Many businesses reach a stage when they are at a crossroads about the direction to take next or are “stuck” without a clear strategy. It may be a crisis point or it could be an opportunity to take a different path. Directors may no longer be aligned with the planned company direction, and this can cause friction. Rather than putting off hard decisions, it makes sense to face up to the challenges and opportunities, have a strategy review and then put an implementation plan in place. Reasons for a strategic crossroads could include: Change in market dynamics that impact growth or profit potential.Increased competition forcing new approaches.Loss of important customers or contracts.New product or service opportunities possibly requiring research and development.Recognition that the business is too reliant on a small number of key customers.Macroeconomic/political changes such as Brexit.Divergence of what Directors want from the business.Planning for exit / opportunities to … [Read more...]
The Value of MEASUREMENT
Knowing what to measure and how to measure it can make running your business easier. To make better decisions you need to gather the relevant data and format it into a report showing the essential information. Your decision makers can then be taught how to use that report to make sensible decisions or to recognise that they need additional information or instructions from you. For Measuring your Cash Flow you need to know: Who your debtors are, how much they owe you and when they are likely to pay. Who your creditors are, how much you owe them and when you need to pay them. What your regular outgoings are (rents, rates, salaries etc). Only when you have gathered the data can you then make a reasonably accurate Cash Flow Forecast. This will enable you to make decisions about who to chase for cash and who to pay in order to manage the cash in your business. When making a decision on buying a piece of Capital Equipment you … [Read more...]
How to Stretch for Success – Business Lessons from our 3 x Ben Nevis Bike Challenge
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...]
Brexit – Let’s face it!
With Brexit dominating headlines, the importance of having the best leadership team, who will be able to derive and implement strategy to steer a company or organisation through change and uncertainty is of paramount importance. Deal or no deal will have a significant impact on our entire economy which executives and managers will have to address. No deal will certainly not mean no action required, in fact it most certainly will mean the opposite. The outcome may be viewed as providing significant opportunity and or challenge which will impact on all sectors of the economy and all commercial functionality whether it be sales, marketing, engineering, research. manufacturing, logistics, IT, human resources, finance or legal. Uncertainty must be addressed and not be allowed as an excuse for inaction; contingency planning is necessary. We are fortunate in having a fabulous pool of talent, skills and experience in the UK; a significant proportion of which is currently … [Read more...]
Don’t Wait For Brexit Clarity – Get Exporting
Almost every business will be impacted by Brexit – positively or negatively. We can only make educated assumptions about what Brexit will look like and indeed when any transition arrangements may end. With a potential 2-year transition agreement, Brexit would happen in March 2021. Fortune favours the bold and businesses that can benefit from exporting should review their business strategy to achieve their maximum potential. If you don’t your competitors probably will. The good news is that there is a huge range of support available for businesses who want to start exporting or want to expand their exporting. When helping businesses review their strategy, I often ask if they export. The first answer is often no, followed by a, well we have sold this to here and that to there. They have become accidental exporters. If your business has recognised expertise or a niche specialisation then you will often be found globally via your web site even if … [Read more...]
Acquiring a Business – Issues to consider – Part 4
Before you make the offer to acquire a business – Consider what happens next Post-Acquisition Strategies Prior to making an offer, the acquirer should consider the purpose of the acquisition and re-visit the reasons for making the acquisition and how well the target fits within those reasons. The steps required are: Confirm the acquisition meets the deal objectives Is the business to be run standalone or integrated? Is the culture very different and will this inhibit the deal success? Does the acquisition meet the objectives set out in the overview? Ensure the commercial due diligence checklist is linked to running the business Understand the competitive landscape the acquisition target operates in. Understand the management intentions and how to use the management team being acquired to best advantage. Plan to take advantage of the “halo” effect Identify the areas where the quickest and most profitable extra profit can be obtained and assign people to exploit it Assess the … [Read more...]
Acquiring a Business – Issues to consider – Part 3
WHY DO ACQUISITIONS FAIL AND HOW DO YOU AVOID A BAD OUTCOME? It is an unfortunate fact that Acquisitions have a very high failure rate. This may seem a powerful statement but it is borne out by the statistics. "If one were to define 'failure' as failure to increase shareholder value then statistics show these to be at the higher end of the scale at 83% (Cnnfn.com 1999).” “In 2004, McKinsey calculated that only 23% of acquisitions have a positive return on investment.(http://jurisonline.in/2008/11/failure-mergers/)” The generally accepted view is that over 50% of all acquisitions fail to achieve an increase in shareholder value. I believe that this applies mainly to very large acquisitions and they are the ones that hit the headlines. In my experience, most acquisitions, undertaken with careful planning and due diligence do provide significant value.The main areas to consider are: proper strategic thinking for an acquisition sufficient and well thought-through preparation by … [Read more...]
Acquiring a Business – Issues to consider – Part 2
WHAT SPECIFIC ATTRIBUTES MAKE AN ACQUISITION AN ATTRACTIVE STRATEGY? Acquirers are interested in growing their own businesses and an acquisition is one of the options available to them, and usually provides a faster track to growth than organic growth. In addition, they can be interested in other benefits, for example: geographic expansion customer base customer spread, i.e. for a retail business a large number of customers, for a manufacturer a number of blue-chip customers, such that there is no undue reliance on a small number of customers contract durations repeat business patterns skill-sets technology Intellectual Property Rights depth and quality of management uniqueness and competitiveness of products and services scalability of products and/or services market position and brand systems and processes, particularly relating to winning new business distribution quality of service the “halo” effect, the extra revenues and profits that can be gained from e.g. … [Read more...]
