Do small Ukrainian companies have clear development strategies?
On April 10th, the first training stream for business owners and managers started under the consulting program SURE (Sustainable and Resilient Entrepreneurship) in collaboration with AOEU and ILO.
The trainer and consultant for this program was Svitlana Nasirova, a certified business trainer and facilitator.
During the first module, participants delved into the processes of strategic planning within their companies.
Here are some impressions from the trainer, Svitlana Nasirova:
When asked, "What is strategic development for us?"
Real answers included:
- We have no system, we develop spontaneously.
- Intuitive development based on our own experience.
- We seek development solutions through trial and error.
- Problems prompt our development.
- Market downturn forces us to develop in different directions.
- We failed to catch the wave of digitization in time, lost a significant portion of the market, but opened up a completely new niche and now have a new business.
- We practice the Chinese approach: I (the owner) am the strategist. I form the vision, then "sell" it to my team. We take into account what the team accepts and is willing to implement. We test ideas and see what works.
These sentiments are not new to me. And surely, in most of these responses, you can see yourselves. However, I am always inspired during each program.
Participants may not know what the Ansoff matrix is, but when we go through it, we see that most of them operate within 3-4 quadrants. They may not have formalized business models, but they make the most of all its elements.
And every time, I am convinced that such training structures, formalizes, and organizes the intuitive experience already gained, allowing for the understanding of certain processes and mistakes.
Through structuring, understanding, and feedback from other entrepreneurs and the trainer, the most powerful insights occur, leading to strategic conclusions, qualitatively new decisions, and actions.
I love observing these changes in participants' businesses, and I know that we can showcase living examples to the world of sustainable and resilient enterprises with incredible adaptability and flexibility among small and medium-sized businesses.
Photo and text from Svitlana Nasirova's Facebook story.