on belief, embrace change (don’t stand still), create value proposition, growth and comfort don’t co-exist, focus on excelling in an area, and focus on constant reinvention.
Each of these areas shared by this article come back to understanding your business, its purpose, the value it brings and recognizing that value will need to continue to shift and mold as customer needs change.
Sustainability is more than just a buzzword or concept; it’s more than just “going green” for the sake of what’s trending. Sustainability is focusing on how to maintain the value of everything related to your business: the environment (that we need for our existence now and into the future), the business (that you want to grow profitability for), and the customer (who you want a continued relationship with).
As you approach the business plans you’ll likely create for 2019 goals, consider the impact they have in each of these arenas (environment, society, and economics). Be aware of the relationship they have with one another and seek to propose initiatives that create the greatest benefit in each of these areas simultaneously – that is where true innovation will exist. Learn more about integrating innovation within your organization that will have a positive impact on all its stakeholders by visiting this site.
