Strategies to Improve Your Small Business
Success by Organised Business Management and Strategy Implemention
Dec 1, 2008
One way to start, improve or transform any small business into a well organised, high performing and profitable business is to clearly define the vision and business strategies, to organise the business with high performance systems and to manage for results. Conceptually, this approach can be expressed as a six step process that is repeated on a regular cycle or as needed due to a significantly changed business situation. This same process is used if starting a business, with a new business or if the business is already established.
Six Step Process to Improve a Small Business
- Use SWOT [Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats] analysis to define the key strengths and weaknesses of your business and then to extend that by considering the market opportunities and threats
- SWOT analysis becomes the input to define the vision, competitive edge and strategy
- Balanced Scorecard [1] is used to create the strategic focus and operational control for the business by structuring the strategy into a comprehensive set of objectives, targets and measures. This will encompass: financial, customer, internal, learning and development
- Business plans are created and systems [2] are designed to perform all key business operations, to capture appropriate metrics and to meet the strategic objectives
- Roles and sourcing strategy are defined to operate the business systems
- Business plan is implemented and business is operated and managed using those business systems and as needed those systems are optimised or adapted to changing strategies
This six step process is continually being used to ensure that the business has the right strategies and maintains that strategic focus and control through implementation and execution.
Better Decision Making
Any strategic or major decisions that the business needs to take should be considered in relation to the balanced scorecard and only taken with the knowledge or expectation that it will positively contribute to the business. Major business decisions that are needed but that do not contribute to the business objectives need to be evaluated as to their real significance and importance. In some cases that decision needed is:
- Both important and significant and identifies a balanced scorecard gap that needs to be addressed
- Significant to the business but is not related to the important strategic objectives – it is treated with an appropriate lower level of priority
- It is neither significant nor important and may lead to the conclusion that the business activity requiring a decision is unnecessary and so may be optimised by elimination
Organised Business Management and Strategy Implementation
Using this six step process for strategy implementation and business management will lead to a well organised and high performing business and if good strategies are selected then also to a profitable business but as always there are many caveats and things that can and will go wrong. Those things have already led to many business failures and so strategies and systems should be designed with that in mind - avoiding common business problems. The next article will cover common business problems including starting for the right reasons.
References:
[1] Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action – Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton
ISBN 0-87584-651-3
[2] E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company - Michael E Gerber
ISBN 978-0-06-072323-1
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