It takes Revolutionary Thinking to Transform your Business?
by Eric Tjoeng, CAD Partners
One of the most common challenges for business owners is that they struggle with doing everything in their business, including getting products/services ready, selling, collecting bills, paying bills, and day-to-day management. Business owners seldom allocate time to work on the business. A little time invested in this direction will pay big dividends down the track.
Business Transformation / Improvement through Revolutionary Thinking
Near the end of the financial year business owners need to consider whether they are
still selling the right products/services (in demand) from the right place (where the
demand is) and at the right price (profitable)? Revolutionary thinking – is about quality of
our thought exploring possibilities. In a way it is a paradigm shift from “if only” to “what if.”
From “if only” I had time to work on the business and to think whether my business is the business of today and tomorrow rather than yesterday…To “What if” I decide that I will work on the business and do a strategic review? Explore opportunities, understand your strengths and be mindful of risks and weaknesses. Get your business model right!
• Know your market positioning
• Know your customers
• Understand why people should come to you or buy from you
• Know how to be competitive and remain competitive
• Ascertain the growth strategy
By exploring opportunities and being creative in your business solutions, business owners are able to transform/improve their business exponentially. A mere 3 to 5% growth is only at par with inflation and it is nothing to crow about.
Show me the Money
A Clear growth strategy is only useful once you can quantify the strategy into a budget showing the immediate 12-month likely results in term of revenues, margins, overheads and, very importantly, profits as well as 3 years projection of the same.
As a business owner it is only worthwhile to pursue the established growth strategy if it will earn you profits with manageable cash flow and an increase in business value. Budget is critical as a tool to manage your business, comparing actual versus budget and understanding why they differ, and, most importantly, to formulate corrective actions that improve the business.
Strategic Management System
One of the key ingredients to business transformation/improvement is to invest in systems to free yourself and make life easier for staff as well as yourself to manage and run a business. Getting the knowledge out of your head and into a secure and easily accessible webbased
tool in a format that management and staff can understand and follow is a great step forward.
You need to identify what the most critical actions in your business are, who is responsible for them and how they should be done. By sharing this information with others you can do less of them yourself and still produce the desired results with consistency. Obviously management and staff need to be trained and monitored in these actions, and a little time invested in this direction will pay big dividends down the track.
Business Growth Ready
If you have any thoughts about expanding your business or increasing the number of outlets, whether corporately owned or through franchising, then it is critical that you have systems in place to replicate proven successful actions to run the business just like McDonalds.
Increase the value of your Business
Another benefit of having systems in place is added value to your business. If you wish to one day sell your business and retire, having systems is much more attractive to a buyer than a business that runs from inside the owners’ head.
How?
Business transformation/improvement does not need to be overly difficult if you gain the assistance of an experienced expert.
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