Business Improvement 101

Business Improvement 101

Are you tired of putting ever increasing amounts of time and effort into your business for little or no additional improvement?

Small Owner Operators through to experienced and seasoned mangers of large businesses or business units all put in additional hours when times are hard.  And let’s face it times are currently hard in New Zealand for a variety of reasons.  What’s more as a business owner or senior manager, no-one’s going to pay you for the extra energy and effort you put into turning your business around.  Reward comes from having saved the business from possible failure.  Anything above that such as making an incremental step change may lead to a possible bonus.

So, the trick is to rapidly make improvements to the business. Easily said, but how, exactly, do you do this?

Business Improvement 101 – complete a full Business Review to identify ALL the issues and then fix them in order of priority determined by taking the following factors into account:

• Value – which fixes will offer the most value to the business.
• Time – the amount of time required to fix each issue. Not all fixes are immediate.
• Resources – the resources required to fix the issue.

Low hanging, easy to fix issues with a high value should be the first to be fixed as they will provide the most rapid return to the business.

Is it easy to complete a Business Review?  No, that’s why there are professionals like me around who can rapidly:

• Analyse the financials to identify the main issues both in the gross margin and overheads.
• Review a business’s operating processes and identify improvements.
• Complete a customer analysis to see if your target market has changed.
• Review the business’s supply chain for improvement.
• And during this process communicate with staff from all levels within the business.

Is it expensive to engage a Business Advisor like me?

Expense is relative to Profit Improvement but the good news is that there is government co-funding for small to medium sized businesses via the Regional Business Partner Network which can provide up to 50% co-funding for registered businesses, registration for which is free via this link https://www.regionalbusinesspartners.co.nz/nz-business-support/

If you are interested in completing a business review, please contact me at john@intotheblue.co.nz or (021) 625-871. 

Additionally, If you think you are doing too many hours in your business or are generally not happy with the way your business is performing, why not take my quick 2 minute health check by clicking on my health check link https://intotheblue.co.nz/business-health-check/