In the book The Balanced Scorecard, by David Norton and Robert Kaplan, it is noted that 90% of organizations fail to execute their pre-set strategy.

This is a concerning statistic when you consider that, for a majority of companies considered successful, an emphasis is placed on having formal and pre-established systems to inform, manage, and meet their strategic obligations.

In this sense, can we not infer executing business strategy = business success?

To bridge this gap between strategic ambition and business performance, Process Street has created a Strategic Planning Template, which you can use – for free – right away!

By executing the steps given in this template you will not only develop good strategy, but the delivery of this strategy will also prove successful.

Click here to access our free Strategic Planning Template!

But to accommodate this template, you need to have a solid understanding of strategic planning itself.

In this article, I’ll discuss what strategic planning is, the different strategic planning models – with an emphasis on the Cascade Strategic Planning Model -, why strategic planning is important, and more.

Click on the links below to read through:

• What is strategic planning?
• Strategic management vs strategic planning: What is the difference between these 2 terms?
• Why strategic planning is important
• What are strategic planning models?
• Use Process Street’s strategy planning template to document your strategic plan
• Strategic plan outline: Framework, structure, and governance
• Other strategic planning models and how you can implement them via Process Street

Let’s jump straight to it!
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Did you know that job description templates can make your employee hunting 10x more efficient?

With the estimated cost of $4,129 for a new hire, it’s clear that that empty chair is an expensive one to fill. To make this cost more like an investment for your company than an expense, you want to get your hiring process right. You want to hire the ideal candidate, but where do you start?

At Process Street, we say you start your recruitment process by writing a solid job description. This is no easy task: you have around 14 seconds to convince applicants that your job is the perfect job for them.

Get your job description right and you can draw in the most qualified, skilled and well-fitting applicants. But how do you get your job description right?

We’ve covering what you need to know to start crafting the right job description for your needed role in this Process Street article. We’ve also provided you with 14 of the best job description templates for your company.

• What is a job description template and why do you need it?
• The 14 free job description templates your company needs
• Effortlessly create a killer description with Process Street​​

Let’s dive in!
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SOC 2 has a reputation for being difficult and complex. You could argue that this is by design, since you need help from a small group of top-notch, pricey experts to be compliant. 

A kinder view is that it’s just how info security operates (there’s no one-size-fits-all fix). 

To set up the right protections, a company has to either create them according to the risks they face, or narrow down a huge list of possible controls, again, considering the risks. 

In a nutshell, SOC 2 goes with the first option: it sets broad criteria and lets each organization come up with controls to meet those criteria, based on their unique risks. Sounds reasonable, but it’s not exactly a walk in the park for those who aren’t experts.

That’s where both workflow automation and compliance automation software can come in handy.  

In this post I’ll introduce you to Drata and Process Street, two essential tools that, when used together, provide a complete solution to help you speed up and simplify your yearly SOC 2 compliance.

I recently hit the limit on my 100GB Dropbox account and after a bit of research decided to make the move from Dropbox to Google Drive. In this post, I’ll explain why I did it and some cool unexpected benefits that came from the move and give you a rundown of Dropbox vs Google Drive.

Dropbox and Google Drive are file storage services that sync files between a folder on your device(s) and the cloud. Making it easy to backup and access your files from anywhere.

Up until a few weeks ago I was paying for premium plans for both Google Drive and Dropbox.

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What is Genchi Genbutsu? It’s part of the Toyota Production System conceptual toolkit. And it works.

It’s one thing to identify errors or weaknesses in your business, but it’s another to actually fix and improve them.

The crucial step in fixing an error is deciding the right solution to implement. Pick the wrong one and you create a different problem.

When you’re in a massive company, you want to make sure you’re picking the right solution before you start implementing across a whole corporate structure.

Because of this, investigating the problem as thoroughly as possible should be paramount. And this leads us to Genchi Genbutsu.

In this Process Street article, we’re going to look at:

• What is Genchi Genbutsu?
• How Toyota revitalized their minivan thanks to a road trip
• 3 academic approaches to guide your investigation

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This article started with a cold cup of tea.

I was in the middle of a power cut, and the teabag floated despondently in a sad, mottled brew. In the confusion, I’d allowed the beverage to cool for far too long. All of that precious energy transferred to raise the temperature of the kettle to boiling point, gone to waste, and there was nothing I could do about it.

This is an example of poor energy management on my part.

As I sulked over the absence of my morning brew, it did get me thinking, would society ever face these kinds of energy management problems, like I easily had?

“Welcome to the energy crisis” – Lawrence J. Becker, Welcome to the Energy Crisis

Some of you may have already experienced, say, aggravating waits in lines for gasoline, or your pocketbooks taking a punch from inflation. But, energy problems – like a cold cup of tea – are not only personal, they permeate into society and our economy.

