As part of developing your growth strategy, you should take stock of your achievements, your resources and your current market position. To what extent do these contribute towards the achievement of your plans?

Check these against your growth plans. What's the gap between the present and the future? Is it reasonable to assume that you can bridge it? Or should you be more modest - or ambitious - in your plans?

Reality check

You should analyse your company in some depth, identifying its performance for the last two years on the following measures:

• Financial: Sales, profits, your salary?
• Customers: How many?
• Product, service: Sales and cost per product, service?
• Assets and liabilities: How much is your business worth?
• Staff: How many?
• New products, services introduced: How many? What were the sales for these? How long did they take to introduce?
• Sales: Margins? Which areas, regions show the best prospects?
• Success factors: What are they? How do you score on them?
• Dependency: Who are you (too) dependent on?
• Time: How do you spend your time?

Gap analysis

In performing a reality check on your business, you have analysed its current position. The next step is to compare this against your plans.

• What are your targets for the future (say 5 or 10 years from now) on the following measures:
• Financial: Sales, profits, your salary?
• Customers: How many?
• Product, service: Sales and cost per product, service?
• Assets and liabilities: How much is your business worth?
• Staff: How many?
• New products, services introduced: How many? What sales are planned?
• Sales: Margins? Which areas, regions are expected to show the best prospects?
• Success factors: What are they? How do you expect to score on them?
• Dependency: Who are you likely to be (too) dependent on?
• Time: How will you spend your time?

Now compare the two sets of measures and identify the gaps.

Obviously the biggest gaps need the bulk of your attention, but you must also consider bridging the smaller gaps too.