Strategic planning, execution and video inclusion, Geelong

September 12, 2019
Strategic planning and execution can be tricky, and the practice of assessing data and long term planning complex. The development of a suitable plan, and then the execution of that plan requires big-picture perspective and discipline. From a small business point of view this type of strategic planning and execution is often left to the realms of big business, and government departments. The thinking being that smaller businesses have less resources and time available to develop in-depth strategic planning, let alone execution. 

 

Based in Geelong and established in 1993, The Tribe is itself a small business, however, our many years in operation have developed the business maturity to understand the importance of strategy, patience, planning and execution, and this understanding has found its way into the advice we offer many clients. As our business has travelled through the years, our relationships with clients have also matured. Many of the projects we now embark upon see The Tribe working as part of a strategic team over a long period of time to achieve long term goals, and we are very happy to report in this blog that we have a number of very successful cases as examples of our ability to achieve successful strategic outcomes. 

 

One example is the work we do with Agriculture Victoria on a regular video update package called The Very Fast Break. The Very Fast Break delivers reasonably complex scientific weather observations for use by farmers and agriculture professionals in their long term planning. The science communicated looks at most of the territory bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean on each side of Australia and how the observations may impact on various parts of our country. A key part of the success that we have seen with this project is finishing the video, which can be quite heavy in its information, with an upbeat visual gag. The gag serves to lighten the mood whilst communicating the science in an easy to remember way. The Very Fast Break forms part of a wider package delivered on a regular basis to farmers and agriculture professionals by Agriculture Victoria called The Break. 
 
The Break consists of three forms of information delivery;
A long-form written report – The Break.
A short-form written report – The Fast Break.
And the before mentioned video form of the report – The Very Fast Break. 
 
In early 2019, Agriculture Victoria commissioned an external report on the progress of The Break, with a particular focus on The Very Fast Break as The Very Fast Break celebrated 5 years in production and the time was ripe to assess the success or otherwise of the project. We’re happy to say that the data collected and presented in a survey report was overwhelmingly positive. As we see via many other video statistics available on the internet, and via other avenues, the statistics for video use, engagement and information recall were very impressive. The willingness of users to accept the information and engage in communications as a result of The Break was impressive. 

 

 
Another example of a strategic interaction that The Tribe has been involved with for a significant period of time is via a manufacturer in Geelong who engaged The Tribe in 2017.
The project was to document some significant plant and equipment changes on an ongoing basis until completion. The physical changes represented a major change in direction for their business. 
This particular manufacturer, who at this stage will remain unnamed, was a significant employer in the region. They have a long-standing history in one form or another in Geelong dating back almost a century. However, with the downturn of manufacturing in Australia, as with many other businesses in the manufacturing sector, this client found themselves faced with some significant challenges that essentially boiled down to closing up shop or reinventing themselves. Their decision was to reinvent themselves, which was a very significant investment in the future of Geelong and the business. 
 
In 2017 the client approached The Tribe with a request for us to document the changes that they expected to take somewhere between 12-18 months. As can be the case with significant projects such as this, the works required overran their timelines and took closer to 24 months to complete. The Tribe, therefore, also had to reload and work with our client to deliver the video documentation of the project. As we reached the end of the project, the results showed overwhelmingly how significant the project was, the viewing of the material we created not only displayed the historical aspect of the journey but also proved to be an emotional trigger for many of those involved. 

 

 
Yet another example of a strategic long term project involves a mid to large sized brokerage business. This particular business has been aware of the need of a digital strategy and execution for some time, and first engaged The Tribe in 2018 to simply create some video for them. As the relationship with this client grew, discussions were often had regarding the strategic aspect of the content before The Tribe’s services were extended so that we could provide assistance to the client to execute the strategy over the long term. The client has come to realise that while they were aware of the importance of a strategy, that executing the strategy was tricky and that the assistance provided by The Tribe could help maintain a discipline to execute the strategy over a long period of time and include video on a regular basis, enabling them to reach their goals. 

 

I have included these three examples in this blog as a case in point to show The Tribe is more than just a video production company. Whilst we are very happy to simply be a video production company, we are also very happy to work with businesses to achieve strategic outcomes. The Tribe’s desire is to ensure that our clients receive the best return on their video investment that they can, and normally, that means building video into a strategy and ensuring that the strategy is executed over a period of time. 

 

Strategic planning and execution usually results in success. It is certainly true that having no strategy and no planning and no execution is a sure way to fail.
And while in depth strategic planning does seem to be reserved for the large and well resourced clients, it is not exclusively theirs. Smaller, less well resourced businesses simply need to create less complex strategies and plans. At The Tribe we have worked with both ends of that spectrum and happily boast being parts of teams large and small, all of whom have succeeded. If you are embarking on or in the process of executing some strategic processes and you are contemplating including video, The Tribe is a sensible port of call for a conversation. We’d be very keen to discuss your strategy, your aims and your goals and hope that we would be able to help you achieve them. If you’d like to talk to us about inclusion of video within a digital strategy or looking into the digital consultation services as provided by The Tribe, we’d be very happy to hear from you.