In today’s complex and ever-changing business environment, organizations constantly pursue transformative strategies to maintain resilience and competitiveness in volatile markets. RoundMap’s Business Navigator is a holistic compass for navigating this labyrinthine landscape. This comprehensive guide is more than a strategic roadmap—it’s an integrated framework that enables sustainable business design by aligning strategic goals, operations, and ethical imperatives.
Unlike conventional roadmaps that imply a linear or one-way journey, the Business Navigator embodies a dynamic, cyclical ethos. It appreciates the interconnected nature of business operations, allowing for continuous adaptation and iteration in response to emerging challenges and opportunities.
RoundMap’s Business Navigator is structured around five pivotal stages:
- Discovery Stage: Uncovering new opportunities, concepts, and ideas.
- Design Stage: Developing and refining concepts for implementation.
- Development Stage: Bringing designed concepts to fruition and creating tangible results.
- Direction Stage: Ensuring optimal execution and tracking performance.
- Profit Distribution Stage: Equitably sharing the captured value among stakeholders.
The Navigator contains 4 cyclical stages, stages 2 to 5, while decisions made in stage 5, concerning the profit distribution, greatly determine the sustainability of a business. Stage 1, the Discovery Stage, describes the dynamics at the start of a business venture but should be reinvoked, for instance, when products mature, and there is no more profit left to distribute.
In a scheme, it looks like this (notice the pivot between cycles):
Each stage is infused with questions that prompt deep reflection, designed to guide you toward constructing a prosperous enterprise that contributes meaningfully to a more equitable society. Rooted in the concept of a Symphony of Strengths, the blueprint accentuates the unique competencies of each individual within your organization, fostering a collaborative environment centered on collective value creation.
“Growth is an unbounded, relentless surge toward excellence. It’s a dance of agility, a symphony of adaptation, and a canvas for relentless innovation. It’s not mere advancement, it’s our testament to constant evolution.” – Edwin Korver
This Business Navigator is indispensable for leaders committed to making a profound impact by deftly navigating through complex business ecosystems. It is the cornerstone for building impactful, equitable, and sustainable enterprises. With its intricate layers of guidance on performance metrics, outcome yields, and value distribution, RoundMap’s Business Navigator harmonizes rational and emotional dimensions into a cohesive strategy, becoming a compelling conductor’s score for today’s complex business symphony.
1 - Discovery Stage
Discovery Stage (Innovation)
The Discovery Stage is a critical phase where ideas germinate and are subjected to their first viability tests. Drawing upon Steve Blank’s Customer Development method provides a proven framework for ensuring that a venture is customer-centric, a vital aspect often overlooked.
Patrick Moore labels this stage the Innovation Zone, distinguishing it from the Implementation Zones. This zone focuses on design thinking and other contemporary methodologies for ideation and validation, enabling an enterprise to map out the uncharted territories of customer needs.
This stage of RoundMap’s Business Navigator requires rigor in evaluating a value proposition—assessing its credibility, distinguishability, and identifiability. It is an essential step towards avoiding common pitfalls at later stages. By addressing the four pillars of feasibility, viability, desirability, and sustainability, we want to create value while ensuring the venture can sustain itself long-term.
By grounding this stage in multifaceted considerations, we create a robust foundation for ventures to grow in a manner that’s innovative, equitable, and resilient.
Key Discovery Considerations
- Is the innovation idea credible and aligned with our organizational values and goals for equitability?
- How does the innovation distinguish itself regarding social and environmental impact?
- How have we identified potential stakeholders, and what are their diverse needs?
- Is the innovation feasible regarding resources while also meeting our standards for ethics and equity?
- How is the sustainability of the innovation validated at this early stage?
- What mechanisms are in place for stakeholder feedback during ideation?
- Are our methods for validation both transparent and inclusive?
- How are diverse perspectives incorporated into the ideation process?
- What is the long-term vision for this innovation in contributing to a more equitable society?
- How do we ensure the discovery process is sustainable and doesn’t exploit resources?
Integrating Values and EQuitability
- Integrating Values:
- Utilize ethical guidelines and frameworks from the start to screen potential innovations.
