Operating strategy of a business guides the path it needs to take: how to move from the current state to the stated goal within the allotted time by using strengths, eliminating weaknesses, exploiting opportunities, minimizing risks, and connecting with other resources along the way.
For a Start-up, business strategy remains fairly unclear, and it needs experience to discover a suitable strategy. This is especially true for Start-ups in nontraditional sectors or with very new ideas.
However, strategy has many levels, from The “strategy” we commonly mention is usually understood as “business strategy,” this is the overall strategy for the entire business. Broken down, there will be department strategies and even personal strategies. For a Start-up, these strategies have a very large “margin of error” and are often inaccurate when established, unless the Start-up has very strong industry experience, whether from its Founders and/or Mentors.
However, we rarely know that at strategy's highest level there is something I often call “Corporate identity” – this is also 1 type of strategy: this level includes Mission (Vision), Vision (Mission), Core Values (Core value). There have been many cases where a Start-up developed a strategy at this level and it remained unchanged for decades afterward (for example: Sony).
There are many ways to understand and write it, but here I suggest building “Corporate Identity” by answering these questions:
Mission
What is the business's purpose for existing?
What does a business fight for?
What are you willing to devote your entire life to doing? (“mệnh” means “mạng” — your life — something you will devote your whole life to and may “give your life” for)
What will you do (in broad terms) to achieve your vision? For whom do those actions create value (customers, employees, shareholders, partners, the community)?
Vision
What do you want the business to be in (x) years?
What results do you want to achieve in (x) years?
How do you want employees, partners, customers, and the community to see you in (x) years?
Does this vision inspire you and your colleagues? Does it point toward “a better future”?
Is the vision clear, specific and as vivid as though it were right in front of you? (For a simple example, if your “vision” is to go from 90kg down to 60kg, you could express it concisely as “60KG” and stick it on the bathroom mirror, so that every day when you wake up you can see it and sustain your determination!)
Core Values
What qualities/philosophies do you and the founders (possibly including the staff) believe in?
Do those qualities/philosophies fit your industry and your definition of success? (For example, in a healthcare business, having a core value of ‘being willing to take risks to create something new’ would be truly ridiculous! Risking what, and with whom? Patients? But for a design or creative business, that value would be quite appropriate.)
Some businesses do not use “Core value” but use “Belief”, even “Our creed”, in general, whatever words are used, it is something that all employees of the business deeply believe in, have chosen, and will ‘live as they have declared.’
So those inner core values will create outward behavior, leading to habit of members within the business, thereby creating corporate culture.
A startup will not yet have a strong culture in its early stages, and perhaps it should focus on business development rather than “grand” culture-building programs. There is much debate around should you build a corporate culture as soon as you start a business? In my experience, you cannot (and should not) do this immediately, major corporations worldwide had to experiment and explore for decades before finally identifying their culture and what suited them. Clearly, ‘living as you say’ is not a matter of a day or two, but something to uphold for years. But you can set the direction for that from the outset, as a founder, business owner, or CEO, you are the “example” that will guide and draw all your employees into doing what you have done.
So the first step toward an entire organization living by its core values is for the founder personally to embody what they proclaim. Whatever you want your employees to believe and do, you must believe and do yourself. That is the simplest thing; you need not spend time considering whether you should, and you can do it right now!
So what are you waiting for, entrepreneurs?
“Be your word” – Walk The Talk!
Right now!
Tạ Minh Tuấn – TMT – is a successful entrepreneur pioneering several startup fields in Vietnam, 1 of Vietnam's 30 most outstandingly successful and influential people in the prestigious “30 Under 30″ ranking by Forbes, the world's leading business magazine, and the founder of YUP! Start-Up Education & Incubation Centrer (www.yup.edu.vn).