Cross Selling – Enabling Sales, Profit and Customer Loyalty
Cross Selling is the practice of selling additional products or services to existing or new customers. It can be used in conjunction with its close relative Up Selling that encourages the purchase of higher value products or services than originally considered. The benefits of Cross Selling are well proven in larger companies and UK SMEs can also use this strategy with excellent results. Cross Selling is an effective method to increase: Sales Profit margins Customer loyalty If your company designs, manufacturers or sells products, services or solutions to B2B or B2C customers via direct, indirect or digital channels it can benefit from cross selling to drive growth and profit. Cross Selling Nine Point Check List 1. Establish your objectives: Sales, profit margin, customer loyalty etc. 2. Understand what your customers buy from you and what they don’t buy from you and why (sales analysis + Customer Relationship Management information). Do typical customers buy … [Read more...]
Are new business support provisions fit for purpose?
The Government is in the forefront of encouraging new business support provisions for SMEs. It has reorganised Business Link and done away with the local one-to-one advice provided from trained advisors and replaced them with a website. In a recent Forum of Private Business (FPB) poll only one in ten of the respondents indicated that the support provided was adequate while 20% said it was not. Further, more than half thought that the information was inadequate to aid growth. Mentoring and coaching now appear to be favoured by government as the best way to support SMEs and are supporting organisations and individuals who give their time free of charge. However some restrictions are placed on what they do. This means for instance that coaches cannot give advice! Whilst there are, no doubt, many good people providing good support amongst these organisations, the overall quality of these coaches and the services they provide may not suit the majority of SMEs seeking practical help and … [Read more...]
Are banks really that bad?
It is fashionable these days to criticise and knock banks. Most people think that they caused the recession and many feel that they have not changed in the last few years. The media are happy to promote stories about evil banks causing small businesses lots of trouble. But is this the reality in 2011? Lloyds Banking Group have recently put out some figures that do not seem to have been widely reported and also seem to show that the press view and the actual position are far apart. For instance this year Lloyds alone lent £9.6Bn to SMEs out of a total of £32Bn to all UK businesses. They report in their bulletin, “ Supporting UK Businesses,” that they are on track to fulfil their part of the Merlin agreement for business lending. In fact there was a 2% growth in business lending year on year by Lloyds in its core Commercial sector. Further they have approved eight out of ten requests for loans and overdrafts this year. Of course there will be exceptions to the rule. There will be … [Read more...]
Continual Improvement
As a small business owner wanting to grow your business you will be looking at ways to improve your business to generate more profit and cash, to free-up working capital, and to make more effective use of your own time. While there may be one-shot improvements you can make, such as outsourcing an overhead function to make a net saving, there will always be those issues where the benefits are obvious but the means of achieving them are not so clear. Continual Improvement is not just for manufacturing quality Adopting a systematic, continual improvement approach to those issues could be the answer. It used to be thought that continual improvement was about manufacturing quality, but these days, quality is seen as something that should be embedded right across a business. And likewise the continual improvement methodology can be applied to issues, right across a business, in every function, for example: improving the enquiry rate from an existing marketing budget increasing the … [Read more...]
>Free breakfast seminar -marketing out of recession
>Research shows that many companies fail coming out of recession rather than going into one. This can be due to cash flow or many other causes. One approach to stave of this problem is to develop a recession busting marketing strategy.At our latest breakfast seminar to be held in Crawley on 9th March we will be discussing ideas to help you with this. The session is free and all attendees with receive a free Marketing e-book.For more information and to book click here … [Read more...]
>Free breakfast seminar -marketing out of recession
>Research shows that many companies fail coming out of recession rather than going into one. This can be due to cash flow or many other causes. One approach to stave of this problem is to develop a recession busting marketing strategy.At our latest breakfast seminar to be held in Crawley on 9th March we will be discussing ideas to help you with this. The session is free and all attendees with receive a free Marketing e-book.For more information and to book click here … [Read more...]
>Business Assessment
>Is your business in good shape for 2010? Are you looking to develop your business strategy or just take stock after the ravages of the recession? Our Business Assessment will help you to review your business with a complete and thorough analysis that provides the following: Strengths and weaknesses and areas of need Independent and objective analysis Tangible outcomes – report and action plan Can provide new insights to your business Define actions and prioritise investment (time, money, resource) Focuses the business on key areas It provides a low cost, low risk, high value solution with no further obligation. The outcome is a report providing detailed SWOT analysis, a review of all areas of your business and an action plan designed for your needs.If you would like more information or to book your business assessment please contact bob.francis@sgba.co.uk … [Read more...]
>Business Assessment
>Is your business in good shape for 2010? Are you looking to develop your business strategy or just take stock after the ravages of the recession? Our Business Assessment will help you to review your business with a complete and thorough analysis that provides the following: Strengths and weaknesses and areas of need Independent and objective analysis Tangible outcomes – report and action plan Can provide new insights to your business Define actions and prioritise investment (time, money, resource) Focuses the business on key areas It provides a low cost, low risk, high value solution with no further obligation. The outcome is a report providing detailed SWOT analysis, a review of all areas of your business and an action plan designed for your needs.If you would like more information or to book your business assessment please contact bob.francis@sgba.co.uk … [Read more...]