- Implement inclusivity checklists to ensure the broadest voice scope contributes to the ideation process.
- Integrating Equitability:
- Actively involve marginalized voices in the ideation process.
- Use metrics that measure social impact as an integral part of the validation process.
2 - Design Stage
Design Stage (Incubation)
The Design Stage serves as a crucial bridge. While the Innovation Zone is fertile ground for ideation and validation, the Incubation Zone becomes the platform where these vetted ideas evolve into tangible business opportunities. It’s where theory meets practice, but with a protective buffer that allows for experimentation without jeopardizing the integrity of the core business.
The Design stage features an “orchestrate and iterate” approach, providing a space for blueprinting value propositions, developing prototypes, and setting up initial market tests. It prepares the groundwork for scalable operations, aligning the feasibility, viability, desirability, and sustainability metrics established during the Discovery stage.
After the optimization of the business strategy, the Design Stage can be modified to include a “refine and execute” approach. This approach would involve refining the value propositions, prototypes, and market tests developed during the orchestrate and iterate phase. The refined value propositions would be tested in the market to validate their viability and desirability. The prototypes would be further developed to ensure their feasibility and sustainability. The market tests would be conducted to assess the scalability of the operations. The refined value propositions, prototypes, and market tests would then be executed to create tangible business opportunities.
The Design Stage can be modified to include a “flex and pivot” approach to adapt to changing circumstances. This approach would involve flexibly adapting the value propositions, prototypes, and market tests to changing circumstances. The value propositions would be adapted to meet the market’s changing needs. The prototypes would be adapted to meet the changing needs of the business. The market tests would be adapted to meet the customers’ changing needs. The adapted value propositions, prototypes, and market tests would then be pivoted to create new business opportunities.
In each scenario, the Design Stage serves as a crucial bridge between the Innovation and Implementation Zone. It enables an ecosystem that bridges the often chasm-like gap between novel ideas and operationalized products or services. The Incubation Zone acts as a pivotal transition space, acting as a sieve that only lets through innovative and operationally viable ventures.
The Base Plan (Orchestration Zone)
The Base Plan of the Design stage includes our trifecta of Organizational Dynamics, Business Model, and Behavioral Dynamics, making a comprehensive framework:
Organizational Dynamics: This aspect ensures that the culture and internal capabilities are aligned and equipped to bring the new venture to life. The organizational culture plays a pivotal role in the successful transition of a project from the Innovation Zone to actual development. A misalignment here could be fatal to even the most promising of ventures.
Business Model: Central to this stage is the blueprint for how the company will deliver value to the customers and capture value for itself. We refer to it as Value Circle Orchestration, which encapsulates the idea that value creation is not just a linear process but a holistic, circular one involving various internal and external stakeholders.
Behavioral Dynamics: Understanding market trends and customer behavior ensures the new venture is aligned with existing or foreseeable demand. This can include everything from consumer psychology to broader economic trends that might influence the viability of the new venture.
These components ensure a balanced approach considering internal capabilities, external market factors, and overarching strategic alignment. The Business Model in the center is the keystone that holds the other elements in place, ensuring that the venture is feasible and strategically sound in the long term.
The Game Plan (Orchestration Zone)
The Game Plan then provides the more tactical considerations, where the rubber meets the road. Breaking down the Business Model into the Operating and Revenue Models aligns well with Geoffrey Moore’s zones and effectively bridges strategy with execution:
- Operating Model (Designing the Productivity Zone): This part focuses on the internal capabilities required to deliver on the value proposition. It involves operational logistics, production capabilities, quality assurance measures, scalability, and all the other ‘behind-the-scenes’ activities crucial for value creation.
- Revenue Model (Designing the Performance Zone): This is about monetizing the value created and defining how the company will capture part of the value it delivers to customers. It may include revenue streams, pricing strategies, customer acquisition and retention, and other market-facing activities.
Since this is the Incubation Zone, this is still in the realm of design and planning, not yet in execution. It’s a crucible where the venture is subjected to rigorous analysis and hypothetical testing, ensuring that it does so once it moves on to the Development stage with a robust blueprint.
