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| PET GAZETTE | BUSINESS ADVICE
ON A ROUGH VOYAGE,
WATCH THE HORIZON
Carl Benfield spent 16 years as a British Army Officer and 11 years in
commerce. He now runs Refresh Business, a consultancy specialising in
strategic direction. In this first of three articles, he examines the importance
of goal setting in the pet care trade
THE STORM
If you’re a pictures person like me, you’ll
know
the value in “seeing” the situation from
Whilst the UK pet supplies market is one of
a
different
perspective, so in this article, I’m
the largest in Europe, with amazing growth
going
to
use
seafaring as a metaphor for
in the last twenty years, the last the last four
running
a
business
in uncertain times. If you’re
years have seen some stagnation, meaning
a
landlubber
at
heart,
don’t worry, I’ll promise
competition is becoming increasingly fierce. As
not
to
make
you
seasick!
the demographic of pet owners changes and
And as a side note, if things are running
new technology offers multiple ways of buying,
sweetly
for you now, remember that a good
it is not only the market, but the supply chain
sailor
will
tell you that you should use any
that is experiencing rapid change. Overlay the
period of calm to check, and then re-check
uncertainties caused by Brexit (sorry, I had to
everything so that when a storm does come
mention it!), and it becomes challenging, very
quickly. So how do you take all this into account (and it will), you’re ready without needing
to panic. So, step number one - check the
and still develop something that passes
weather (market).
muster a business plan? Whilst a fast moving
market can favour the agile entrepreneur of
the start-up (at least in the short term), how can THE BOAT
more established companies ensure that they Before you know where you are going, you
have a sustainable model that will adapt with
have to know where you are, and in our
the times?
metaphor, that means what kind of boat we
www.petgazette.biz
are in. Are you part of a large group, a family
company, a sole trader or what? It seems
obvious, but properly understanding your
position will affect how realistic your goal can
be - a local family-run company is unlikely to
double its turnover within a few years without
acquiring other businesses.
There is a decades-old process that derives
from analysis of the American Air Force in
Korea. The Americans could not understand
why the inferior enemy aircraft could perform
so well against superior US planes. The
breakthrough in thinking defined the OODA
loop - Observe Orientate, Decide and Act and
the first part of this -”observe” was vital. The
enemy planes had a bigger cockpit canopy
that allowed the pilot to see much more
around him, thus they were able to orientate
more quickly… and so on (for the spotters
out there, this is one reason why modern jet
March 2019