Workshop leads to business clarity

Wendy Allan and Tony Brooks from Pindarie

Following the success of a recent Strategic Planning Workshop for the wine industry, another workshop is being held especially for small and family wine business owners on 12 December.

Delivered by the South Australian Wine Industry Association (SAWIA) and run by facilitator Troy Forrest, the full day workshop, to be held at the Lion Hotel in North Adelaide on 12 December, will guide business owners in identifying their unique strengths and opportunities.

Wendy Allan from Pindarie, who participated in the last Strategic Planning Workshop, said that the workshop helped clarify their business goals.

“We’re a boutique size family-owned business with Pindarie wines, our vineyard, our cellar door, our cafe and our sheep property. We needed to decide which direction we’re going within each sales sector such as export sales. domestic sales and agritourism,” Allan said.

“And we’re about to expand in what is the worst time in the industry’s history! We’ve just employed a Business Development Manager and we’ll be focused on achieving new goals with our wine sales, particularly in Asia.”

Allan said the workshop underlined the importance of goal setting, starting with a SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, to effectively ‘set the goalposts’ for a strategic plan.

“Troy also spoke about strategic plans being a work in progress – you don’t create a plan and then put it away, you constantly work at it, assessing your progress against your goals and targets,” Allan said.

“It’s a difficult time in the wine industry, but that doesn’t mean we should stop setting goals and working towards achieving them.”

Troy Forrest, the founder and managing director of Strategy Road, a consulting group that helps organisations design, implement and calibrate purpose-aligned strategies, will facilitate the workshop.

Troy said strategic planning is a regular, disciplined process applied by the most successful and resilient businesses, big and small.

“It’s simply the process of pausing every so often, lifting your eyes above day-to-day matters, thinking about what you’re trying to achieve long term, considering the potential obstacles and avenues to your goals, and then making priority selections that feel like they fit you, and that are underpinned by sound research,” Forrest said.

“On the day of the workshop, I’ll walk you through a simple but proven process to help you look at your business, your market, your goals and the most likely paths to your picture of success. You’ll leave the workshop with the bones of a strategic plan and the knowledge of how to develop, apply, govern and calibrate it over time.”

The workshop is an event of the Wine Industry Small Business Growth and Resilience Program, which is part of the South Australian Government’s Small Business Fundamentals Program, an initiative of the Government of South Australia’s Office for Small and Family Business and the South Australian Small Business Strategy 2023 – 2030.