The Game Plan aligns all of these elements. It enables the venture to pass from ideas into actionable strategy while constantly referring back to the company’s Consentric Vision to ensure strategic coherence.
Key Design Considerations
- Is the organizational culture designed to be inclusive and equitable, and how is this credibility established?
- How does the Business Model distinguish itself in delivering equitable value to all stakeholders?
- What mechanisms are in place to identify and prioritize trends desirable to the consumer and sustainable for society?
- Is the design feasible regarding technical and organizational capacity while also being financially viable?
- How is the long-term sustainability of the venture ensured in the design stage?
- Are equity and inclusion metrics incorporated into the design evaluation?
- How are partnerships and collaborations evaluated for alignment with our values?
- What governance structures are proposed for equitable decision-making?
- How is customer feedback incorporated into the design process?
- Are there contingency plans for pivoting the design to meet evolving societal needs and expectations?
Integrating Values and EQuitability
- Values:
- Integrate a set of core ethical principles into the design guidelines and ensure they are disseminated across the organization.
- Create a set of design heuristics that specifically aim to identify and mitigate any ethical or social justice concerns.
- Equitability:
- Develop protocols for inclusive decision-making.
- Allocate resources to ensure equitable access to opportunities to participate in the design process, whether through funding, mentorship, or specialized training.
3 - Development Stage
Development Stage (Implementation)
The Development Stage, encapsulated in the Action Plan, is the engine room of the ongoing business. It encapsulates the essential activities related to value creation, value delivery, and value capture, translating the strategic insights and planning from the Discovery and Design stages into tangible business operations.
The multi-compartment layout of the Action Plan adds a layer of nuance that’s often missing in conventional business models:
- Business Dynamics (value creation): This compartment includes what Michael Porter calls support activities—like organizational infrastructure, HR, technology development, and procurement. These aren’t just supporting elements but core to creating value, echoing the EQuitability theme by highlighting the importance of each organizational function.
- Customer Dynamics (value delivery): These are the primary activities in Porter’s value chain—marketing and sales, service, outbound logistics, etc. This is where the business directly interacts with the market, and customer experience is forged.
- Market Dynamics (value capture): This adds an external dimension, focusing on the competitive landscape, regulatory environment, and other factors that impact how well the enterprise can monetize the value it creates.
Companies must weave a suitable organizational fabric of effectiveness by aligning their capabilities, functions, processes, and so on. This is a cornerstone of the Action Plan stage, the engine room of ongoing business operations.
This comprehensive and integrated plan ensures that the business survives and thrives, aligning with its concentric vision, mission, purpose, and values.
Strategic Symbiosis: Bridging Game with Action Plan
We’ve nuanced the Game Plan’s Operating and Revenue Model by associating them with the Customer Dynamics Supply and Demand Side.
Supply Side (Actual Productivity Zone): This links back to the Operating Model conceived during the Design Stage. Here, the focus is on executing service delivery and ensuring customer success. It is about fulfilling promises and commitments made to the customer—essentially, how effectively the business can meet or exceed customer expectations post-sale.
Demand Side (Actual Performance Zone): This corresponds to the Revenue Model from the Design Stage. This is the outward-facing side, responsible for generating customer interest, driving sales, and capturing value. It’s about how well a business can attract customers and convince them to complete a purchase.
The refined model further emphasizes the interconnectivity between planning (Design Stage) and execution (Development Stage), ensuring that the business doesn’t lose sight of its initial intentions and goals as it moves into the operational realm. It allows for a harmonious transition from strategic planning to operational excellence, ensuring that the Customer Dynamics are aligned with the Operating and Revenue Models.
The Demand and Supply sides of Customer Dynamics have their unique Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The Business Navigator facilitates a nuanced understanding of customer engagement by positioning SWOT at the juncture between these critical areas. It serves as a guide for operational and strategic adjustments.
This level of detail in breaking down the Customer Dynamics also opens the door for more targeted approaches on both the Supply and Demand Sides, which can only improve the operation’s overall effectiveness and EQuitability.
