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Yesterday marked the anniversary of the UK lockdown. This got Strategy Deployment thinking about how the last year has treated us as a company. It is difficult to express how devastating 2020 has been for many, both personally and financially, and so we find ourselves humbled to still be in operation. We are all living through a unique, once in a lifetime experience of having to navigate a global pandemic. Every single member of the team agreed without any equivocation or hesitation that we needed to be respectful on moral grounds alone of this life-altering event. Nobody in 2020 remained untouched by the pandemic and we all know friends, families, colleagues and co-workers that have had to endure loss.
The effects COVID-19 was having globally put our plans and goals into perspective and so we immediately decided to take a non-aggressive sales stance in March 2020. So, what would we be focusing on instead? Our 90-day strategy meetings were used wisely to re-define our temporary goals and targets, which fell into three main categories:
· The present of Strategy Deployment Limited:
Use the ‘slowdown of lockdown’ to enhance our current client offerings, we would focus on providing them with quality support in every way throughout the pandemic, and really explore the benefits of key account management.
Build, grow and consolidate relationships with our current clients. This has always been one of our greatest USP’s as a company.
Business as usual would be paramount; that our clients would feel no interruption of, or disruption to our regular/standard services. In fact, throughout 2020 and through lockdown we were able to deploy three parallel projects globally to over 100 locations for just one of our tier one automotive clients.
We undertook a number of successful implementation engagements, and delivered Discovery and Training events over Microsoft Teams, Zoom and WebEx, something we had never done before.
· The inside of Strategy Deployment Limited:
Soft release of our improved and updated website at www.strategydeployment.co.uk
New appointments and role re-evaluations: a new CEO, Head of Strategy, and a re-defining of the role of Marketing.
We refreshed all our training and marketing collateral and produced a new suite of training tools, an implementation manual, helpful documents and training videos; created an onboarding manual for new hires.
We assessed and reinforced our internal processes, revised how we conduct our projects and the steps involved, and explored of new methods of internal administration and management.
· The future of Strategy Deployment Limited:
Perhaps the most exciting and important opportunity of 2020 was to be able to metaphorically press pause on our direction as an organisation and take the time to craft and define the future of the business.
Construct and shape a new Mission, Vision and Purpose for Strategy Deployment Limited that would take us forward and outline our trajectory and understanding the importance of total buy-in from the whole team.
Two new strategic partnerships with Enterprise Kaizen and Global Data Excellence and Enterprise Kaizen which will strengthen the foundations of Strategy Deployment and allow us to build the company more dynamically. Additional conversations with two other potential strategic partners are ongoing.
As restrictions gradually ease, we have closely monitored trends and are responding to a renewed appetite for innovation and change in business, by increasing our bandwidth for exploring new prospects and opportunities. Going forwards we are driven by “pull” rather than “push”, ensuring that we do not and will not compromise our moral stance in an ongoing and post-pandemic world.
By no means has 2020 been a wasted year for Strategy Deployment Limited. Our Homepage declares “Get more out of what you already have” and this year has been a perfect application of this principle to our own company. In fact, it has proved to us how strong we are as a unit. We do not see obstacles; we see opportunities. Our longevity is assured by our motivation and drive to secure a successful future for Strategy Deployment Limited.
No matter what happens, our clients can be assured that SDL is strong enough to survive (and even thrive during) such events as a global pandemic.