Take A Fresh Look At Your Business – Part 1

Posted on 19/11/2012 by Sinclair Wilson in General News

Successful business operators continually review their business operations and, most of them, undertake a detailed review of their businesses, at least, once every three to four years. One way to have a fresh look at your business is to compare how you’re operating with how a start-up company operates.

Successful start-up companies generally challenge pre-conceived ideas as to how businesses should operate. They search for market opportunities which have been overlooked by the established operators. They obviously don’t do things the same way that they were done previously. They don’t make comments like – “this is how we’ve always done it around here”.

Because they’re new to business they cannot blame competitors, neighbours, the economy, staff or suppliers. One of the benefits of having a fresh look at your business every three to four years is that it requires you to carefully analyse what has happened in the market place. For example, have you identified the threat that the internet might make to your business and have you already taken steps to effectively compete with online selling? What other similar problems are emerging because of the significant changes in communication and technology?

In what phase of the business cycle is your business e.g.:

  • start-up?
  • rapid growth?
  • maturity?
  • or is about to enter rapid decline?

Can a rapid decline be overcome by a reinvention of how your business operates? How does your business address the problems to which the market place requires answers?

So what does a successful start-up do? (Obviously not all start-ups are successful. We’re trying to look at the ones that are successful). They look for opportunities. They analyse the market to see what services are required which are not being supplied by the established operators. This requires an identification of:

  • what are the market needs?
  • are they being serviced?

They then analyse what they, as a start-up, could do to deliver a great service for which customers will be willing to pay premium rates rather than determining the lowest price the customer would pay. In other words…  a successful start-up is closely evaluating the market and identifying market opportunities. Are you doing that regularly in your business?

Successful start-up operators are identifying commercial opportunities, preparing feasibility studies and business plans to enable them to successfully market their product/service or process to meet the market-identified requirements. This requires a fair amount of homework on the market opportunities. This will involve an analysis of competitors to ascertain who is successfully servicing the market and who is not and which areas are being fully serviced. They then focus on the delivery of good service, at high quality, at premium prices in an expectation that profits will follow.

Next month… what can be learnt from “failure of start ups”?

If you’d like our assistance in helping you to undertake a “fresh look at your business”, please do not hesitate to contact us.