The Role of SWOT in Customer Dynamics
The SWOT analysis—assessing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats—is an indispensable tool for business strategy, and its positioning around the Customer Dynamics is deliberate and integral to the Value Orchestration Blueprint.
In the Blueprint, the Customer Dynamics represent the heart of Value Delivery, capturing how well an organization interacts with its customers from the Front Line.
Internal and External Focus
The internal aspects of SWOT reside between Business Dynamics and Customer Dynamics (Supply Side), while the external aspects of SWOT are located between Customer Dynamics and Market Dynamics (Demand Side). This is strategic for several reasons:
- Internal SWOT is about aligning the organization’s internal capabilities and constraints with the needs and expectations of customers. This primarily informs and refines the Business Dynamics.
- External SWOT focuses on how external market forces and opportunities align with the organization’s customer engagement strategies, impacting both the Market and Customer Dynamics.
This bifurcated approach to SWOT ensures that the entire spectrum of factors affecting customer interaction—from internal capabilities to external market conditions—is thoroughly assessed and integrated into strategic planning.
In summary, the SWOT analysis serves as a multi-faceted lens through which the complex interplay of Customer Dynamics is scrutinized, optimized, and strategized, serving as a cornerstone in the Value Orchestration Blueprint’s aim for comprehensive, equitable, and sustainable business operations.
Key Development Considerations
- Is the development of operational processes credible in promoting both financial and social returns?
- How does our product or service distinguish itself by being desirable to customers and beneficial to society?
- Is the approach to capturing market share identifiable and aligned with our goals for equitability and sustainability?
- Are the venture’s value delivery processes feasible and environmentally and socially responsible?
- How do we ensure the venture is financially viable in the long term without compromising equitability and sustainability?
- What is the approach for integrating diversity and inclusion into our team structures?
- How is environmental impact minimized in our operations?
- What mechanisms are in place for regular stakeholder communication and transparency?
- How do we ensure the ethical sourcing of materials and services?
- Are development milestones aligned with our social and environmental goals?
Integrating Values and EQuitability
- Values:
- Create a ‘Sustainability and Ethics’ audit mechanism that will be part of the regular quality checks.
- Integrate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals directly into the operational milestones.
- Equitability:
- Review all HR policies to ensure they are equity-focused.
- Establish a pricing model that allows products/services to be accessible to less advantaged communities without compromising quality.
4 - Direction Stage
Direction Stage (Optimization)
In the Direction Stage of the Business Navigator, comprehensive performance measurement is a vital guidepost for an organization’s journey toward operational excellence and sustainable growth. By employing a multi-dimensional dashboard, the blueprint provides an expansive yet focused lens on key performance indicators (KPIs) segmented across Business, Customer, and Market Dynamics.
The core KPIs are the specific growth rates identified:
- Output Growth Rate for Business Performance,
- Revenue Growth Rate for Customer Performance and
- Share Growth Rate for Market Performance.
They are designed to provide a robust framework for tracking success in the various compartments of the business.
These growth rates are supported by types of Intelligence that enable data-driven decision-making:
- Business Intelligence focuses inward, offering critical insights into operational efficiency and the organization’s internal workings.
- Customer Intelligence, on the other hand, serves as an external lens. Aiding in understanding consumer behaviors and needs, thereby informing the development of compelling value propositions.
- Market Intelligence provides a broader outlook, giving organizations the foresight to anticipate market trends. From shifting consumer preferences to changes in the competitive landscape.
Overall, the Direction stage aligns an organization’s strategic goals with the day-to-day realities of business operations. It ensures that decision-making is informed and effective, aligning perfectly with the concentric vision, mission, purpose, and values guiding the enterprise.
Operating and Commercial Results and Yields
We distinguish between the Supply Chain Yield and the Demand Chain Yield, adding another layer of depth to the Direction stage. The conceptualization of these ‘yields’ allows for a more rounded, holistic understanding of performance, essentially serving as composite KPIs that reflect a combination of outcomes from different business segments.
