Securing value in a slowdown

Start by assessing the externalities that might influence your decision-making, but go deeper — analysing each trend and considering the opportunities and risks it brings to the table. Identify the interdependencies between each trend and understand the degree of influence they have on different aspects of your business and strategy. Then, consider factors driving your business strategy.

Now that you have a strong understanding of future opportunities, risks and trends that influence your organisation, the next step is to properly quantify their value within various scenarios. This calls for an understanding of the metrics that lead to business success. Examine the transactional data available and combine the data with rich sources of market data and sector insights to assess the potential value they could deliver across a wide range of opportunities.

You know your stakeholder expectations. You have a robust list of value-creation ideas or turnaround opportunities. And you know what each will cost and what they will deliver. Now it's time to prioritise your list. Recognise the interdependencies between trends and objectives and know what action plan to adopt to achieve the best impact. Ensure a good balance between short- and long-term activities to unlock in-year savings that can fund out-of-year objectives. The outcome of this should be a practical and achievable list of specific actions you can take, and the value that should be generated.

At this stage, you need to execute the plan cleanly and confidently. This will require the right skills, capabilities and talent to not only deliver your objectives but also sustain them. Create opportunities to place employees in control through knowledge transfer and upskilling. Leverage opportunities to speed up the pace of goal execution to help minimise the potential impact of future disruptions. And strive to ensure your governance model allows you to learn as you execute in an agile fashion to continue delivering value.

Your quantification process offered clear metrics and outcomes to measure. Beyond reporting to stakeholders and approvers on goals met and returns on investment, it means being able to course-correct when new trends or disruptions emerge based on reliable data and a clear understanding of business objectives. Develop the capability to continuously evolve how your decision-makers view your baseline organisational data to unlock value measurement and management. Measurement is key to value creation and should not be left as an afterthought.