Some businesses move from year to year making small adjustments but never stretch themselves for the big achievements. Other more ambitious businesses, and their leaders, try to find a way to achieve leaps forward that at first sight look too hard or possibly foolhardy. Some succeed and others fail. Without setting ambitious goals, taking calculated risks, implementing careful strategic planning and proactive problem solving along the way, the big leaps are rarely made. I would like to draw an analogy with a group of middle aged mountain bikers that I ride with most weekends, typically covering 12-15 miles on local technical trails. There was a collective desire for a more challenging project to stretch us. Various options for a suitable longer trek were discussed at “team meetings” - aka post-ride drinks at the pub. This compares with business strategy meetings where ideas are floated, discussed, filtered, and prioritised. In January 2018 the … [Read more...]
What Data Should You Measure For Improved Business Performance?
Almost any conversation that you have with a business owner will involve a discussion about the current business progress: “How many orders do you process each week?” “What was the turnover for the last month or quarter?” Most business owners will be able to answer those questions fairly easily, but then you can dig a bit deeper: “How many orders went out for delivery later than they should have done?” “How many orders were short of stock?” “Do you know which orders or customers made you the best margin?” Questions like these can be harder to answer, because many businesses are not set up to record this information. Very often, it’s a matter of waiting for the telephone call or email which asks about the late delivery, or the missing stock. Besides having to field these calls, which is often hard work as customers may well be angry by this point, the business is losing money; either … [Read more...]
