A business without a vision is a business without direction. Far too many design consultancies are reactive in their development and, even if they are growing and profitable, they have arrived where they are by accident.

Opportunities are pursued without sufficient challenges about their usefulness; projects appear from design-buyers and are accepted, whether or not they are a good fit; senior people with specific skills and experience join or leave and change the company’s capabilities.

Like boats without a destination and without navigation charts, businesses like this are drifting, subject to sudden arrivals in ports they never wanted to visit in the first place.

Now, I’m all for pursuing unexpected opportunities, and it can be wonderfully exciting to set sail on new high seas. But I am also a believer in Louis Pasteur’s observation that ’chance favours the prepared mind’. Where does preparation come from?