Aside the normal agenda of this Blog

I would like to encourage you to check-out another interesting Blog – www.thebusinessupdater.com . The objective is a little bit aside this Blog – focus is not on a specific line of business, but on business life in general. However I have read many of the articles with great pleasure and think it has some good perspectives on business related topics in general. I can positively recommend the newly published article about using passion to create a competitive advantage.

In my time as a student, I was part of a team conducting an internal analysis to clarify the vision, mission and strategic focus of a smaller Danish software company. The company was not doing well and we identified big differences in the perception of the future strategy between key employees, and a total lack of company vision and mission. The only thing that drove the company was a shared passion for the company and the product[1]. By using in deep qualitative interviews with all employees we identified a possible vision, mission and clarified the strategic focus – this was of course linked to an external evaluation of the competitive environment. Our conclusion was implemented (with some adaptations) and when we contacted the company two years later they could report a growth rate of 40%. A shared passion and an unclear strategy, was changed to a shared vision, mission and a clear company strategy. This made the company able of conducting a turnaround and is now improving both the top- and bottom-line.

A missing strategic outlook is a common problem when a newly started entrepreneur is setting up a business: the passion is there, but many do not take the time to identify the competitive advantage and how the company can be differentiated from competitors. When setting up a new business it’s not enough to have passion and a gut feeling of how to get success. In addition you have to analyze the market and clarify your vision, mission and a strategic focus. All elements are pivotal for success and no one can be left out – unless you are extremely lucky, and luck will only give you a short term of success.

[1] The company was a family owned business. The mom was the CEO, the father was a programmer and the daughter was head of sales. We quickly identified this as part of the problem.