Supply Chain Yield (measuring the Productivity Zone), deriving from Business and Customer Performance, would provide insights into how well the internal operations and customer-facing strategies are meshing together to produce value. This measure would be an invaluable tool for assessing operational efficiency and customer engagement in an integrated manner.
On the other hand, Demand Chain Yield (measuring the Performance Zone), a function of Customer and Market Performance, would offer a strategic vantage point to gauge how effective the business is at meeting market demands and capturing value. It measures how well the business is externally aligned with its market and customer base.
By identifying these specific ‘yields,’ we created a focused mechanism for tracking the health and effectiveness of both the supply and demand chains. It’s a balanced scorecard approach that complements the individual performance metrics. This addition to the Direction stage encapsulates the intricate dynamics of business operation and market interface.
Key Direction Considerations
- How do we credibly measure our alignment with organizational values in Business, Customer, and Market Performance?
- Is our strategy distinguishable in its balanced focus on financial yield and social impact?
- How are desirable consumer behaviors identified and encouraged through our direction?
- Is the strategic direction of the venture both feasible and viable given our current performance metrics?
- How is long-term sustainability embedded into our strategic direction?
- What indicators are used to measure equitable impact in our communities?
- How are feedback loops established for continuous improvement?
- Are ethical considerations incorporated into strategic risk assessments?
- How is leadership held accountable for both financial and social outcomes?
- Are future-proofing strategies in place for navigating market uncertainties without compromising values?
Integrating Values and EQuitability
- Values:
- Develop dashboards that prominently display economic KPIs and ‘impact’ KPIs focused on employee well-being, environmental sustainability, and community engagement.
- Introduce ‘Ethics Reviews’ as part of quarterly and annual reviews.
- Equitability:
- Apply algorithms to data that can break down performance metrics by demographic indicators, enabling you to identify and rectify systemic inequalities.
- Use a ‘balanced scorecard’ approach to ensure that social impact and equity metrics weigh significantly in overall performance evaluations.
5 - Profit Distribution Stage
Profit Distribution Stage (Compensation)
The Profit Distribution Stage is the ultimate litmus test for the venture’s overall effectiveness, encapsulated by the Return on Venture and the Value Chain Yield. This KPI essentially focuses on the entire business model, summarizing the efficacy and impact of your business across supply and demand chains.
Values and equitability in the distribution of returns are critical factors. If the Value Chain Yield is the final score, then how the yield is distributed speaks volumes about the company’s ethical and social commitments.
- How are rewards shared among stakeholders—employees, shareholders, and the community?
- Is there a fair distribution mechanism that acknowledges and rewards everyone equitably for their contribution to the yield?
The choices made here affect the organization’s internal morale, reputation, and role in the larger societal context.
The Profit Distribution Stage is a unique opportunity to manifest the company’s core values. It ensures a just, fair, and inclusive distribution mechanism, fosters a work environment where individuals are proud of their collective contribution, and promotes sustainable growth in harmony with social responsibility. This stage captures the essence of making a decisive choice about the distribution of profits for the business’s long-term success.
Key Distribution Considerations
- How do we credibly uphold and communicate our values in the distribution chain?
- In what ways does our distribution model distinguish itself through equitable and sustainable practices?
- Is the distribution strategy tailored to the identifiable needs of diverse consumer groups?
- How does our distribution model remain financially viable while adhering to principles of fairness and sustainability?
- What measures are in place to ensure the long-term sustainability of the distribution model?
- Are there structures for equitably sharing the benefits of success among stakeholders?
- How do we ensure that our distribution partners align with our values of equitability and sustainability?
- What methods are used to minimize environmental impact in distribution?
- How are consumers educated about their consumption’s social and environmental implications?
- What governance structures are in place to review and adapt the distribution strategy for long-term sustainability?
Integrating Values and EQuitability
- Values:
- Prioritize suppliers and partners who also adhere to strong ethical and equitable practices.
- Develop a transparent system for the allocation of profits, clearly defining how much is reinvested in social impact initiatives.
- Equitability:
- Consider Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) or other shared-ownership models to distribute financial gains more broadly within the organization.
- Develop a Community Investment Strategy that aligns with the overall business strategy but focuses specifically on societal contributions.