Businesslab

Simon Harvey is a Waiheke resident with a passion for helping others achieve business success through good planning. He is also passionate about creating a better future and works with businesses to help them plan for and capture the opportunities of greater sustainability. Simon is a director of BusinessLAB, a professional consultancy business that assists businesses and non-commercial organisations to achieve their goals and work towards real sustainability, financially and ecologically. Simon is an advisor with The Natural Step ([1]) and a director of the Environmental Defence Society ([2])

BusinessLAB - What we do

BusinessLAB provides a specialist strategic planning service that enables organisations to gain clarity, direction and momentum towards a chosen destination. Our approach is specifically designed to engage people in the future of their organisation, to ensure they understand and share its goals so they can work better as a team to achieve them.

We provide our clients with an easy-to-follow plan that is a valuable operational tool and a road-map to a future destination. Our ongoing support ensures that implementation of the plan stays on track and enjoys continued momentum.

Our approach

To plan for and create the future, an organisation needs a clear picture of what it is aiming to achieve and what its future will look like. We engage with key people in the organisation and gather the necessary background information where needed to ensure that these decisions are well informed by careful foresight. Recognising that an organisation is driven by and made up of people, BusinessLAB’s approach is grounded on making sure that the right team is engaged in the planning process from the outset. By adopting this approach, our clients ensure that:

• key staff members understand and share the vision that they are working towards
• the use of internal expertise to identify forward-looking solutions is maximised
• an inclusive process generates motivation and wide support for implementing its outcomes
• a team-work ethic is fostered that increases productivity and builds organisational resilience

Our services

The Laboratory®: BusinessLAB has developed a unique, simplified strategic planning product called the Laboratory that breaks planning into bite sized chunks and is ideal for smaller businesses looking to achieve defined milestone goals. The Laboratory sets the core elements of traditional strategic planning in an inspiring and easy to follow process that is combined with practical project management tools. This means things are properly planned and then they get done. The three month package involves a half day workshop where the client is facilitated through a carefully designed, simplified, planning process. The process focuses on establishing the business owner’s longer-term goals and making decisions required to develop a “road-map” to the future. The Laboratory Annual Pack delivers four Laboratories within a 12-month period, one Laboratory each quarter, providing a year round mentoring service.

Tailored planning: For organisations that are looking to refresh their strategic direction over the longer-term, we adopt a tailored 3 stage approach:

• Information – gather background information and engage with key people
• Involvement – interactive workshops develop strategic thinking and determine agreed direction
• Implementation – a clear and easy-to-follow plan bolstered by regular ongoing support

The tailored approach is designed to meet the precise circumstances of the client’s organisation and to ensure that future thinking is not constrained by today’s reality but shaped by what tomorrow will bring. We facilitate the process to involve the organisation’s people throughout. Often it is those at the “coal-face” who can make the best suggestions for change. Not only this, but their motivation and understanding is critical to the successful implementation of new strategic thinking and building a culture that supports organisational direction.

Sustainability planning: Increasing concerns about the social and ecological impacts of business are resulting in an increasing number of consumers and other stakeholders to demand a change in the way that organisations behave. We have been tracking a trend showing that more and more consumers are now choosing to differentiate on the basis of corporate social responsibility. BusinessLAB consultant Simon Harvey is accredited as an advisor with The Natural Step enabling him to use the unique TNS framework which has helped organisations all over the world to understand and work towards real sustainability in a way that increases profitability and competitive advantage. The framework is based on a scientifically agreed definition of what is, and what is not, sustainable and uses simple exercises and models to assist organisations embed sustainability into every aspect of their operation.

Our team

BusinessLAB was founded by Colin Bass in 1999. Simon Harvey joined as a director in 2004 and has been working as a full-time consultant with the firm since 2006. Colin and Simon have a diverse range of entrepreneurial and corporate experiences in New Zealand and overseas and both have a high-level of practical, commercial understanding. They enjoy and excel in the art of facilitation. Their mission is to help people work together successfully to create an organisation’s future.

Contact us

If you would like any further information about how we can help your organisation, please contact our office on 09 308 6225 or Simon on 09 372 7133 / 021 808 300 (simon@businesslab.co.nz). [3]