80% of U.S. energy comes from fossil fuels. According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, we have 115 years of coal and roughly 50 years of oil and natural gas remaining. To compound this, we also need to leave ~80% of current fossil fuel reserves untouched if we stand a chance of meeting IPCC 1.5°C (34.7°F) warming targets.

Energy management is the process of tracking and optimizing energy consumption for your business. It’s a continuous process, easily implemented by following the correct procedure.

In this Process Street article, you’ll learn about best practices for energy management, how you can successfully manage energy in your business (and beyond), as well as how to adopt best energy management practices using a handy free checklist to help you save time and money.

Don’t cry over cold tea. Learn how to manage energy properly, for a healthier business and a healthier planet. Click on the relevant subheader below, or continue reading as you please:

• What is energy management?
• Energy management: Improve energy efficiency
• Energy management: Conserve energy
• Energy management: Renewable energy
• Quarterly Energy Management Plan Template

Let’s not waste any more time, and get right into the basics of energy management.
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How do you reactivate ghost customers?

Well, let me explain.

During the second world war, a young soldier from Lille attended a dance for servicemen about to be deployed. One woman caught his eye, and eventually, he worked up the nerve to ask her to dance.

Thinking that he would ask again – as most of the other young men would – she politely declined. The young soldier was shy, though, and took her refusal at face value. Not knowing her name or if he would even return, the young soldier went off to war.

Nearly a century later, their granddaughter – my very closest friend for all of three days – told me the story as we drove through the French countryside between Lille and Arras.

We love stories like that – the romance of chance encounters, unintended separations, and reunions that could only be an act of fate. Maybe it’s having an answer to the so-often unanswered question What might have been? that’s the thing that really resonates. Personally, I’m just really nosy and I like stories.

While most of us have some variation of “a friend of a friend’s second cousin’s grandmother was reunited with her first love by total accident,” the truth is, we rarely experience these reconnections without some sort of deliberate effort by one or both parties.

But we lose touch with people all the time. High school best friend. University mentor. Pick-up game buddy. Customer whose payment didn’t go through and involuntarily canceled their subscription to your service because they didn’t realize it.

Happens all the frickin time. But there is no missed connections column for lost customers. If you want them back, you’re going to have to be proactive. Fortunately, not only am I good with stories, but I’m pretty good at solving problems, too. (Or, at least, nagging our CS and Ops Team Manager, Blake Bailey, until he spills all his secrets.)

Either way, in this Process Street post, I’ll share the 5 things you need to know to put some life back into those ghost customers haunting your MRR.

• The journey to passive customer churn
• 5 tips to bring customers back from the dead
• Ghost customer resurrection a plan

Let’s reconnect!
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Are you in need of some workflow examples to make your teams smarter?

But what makes a team smart?

Several things do, but powerful workflows are one critical ingredient which makes teams smart.

Teams that use workflows don’t set goals and simply hope to reach them; they create checklists (workflows) to make sure they reach their goals.

No wonder 50% of businesses that use workflow management systems say the results are substantial.

It’s incredible.

Teams that use workflows are super organized and able to perform daunting tasks — no matter the long processes involved.

But what types of workflows should you be using this year?

It’s different for every organization; workflow systems are not always one-size-fits-all. But these nine Process Street workflow examples should give you inspiration for how you can build important systems to run your business with.

Our workflow examples:

1. Employee onboarding workflow
2. Customer support workflows
3. Customer onboarding workflows
4. Content marketing or writing workflows
5. Podcast publishing workflows
6. Request and approval workflows
7. Travel workflows
8. Content promotion workflow
9. Standup meeting workflows

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Welcome emails are the one email you should be sending.

Why?

Because they have a 91.43% open rate, can create an 86% lift in unique open rate, and have on average 5x the click-through rate of a standard email marketing campaign. I’ve uncovered heaps more stats that I’ll share with you later in the post.

For this article I took the time to subscribe to 40 top tech blogs and applied quantitative research to categorize and break down their welcome emails. Hopefully, this article will offer some kind of insight into how to write kick-ass welcome emails.

If you’re asking yourself whether your welcome emails should include power words, links, emojis, rich formatting, or plain text, or what’s the best way to sign off a welcome email – then this post is for you. Specifically, I’ll cover:

• What are welcome emails & why are they important?
• How welcome emails have changed over time
• Welcome emails broken down
• A quantitative approach to welcome emails: The results
• Welcome email teardowns
• Email marketing & Process Street

Let’s get to it.
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Virtual reality recruitment is a growing trend in the recruiting world, thanks to the many benefits it offers. This is especially relevant for employer branding because virtual reality offers an immersive experience that allows candidates to engage with your brand directly. 

Imagine candidates many miles away from you being able to put on a headset, and get an office tour! VR has many promising advantages for remote and hybrid hiring. 

Stick here to learn more about how you can use VR in recruitment and whether VR is really the future of recruiting.

We’ll be covering:

• What does virtual reality in recruitment look like?
• 8 ways VR can be used in recruitment 
• Benefits of using VR in recruitment
• Is VR the future of recruiting?