If you work at a dry cleaner, you are unlikely to have a customer bring in a dirty tuxedo shirt stained with hot wing sauce. How often do you eat chicken wings when you are wearing a tuxedo? Wing sauce on a tuxedo shirt is about as common as venture capital in volatile economic times. Traditionally, an entrepreneur will write a business plan that outlines the journey to build a business and tie it to resources, i.e. money, people, and equipment. If an investor likes the business plan and is satisfied with the risk, an investment might be made and the new company is launched. The entrepreneur attracts venture investment with a sound, focused business plan. The venture investor typically demands laser focus on the goal of the plan. How likely is it to have a business plan that remains focused on the same goals over the life of the business? About as likely as wing sauce on your tuxedo. 

Volatility and uncertainty make it impossible to accurately describe the “journey” and to match it with appropriate resources. In the early days of Evident Technologies, we started as a telecom company. With laser-focused business plan and resources, we launched and pointed our ship towards the optical switching Promised Land as described in our business plan. Soon after we started the journey, the entire telecom market was wiped out. We watched as many of our contemporaries were unable to change direction due to internal momentum and because of the demands of their investors. Once an investor pays for a journey, they expect a certain outcome and rightfully have a difficult time changing course. To continue down the same path as specified in your original business plan is crazy if you notice that the customers have disappeared.

During non-volatile times, outcomes are easier to predict. During volatile times, you need to expect deviations and course corrections driven by external forces as another component to the business strategy. Business strategy should have resources matched to an execution plan that considers external conditions like customer trends, economic environment, etc… all things that are outside of anybody's control. Including external forces in the strategy most likely results in changes to the tasks and priorities in the execution plan and may require an adjustment to the resources. The business can remain laser focused. The focus has changed to a target that is more appropriate given conditions beyond the company’s control.

Makes you wonder about the guy at the dry cleaner. You pay him the get the stain out of your shirt and you don’t care what journey he has taken to get there.