Visualisation, Adaption and Staying Ahead of The Curve: Protecting Your Business with Guy Wieynk
Guy Wieynk brings over 25 years of C-suite experience to The 24 Hour Business Plan, having established eight global studios at AKQA and served as European CEO of Publicis Worldwide and global CEO of AnalogFolk. He has architected major business transformations including agency-to-platform pivots, and currently serves as board advisor and investor across multiple ventures including Untold Fable and Otomo, alongside co-founding the UK operation of The 24 Hour Business Plan.
Guy sat down with LBB to discuss the crucial importance of having a business plan in the face of AI, major consolidation, global economic uncertainty and more.
In one sentence, what’s the issue on your mind right now?
The idea that, when we know that having a business plan increases your chances of growth by 48%, only 20% of businesses have one – yet continue to try and grow in a world of change and disruption.
Almost every business has a plan. A plan devised with consultants and ‘experts’ that has evolved over many months and years, has been outlined in a document that is now 200 pages long and that no one who works for the business has ever properly read.
The result? No one actually knows what the plan is.
As many as 47% of businesses have only a basic outline business plan – compared to 71% of fast growing companies who DO have a plan.
Research from Adobe shows that more than 60% of executives say their firms don’t have the ability to visualise where they’re going clearly enough to make it part of everyday decision making. And while they have a lot of smart people on board, they’re just not utilising them properly.
Why does it matter to you?
Because the industry is under massive threat. I’ve clocked up a few decades in advertising agencies and have seen a lot of change, but none more so than now. I have the benefit of some experience and I think being able to offer some insight and advice based on what has gone before, in the context of what we’re facing now, might be helpful.
If you don’t think it matters, you need to think again. We’re facing the biggest challenges our industry has ever seen and one that we have no handle on. With the rise of the internet, with digitisation, with changing consumer behaviours, we’ve always been able to adapt, predict and stay ahead of the curve, but now it’s bigger than us.
On a macro level it’s about survival – in the face of AI, major consolidation, global economic uncertainty and more.
Why does it remain an issue?
Because the change is happening and we can’t bury our heads in the sand. Day to day it’s about efficiency and adapting and, dare I say, maybe approaching things a bit differently to how you’ve always done it.
The businesses winning right now aren't the ones reacting fastest to change. They're the ones that decided, clearly and deliberately, what they were going to be. And then built everything around that picture.
That's why every single business needs a clear, snappy, to the point plan. A plan doesn't predict the future but it means you already know what you're going to do when the future surprises you. And the more concise and clear the plan, the far easier it is to get everyone on board and moving in the right direction.
One of the most important first steps is visualisation. All those execs who struggle to bridge the gap between strategy and execution are, I would say, over-planning. Manifesting may be very zeitgeisty, but it’s just a snappy term for visualisation.
Over-planning consumes leadership time, drowning in detail and disconnecting strategy from day to day operations. And all too often it’s devised by consultants who’ve never run a business, let alone one in today’s climate of AI-driven margin squeezing.
Visualising a small number of clear ideas or goals that can be executed irrespective of external challenges is the first step towards business success.
Having a shared picture, shared goals that are simple, practical, actionable, easy to communicate and are built to align and focus your whole team around is far more effective than a strategy in a 100 slide deck that sits in a file on a computer while disruption keeps coming from every direction.
The AI-enabled creative automation platform Otomo – which AnalogFolk acquired in 2023 under my leadership – is certainly leading the charge. We didn’t set out to make a grand strategic pivot, we were looking for a practical solution – namely an automation capability inside an agency, built to solve a production problem.
The value actually lies in a production company operating at scale. The technology didn’t just enable a new model, it revealed one.
Otomo became a standalone SaaS platform, now serving 45 brands globally, not because that was the original intention, but because the logic of the technology pointed there.
American author Zig Ziglar said, “If you want to reach a goal, you must see the reaching in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.”
Forget the complex business plan. Visualisation that is simple enough to survive Monday morning and specific enough that everyone in the business knows what they're doing and why it is not just a nice to have. It’s the only thing that actually works.
This article fist appeared in Little Black Book (LBB).
