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Looking ahead
How to create a vision to move your company forward
By Brian Horn
Smart Business Chicago | April 2009
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Peter Krivkovich, CEO
Cramer-Krasselt
To create a vision for your organization, Peter Krivkovich says that you have to be realistic about your strengths and ask yourself some tough questions.
“What is the unique proposition, if any?” says Krivkovich, president and CEO of Cramer-Krasselt. “What is the opportunity to be able to package it in a way that your end user will see it as a value that is different from whatever value is out there? Then, how do you drive that and capitalize on it in as short a time as possible, within the ability of your resources?”
Krivkovich — who helped drive the marketing and communications agency to 2007 revenue of about $95 million — says you also have to have a strategic point of view, not a tactical one, because a tactical point of view is only short term.
“If you are looking from year to year, then I think you’ll eventually fail,” he says.
Smart Business spoke with Krivkovich about how to look ahead to create a vision to move your company forward.
Look to the future. You have to have a long-term vision, and it has to be a vision that you both modify and constantly nurture with the resources that you have at your disposal.
It’s looking far enough ahead so you aren’t caught up in the day-to-day things that can throw you off.
Where do you want the company to be three years from now? Where do you want it to be five years from now? Where do you want it to be 10 years from now? What is it going to take ideally to get there, and how are you going to help your organization to achieve that through any number of means?
It is absolutely an analysis of the market and an analysis of the competitive set. An analysis of your own strengths and weaknesses and your own abilities, and being able to put all of that into perspective of achievable goals. To create goals that are ideal but not achievable is, in the end, frustrating and disorganizing.
You always have to have a reach. It’s only a question of, if you reach so far, you sprain yourself in the process.
It also depends on the culture of the organization and whether people are driven to succeed or they’re more, ‘Let’s maintain what we have.’
