For those of us familiar with the problems caused in the 1980s in areas of the country that were previously heavily reliant on manufacturing industry, it came as a welcome relief to learn recently of Yorkshire Forward's new manufacturing strategy for the region.

Like all good strategies, it starts with a vision, which is to grow the manufacturing sector until it reaches 20% of the regional economy  in 20 years' time from its current level, which is nearer 12%.

It will achieve this by selecting and supporting strategically important manufacturing sectors to target (not to the detriment of other sectors, it insists, but presumably using something like the 80/20 rule).  These are:

• Advanced Engineering and Materials;
• Digital;
• Low Carbon and
• Healthcare Technologies.

Someone's clearly been doing their STEP analysis (see our Top Tips for Growing your Business), since these sectors are very much in line with where the added value work is in Manufacturing at the moment.  In other words, gone are the days where we should be competing on price, because the 'low cost geography sourcing' as I've heard it called (in other words, shipping stuff out overseas to be made cheaply) will always follow the lowest cost of production (i.e. low wage economies).

So here's a call to manufacturers in Yorkshire to tap into this regional strategy.  Use it as an opportunity to think about what your sustainable competitive advantage really is and get focussed to grow your business in the knowledge that the time is right and the support is in place.

What are your views on where manufacturing should be heading?  Leave a comment below, or if you've a specific business problem you'd like us to address, ask a question.

At Business Doctors we really try and strip out the corporate claptrap, but some of what might be considered management mumbo jumbo it resolutely remains resistant to being purged as we can find no better way to describe it. So for those of you who consider the word ‘strategy’ just another group of letters that belongs on the bull**** bingo card, let’s consider for a second why this might be.

It’s true that people I’ve worked with in the past, including directors in well known firms, have sometimes considered ‘having a strategy’ to being a substitute for needing to do any actual work whatsoever – the thinking apparently goes that if you can show your boss a strategy paper then he’ll get off your back.  Well this works, right?

Wrong! OK, so strategy may be a word that’s over-used by consultants and the like, but I reckon it’s also much under-used by business people like you and me. 

Think of it this way, all that a strategy is, is simply a scheme to guide your actions towards a set goal in a reasoned and clear way.  Check this out on Wikipedia.  Now you can go about your business without having a strategy, but you’re much more at the mercy of events if you do.  You can have as many strategies as you see fit (a marketing strategy, an IT strategy, a quality management strategy) but as we've seen, you need to be aware of over-strategising and keep them at the level that's right for your business.  However, in all cases, your strategies need to fit into your overall business strategy.

You could also liken having a strategy to playing a board game with the family at Christmas.  Now, fuelled by too much wine and mince pies, who doesn’t want to thump the cocky brother-in-law at Monopoly?   Well, you’ll only do so by having a winning strategy and who would argue that having a strategy for playing a board game is a daft idea?

So, get in touch to let me know what you think – this could be an interesting debate.  Alternatively, Business Doctors tour the UK to tell SMEs about strategy, so if you’re open to ideas, come to one of our seminars or download our top ten tips to learn how getting a business strategy will help your firm.

One of the key challenges of running a modern business is taking the time out to work on your business and not exclusively in your business.

With costs being cut to the bone very often this has meant key stakeholders being more involved in the day to day running of the business.

My advice is to set some time aside from working in your business to time working on your business.

You will begin to see things differently, almost as if it were through a different pair of eyes.

The outcome and the subsequent results will astonish you!